scavio
Premium
join:2001-07-14
Melmac
clubs:  
| Finally
something might get done. I don't have a problem with receiving all the crap I do, as long as it's not deceptive and I can opt out if I want to. I shouldn't need to have three email accounts to work my life around this crap. I honestly don't know what's worse, the headaches of spam or knowing that some people read it and actually fall for it.
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Forget @home support, Miss Cleo has all the answers. |
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SeminoleRob
join:2001-12-19
Panama City, FL
| Light at the end of the tunnel??
I have 2 accounts, my personal and one I use when I fill out anything, like when you register for something or buy something. Its amazing to see the junk you get. What's especially bad is the people who take an address, send out the junk, and then delete it so you can't go back. |
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Beeper
Part Of The Problem
join:2001-09-27
Dayton, OH
clubs:
| I'd be happier...
...if the Marine Corps was used against spammers, but I'll settle for the FTC. I have forwarded spam the FTC before, but it is just so much easier to rely on the bulkmail filters at Yahoo, so I've gotten quite lax.
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Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism. |
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richb01803
Rich
join:2001-02-14
02100
|  Watch these guys carefully!
said by NewsBytes:
Later today, Microsoft Corp., Web banner ad giant DoubleClick, and a host of direct marketers will announce their intent to begin using a technology created to help consumers quickly distinguish between spam and valid e-mails from companies they trust.
If you read this article carefully, they are focused solely on dishonest spam. This is not a crackdown on unsolicited email. It's an attempt to distract the public from meaningful reforms, which would require enacting new legislation and enforcement powers.
Do you really think the good folks at DoubleClick or the DMA can be entrusted to put teeth into policies against spam? These are the very guys who earn their livelihoods sending us unwanted solicitations! |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| 90 percent of the spam I get is this "click on this link to unsubscribe and we'll take you off our list, nudge nudge" type.
A big part of their investigation will be to A. create a nationally opt out list for phone, mail and e-mail. B. Force providers to have legitimate opt-out hyperlinks.
This should at least dull the roar somewhat... |
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Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
Premium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI
 ·Site5.com
 ·AT&T Midwest
 ·Comcast
| About time!
I find it funny that it took consumers flooding the FTC with 10,000 spam mails a day for something to get done. Now, the FTC will start investigating all this spamming. I just don't see a solution coming anytime soon. With all the companies/people sending spam mail, the FTC doesn't have the manpower to investigate or stop them all.
Anyone with a little money can get a list of millions of email addresses. If you have a way to route the mail through a unsecured server or a server where you work, then you can spam all those addresses. Security needs to be tightened on all mail servers, and the FTC needs to make a task force to combat this problem if they want to fix it. Anything less would be a huge disaster.
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Nightfall - »www.nightfall.net |
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richb01803
Rich
join:2001-02-14
02100
| Helpful service from Equifax
By the way, after getting 1 too many credit-card offers this past month, *plus* 2 or 3 unwanted phone calls offering to consolidate my credit card debt (the latest of which cited Equifax explicitly as the source they used to get info about my "solid credit"), I discovered a 60-second way to get off the phone call lists.
said by Equifax web site privacy page:
The Fair Credit Reporting Act prescribes a system for you to "opt-out" of certain uses of information in your credit report. This opt-out feature allows you to indicate that you do not want to receive any promotional materials from Equifax either by email or the US Postal Service. If you prefer not to receive pre-approved offers, you may call
1-888-5 OPT OUT (1-888-567-8688).
During the call (automated system) you'll be asked to confirm your home phone number, house-number portion of your street address, and your SSN (maybe one or two other innocuous pieces of info). It's a whole lot easier than those annoying services run by the RBOCs.
The outbound message states that this will get you off all 4 of the credit-reporting agency lists, not just that of Equifax.
Pick up the phone now!
[text was edited by author 2002-02-01 11:33:37] |
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lolwhat
We Are Toast
Premium
join:2001-06-11
USSA
·AT&T Midwest
 ·Future Nine Corpor..
|  Which 4?
Equifax, Trans Union, Experian... I'd love to know who the fourth is. I order credit reports from the three I just mentioned, once a year, just to make sure things are okay. If there's a fourth, I'd like to order a credit report from them as well.
Thanks. |
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grouchy951
join:2000-09-23
Chicago, IL
| Anovis (sp?) The recording says the names of the four at the beginning of the call and at the end. choice 1 opt out for two years, choice 2 receive everything, choice 3 opt out forever.
Does paying for a non-published unlisted phone number make sense when alternate directories have the whole thing? |
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babacher
sleep apnea sucks
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-28
Greenwood, IN
clubs: | reply to lolwhat
They say those three, plus "Enovis" (sp?) - I've never heard of them.
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Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. |
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MrTangent
join:2001-12-28
Earth | reply to scavio
Re: Finally
As much as I hate spam one could argue for the freedom of the press in this case in favor of the spammers right to... well, spam. |
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scavio
Premium
join:2001-07-14
Melmac
clubs: | reply to scavio
One could also argue false advertising, harassment, and many other things. Telemarketers and USPS bulk mailers are regulated, so should these people.
--
Forget @home support, Miss Cleo has all the answers. |
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kilingspam
join:2001-04-30
San Jose, CA
|  It should be, IMO --------> this
ALL SPAM should be forced to begin the subject line with ADV. Anyone sending spam without it gets their name/address, etc put on an ISP blacklist and not given access to the internet.
example:
To: abused_internet_user@joe-surfer.com
Subject: ADV: Spam you did not ask for or want.
From: a-valid-and-active@email-address.com
All ISP email filters can then put all emails beginning with this subject line as bulk mail.
They can choose to do what they want with them.
If a spammer decides to use an email server in another country who does not agree to this new law, their domain *.spammer.whatever is blackholed and no email is accepted from their domain until they send in writting that they have stopped spamming.
Any dns server showed to be involved with a large portion of illegally sent spam shall also be blacklisted by removing them from the root dns.
Spam is not a freedom of speech.
Trying to stay within the concepts of what the internet has become and what we want it to be we demand that spam be sent with at least the ADV subject line and real email address. This is not in any way too much to ask.
And like any other law or bill, there is always that little bit added into the last few lines.
All web pages that contain pornographic material must contain a meta tag stating that it contains porn.
example:
meta name="rating" content="PORN
I added this as I have kids and this sure would help with filtering content and allowing them to actually surf the internet.
The crappy software out today does not work to do this and with such a meta tag kids.yahoo.com would be possible. |
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TomLe8
join:2002-02-01
Modesto, CA
| Get Privacy Manager to rid Telemarketing
Best thing I've bought on my phone service, Privacy Manager. It's about 6$/mo, but worth it. Before I used to get a couple unknown/unknown caller ID calls a day. Some of them would just hang up after answering, and some were people selling me things I don't need/want. If I want something, I'll seek for myself. After getting PM, I've rid about 98% of unwanted telemarketing. The service might be called something different from different phone companies. Look into it if you get a lot of unknown/unknown or "out of area" caller ID phone calls.
Tom |
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justin
Australian
join:1999-05-28
Brooklyn, NY
Host:
IPv6
Business Connectiv..
Home/Office setup ..
Console/Handheld g..
Console Tech
| Simple to regulate
* It should be illegal (of the postal fraud kind of illegal) to send email that has its origin obscured or faked. It should also be (highly) illegal to hijack a mail server for the sending of spam. Either of these cases should be easy for ISPs companies and users to prosecute on in the courts and fines on all parties involved in the spam (product company, affiliate network and spammer) should be sufficient to encourage prosecution efforts.
* it should be illegal to send email without referring to a national opt out email list - a trivial service that the FTC runs using our tax dollars that maintains a list of email addresses that do not want unsolicited email. The opt-out list should provide an easy to use API etc to allow spammers to remove names that are on it efficiently.
* it should be illegal to send email without an additional local remove-me link included .. if this link exists but is found to be non functional for an extended period of time, a fine would be applied to the spamming company. All remove-me requests should be acknowledged with an electronic receipt the user can keep.
* companies offering products that are sold over spam should not escape fines if the products are spammed and the product pays any kind of referral, click-through or other affiliate marketing incentives. The fines will fund the enforcement efforts. This clause should help reduce spam sent from offshore servers for local products.
If the current problem was translated to the real world, our post boxes would be over-stuffed with catalogs we never asked for from companies we never dealt with -- this would make the authorities jump. Why are they not jumping just because its email boxes? because the relevant officials are too old and fuddy-duddy to use much email themselves? |
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seaquake
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-23
Millersville, MD
clubs:
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to TomLe8
Re: Get Privacy Manager to rid Telemarketing
I think it is terrible that Verizon jacks us for another $5 or $6 a month for the privacy manager thingy. I pay so much for caller ID now. I am suppose to pay additional money to make the broken part of caller ID work? That's BS. Every call that comes in should be identified with a name and number....no ifs ands or buts.
I've got the blocked number locked out but still get UNKNOWN and OUT OF AREA (total BS). When I see those come up, I kindly route them to the fax machine where the caller gets a nice, loud set of training tones in their ears. It's great fun for the entire family. *9 Activates my fax from any phone in the house. If you've got a fax, I highly recommend it!
--
"Are you on the Distributed Computing Map?" |
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hep cat
do da dirdy bird
join:2001-02-17
Decatur, GA
| reply to scavio
opt-in
I've seen people suggest an opt-out for spam where by saying "I don't want this stuff" you will magicly be removed (never really happens). My suggestion is if you want spam opt-in as you would be opted-out by default instead of opted-in.
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When I sleep everyone else is awake. Is that why I never have any money in my wallet? |
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shortckt
Watchen Das Blinken Lights
Premium
join:2000-12-05
Tenant Hell | reply to Karl Bode
Re: Watch these guys carefully!
I wonder how long after a national opt-out list is created before some scumb*g uses a copy of that list to send spam?
I just know it will happen, too much temptation IMO. |
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shortckt
Watchen Das Blinken Lights
Premium
join:2000-12-05
Tenant Hell
| reply to TomLe8
Re: Get Privacy Manager to rid Telemarketing
Isn't it wonderful? The phone co makes money on both sides of the street. They turn a blind eye to telemarketers who use predictive dialers and forged caller-ID on ISDN lines, then they sell us an additional service to help get rid of the unwanted calls! |
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nil
Java Geek
join:2000-11-27
Host:
Webmasters and Dev..
Forum Feature Requ..
| reply to justin
Re: Simple to regulate
said by justin:
If the current problem was translated to the real world, our post boxes would be over-stuffed with catalogs we never asked for from companies we never dealt with -- this would make the authorities jump.
Apparently it doesn't, since my snail mail box gets filled with catalogs I never asked for from companies I never dealt with. Not to mention 100 "pre-approved" credit card offers a week..
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Better living through denial. |
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