Responding To Spam Might Not Get You More Spam

from the well,-that's-useless dept

In one of the more useless studies done by the FTC they've determined that, possibly contrary to popular wisdom, responding to spam might not mean you'll end up with more spam. Of course, I've heard enough anecdotal stories not to believe this. Also, they never say that responding to spam will ever actually mean you'll get less spam (or even removed from a single list) - so you probably still shouldn't respond. In most cases, not surprisingly, the "unsubscribe" address is simply not a valid email address.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Josef, 5 Apr 2002 @ 12:26pm

    Responding to Spam

    I have my email filtered so that all mail not to: or cc: to my address gets thrown directly to the trash. Any spam mail that is addressed to me, I will respond to with an unsubscribe request. So far this seems to work best. I don't touch the mail that isn't addressed to me, as those tend to be the less ethical bulk (mass-bcc) mailers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Disillusioned, 6 Apr 2002 @ 11:33am

    2 emails dead

    I lost 2 email addresses so far because of spam. It started by a small amount of spam due to registering for accounts with message boards etc (its impossible to never give out an email address). I used the unsubscribe feature and wham, up to 50 new emails a day on my 2 hotmail accounts. And that was with using their junkmail protection features. Now the accounts only accept mail from people in the address book and certain domains. What a waste. Maybe I just had bad luck and lots of spammers will honestly remove you from their lists... ya right :(

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    todd, 7 Apr 2002 @ 6:05pm

    the best $3/month I spend....

    is on an address at Spamcop. Have had one for a long time, stops tons of spam and continues to get better. Their new pricing model is great -- $3/month regardless of the amount of mail you get. End sales pitch.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.