You too can be a spammer!

[Footbag]

Got a call at work yesterday. The guy was offering to send our E-mail ad to their list of 125,000,000 people. Yes that's million, half the country. He also said people on the list have all opted to receive ads. I was surprised that they could find 125 million people who wanted to get spammed. I asked him over 5 times how they get the E-mail addresses and he wouldn't answer. My guess is they're harvesting E-mails, illegally.

I finally got my personal E-mail cleaned up after moths, and I don't wish that upon anyone. I was missing the important ones and getting over 150 E-mails a day. I'd love top see the government jump in and put these guys out of business and in jail.

Just a vent, there are a lot of scams out there. Don't give them an inch.

The government will only make things worse. Look for free market solutions to your problem.

[Footbag]

Originally Posted by Tombstone

The government will only make things worse. Look for free market solutions to your problem.

I don't know. I haven't had a telemarketer call me in years. The DNC list had to have something to do with it.
Not quite sure what a free market solution to spam is. Hire mercenaries to visit the spammers? Pay for spam blocking software? It all costs/wastes money. Rather then create an industry to deal with a problem, I'd ban the problem.

[n3uka]

Spam is illegal. Just hard to enforce.

Located at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/busi...rce/bus61.shtm

Do you use email in your business? The CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.

Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly

If you get spam email that you think is deceptive, forward it to spam@uce.gov. The FTC uses the spam stored in this database to pursue law enforcement

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by Tombstone

The government will only make things worse. Look for free market solutions to your problem.

As a general rule I disagree with that, look no further than the recent melt downs in the real estate, financial and employment markets to illustrate that the free market is incapable of being effectively self-regulating. Free-market self-policing allows too much latitude for natural human greed to take over and spiral things out of control.

That said, in this context it's mostly correct simply because there's absolutely no way any gov't can regulate spam. The only way any gov't can regulate a company that exists entirely in the digital domain is if that company has physical foothold in the country. Most of the mass email marketing company's have their base of operations in unregulated regions such as Russia and 3rd world nations that care more about the tax base than the actions of the company. Such a company isn't going to give a rats arse about the US (or any other foreign) gov't passing anti-spam laws simply because there's no realistic way of enforcing any of the penalties associated with them.

The analogy would be if I bombed someone in the US with a box of Cuban's from an online retailer. Even though it's illegal for you to receive that shipment, does the US gov't have any legal recourse against either me or the vendor? Of course not, not being American's neither the retailer or myself are bound by US laws in any way shape or form and as a result the US gov't has no way of imposing any consequences on us.

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by Footbag

I don't know. I haven't had a telemarketer call me in years. The DNC list had to have something to do with it.

That DNC is only effective against US based telemarketing company's. Canada has tried to set up a similar DNC which has met with limited success simply because there aren't many Canadian telemarketing companies, most calls come from US, India or China based companies. While it's great that I can report them and the CDN gov't will issue a $15,000 fine per call, those companies are free to ignore the fine and continue calling because CDN law and telecom industry regs have no jurisdiction in the US, India or China.

Originally Posted by mithrilG60

As a general rule I disagree with that, look no further than the recent melt downs in the real estate, financial and employment markets to illustrate that the free market is incapable of being effectively self-regulating. Free-market self-policing allows too much latitude for natural human greed to take over and spiral things out of control.

That said, in this context it's mostly correct simply because there's absolutely no way any gov't can regulate spam. The only way any gov't can regulate a company that exists entirely in the digital domain is if that company has physical foothold in the country. Most of the mass email marketing company's have their base of operations in unregulated regions such as Russia and 3rd world nations that care more about the tax base than the actions of the company. Such a company isn't going to give a rats arse about the US (or any other foreign) gov't passing anti-spam laws simply because there's no realistic way of enforcing any of the penalties associated with them.

Unregulated free market was the major cause of the great depression and our recent recession.

[kaisersozei]

Originally Posted by mariogolbee

Unregulated free market was the major cause of the great depression and our recent recession.

I strongly disagree with at least the last half of this statement.

But to keep this from spiraling into a political debate and to keep it on task, I'll suggest that the OP was either being scammed by the caller (he couldn't confirm the 125MM number...) or that he had 125MM email addresses which doesn't equate to 125MM people. In either case, that's a lot of email.

[Footbag]

Originally Posted by n3uka

Spam is illegal. Just hard to enforce.

Located at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/busi...rce/bus61.shtm

It's not really illegal. The law just provides for an individual to opt out of specific messages. Typically, those methods don't work and occasionally you get more spam.
What I would like to see is a law banning any unsolicited E-mail messages.
Then, they should use any and all resources they can to catch and fine violators. I'd seize assets and make examples. I'd even try to buy the Viagra to take them down.

Originally Posted by kaisersozei

I strongly disagree with at least the last half of this statement.

You're welcomed. We can continue this one by PM some time when we both have more time if you wish. Agreeing to disagree is cool too.

Spammers suck!

[spectrrr]

GET GMAIL, never see spam again......

Originally Posted by spectrrr

GET GMAIL, never see spam again......

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by Footbag

What I would like to see is a law banning any unsolicited E-mail messages.
Then, they should use any and all resources they can to catch and fine violators. I'd seize assets and make examples. I'd even try to buy the Viagra to take them down.

So assuming such a law existed how would you expect it to be enforced when the majority of spam companies are based out US borders and therefore US law's hold no sway over them? I'm just playing devil's advocate here because there's really no way that gov't regulation can solve this problem unless the gov't's of the countries that these companies operate out of decide to make it illegal.

In terms of combating spam, the only really effective tools are server side so if your ISP doesn't have good anti-spam your best bet is to do as others have recommended and get a gmail account. You should be able to forward your existing address to gmail so you don't have to go through the hassle of getting all your contacts to update your address. If you're technical and are running your own server, look at SpamAssassin. I've been running SpamAssassin on my home mail server for years and it's very effective at filtering and tagging same so my email client can drop it. I receive on average 400 - 500 email per day and roughly 80% is spam..... but I never see it because it's filtered before it reaches my end client.

Originally Posted by spectrrr

GET GMAIL, never see spam again......

WOW a private sector solution....impossible.

Freeware called greylisting, when run on an email server (like I do) cuts almost all spamming out without even having to know the content. It sends a retry message to the sender and waits for a set delay. Spammers always move on and they don't retry. So far this has been working great for a few years.
I don't trust Google enough to have them house my email in their database.

[Footbag]

I have successfully used filtering for myself and only get 1 or 2 spams a day. I'm more upset that it's become less about advertising and more about creating confusion. The fact that people are getting rich by hijacking systems and harvesting E-mail addresses should really piss people off. When they call my business to sell their service to me, I give them a hard time. It's all I can do.

The feds did a good job taking down this International Spam ring.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10...mers_targeted/

Other governments have been willing to work with us on this.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by spectrrr

GET GMAIL, never see spam again......

Not true sadly.

[spectrrr]

Originally Posted by JE3146

Not true sadly.

ok, I exaggerated a bit.... I get 1 message per month in my inbox.

(compared to 1471 currently sitting in the spam folder from the last 30 days)

I have about 6 addresses aggregating into one gmail, including an email account dating back 10 years plus a couple addresses that are publicly posted in plain text on a few of my websites for bots to harvest at will.

1 a month.... I can live with that