Spam Getting Worse

from the spam-spam-spam-spam dept

I still do not understand the people who send out spam. Does it actually work? Are there really people who respond to that stuff and give money to spammers? I know that the amount of spam I get every day has been increasing to ridiculous numbers and it appears I'm not the only one. I've been avoiding signing up for Spamcop on the mistaken belief that there has to be some universal way to convince spammers that they're absolute idiots who should stop. I know that's not going to happen, but I need to hang onto some form of idealism.
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  1. identicon
    Lee, 5 Feb 2002 @ 12:00pm

    Spam and spam reporting

    > I've been avoiding signing up for Spamcop on the mistaken belief that there has to be some universal way to convince spammers that they're absolute idiots who should stop.< br>
    Well spammers are idiots so they are not going to get a clue on their own.

    Let us say that I am a spammer and Just sent an email to a bazillion addresses. However, only a few dozen people complained, so in my twisted spammer logic I have to conclude that most recipients WANT to receive spam. Never the mind that the other recipients trashed the email.

    If we don't complain about spam it is not going to to stop. We need to complain to the ISPs, the email hosts, our elected officials. I feel that complaining to our elected officials will be the most effective in the long run, providing the Direct Marketing Lobby doesn't buy them off.

    Spam is moving off shore,well at least being relayed from foreign servers, to avoid some anti-spam heat. However, almost all of the spam references US based businesses. Tough anti spam laws could still be effective.

    Services such as Spam Cop help make spam reporting easy. There is also great satisfaction in not having the spam reach my in box while email from addresses I approve gets passed right through. Spam Cop stops almost all of my spam.

    800 numbers, many spam messages reference an 800 number. Call it from a pay phone and tell the business how you feel about spam. They may ignore you, but they paid for the 800 call.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    todd, 5 Feb 2002 @ 1:10pm

    Re: Spam and spam reporting

    Important to note that you cannot block your ANI when you call an 800 number, so Lee is right on -- call from a pay phone! Or send them a fax from work and set redial to 100......

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Fred, 5 Feb 2002 @ 1:45pm

    Re: Spam and spam reporting

    If we don't complain about spam it is not going to to stop....

    Please have at it. Exactly what I've been doing (used-ta do it by hand, now I use SpamCop), but now, after hundreds of forwarded-to-the-FTC et al junk, save for one "naked" ID, I give up - I let Brightmail take out the trash before it even gets to my doorstep; Eudora filters the rest.

    To me it seems pretty plain: false information in headers = unlawful. But to me, Microsoft = monopoly seems pretty plain too.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Lee, 5 Feb 2002 @ 3:03pm

    FTC and Spam

    Reportedly (http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174111.html) the FTC is going to crack down on spam.

    I still believe that bitching about spam to our elected officials at the state and federal level would do some good.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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