Spam CopSending copies of the same unsolicited message to large numbers of newsgroups or users on the Internet. People SPAM the Internet to advertise products as well as to broadcast some political or social commentary.
The links below are designed to assist you in handling, filtering and filing complaints on unsolicited e-mail or newsgroup postings.
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Here are a few other outside references to help in dealing with unsolicited e-mail:
Spam Cop
Spam Recycling Center
The following are several ways that you can reduce the quantity of junk e-mail you receive.
Never purchase e-mail-advertised products.
Aside from encouraging the spammers, this also proliferates your e-mail address and any personal-identifiable
information to other spammers, such as name, address, phone number, credit-card numbers and more.
Refrain from replying to a spam e-mail at all — even to ask to be removed!
Messages you receive may include instructions (such as to reply with
REMOVE in the subject line) on how to remove yourself from future mailings
from the individual or organization. Unfortunately, many senders include
these instructions in order to try to confirm that they've reached a
working e-mail address, not to remove you from mailings.
They can then sell your address to others. Unless you are
unsubscribing from a mail distribution list that you signed up for or you
know the message sender, the best practice is to discard these messages
without responding or forward spam e-mail to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov.
Some messages contain a phone number to call, but many
contain no information on how to stop future mailings. Often if you reply
to these messages, you find that the return address or phone number is
invalid or is that of someone other than the real sender.
Alter your e-mail address when posting
Organizations that sell e-mail addresses use computer programs that scan
Web pages and newsgroups to harvest e-mail addresses. If you display an
e-mail address on a Web page or when posting to newsgroups, alter your
e-mail address in such a way as to trick search programs but not confuse
users. For example, if your e-mail address is samuel@imbris.net, change it
to samuelNOJUNKMAIL@imbris.net. Most users will know to remove NOJUNKMAIL
from the address before using it, but search programs will not.
Avoid giving out your primary e-mail address
Guard your main e-mail address just as you would your telephone number. Your main e-mail address is one you would give
to friends, family, and business associates. Use a separate, free e-mail address for online subscriptions or
participation in newsgroups, contests or other purposes that might potentially lead to your address being sold or
leased to other companies.
Make use of laws and consumer protection against UCE
Some states and jurisdictions now provide legislation against unsolicited
commercial e-mail (UCE). A good source of information is your state's
Attorney General's office or consumer protection agency. The Direct
Marketing Association (DMA) also offers a free service, similar to its
program for telephone and postal mailing solicitations, enabling consumers
to opt out of UCE. DMA members are required to purge from their mailing
lists all e-mail addresses of consumers who have requested to be removed.
More information is available from the DMA at http://www.the-dma.org or http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html
Q: What is "Spam"?
A: Spam is a meat by-product made by the Hormel Corporation. Just
kidding. Actually the term "Spam" on the Internet means specifically
"Bulk Unsolicited Email". This is a commercial email message that is sent
to a mailing list of email addresses that were stripped from the Internet.
The term "Spam" infers that you did not ask to receive this message or be
placed on the mailing list used.
"Spamming" also refers to the practice of posting multiple advertisements
in unrelated Usenet newsgroups across the Internet, and community bulletin
boards.
A:
Blind carbon copying or "Bcc" can be useful if you are creating a mailing list, and you wish to ensure that the address of each of your recipients is kept private from the others. So a mailer can set the "To" header to be anything he or she wishes. He or she can then silently tell the mail server, by using the "Bcc," who the actual recipients are. Unfortunately, this feature can also be used by spammers for illegitimate purposes.
Q: Can you block all messages not addressed to me?
A:
Conceivably, Imbris could prevent any mail without a legitimate "To" header from reaching
our customers. However, the downside of this plan is that there is a potential for legitimate mail (e.g. mailing
list messages addressed to "mailing list recipients" rather than a specific imbris.net address) being blocked.
Furthermore, to program our mail servers to scan through every incoming mail message and verify that its "To"
header matches that of its intended recipient would significantly degrade the overall performance of those servers.
Our top priority is that none of our customers' legitimate mail be bounced and that we deliver quality service.
Does Imbris, Inc. sell my e-mail address?
A:
In the interest of ensuring your privacy, Imbris, Inc does not, in any way, publicize your e-mail address or any other subscriber information -- all such data is kept strictly confidential.
I got spam that's targeting an alphabetical list of imbris.net customers.
There is a variety of software that permits a bulk mailer to send messages to a large number of recipients on a particular Internet provider (such as Imbris, Inc.), even if they do not know their specific addresses. The software attempts to send a message to every address on that domain (starting with aaa, aab, aac, etc.), not caring about the number of "undeliverable" messages that will be generated from all the incorrect guesses. We believe some spammers may then track which addresses came back as undeliverable, and remove those addresses from their lists. These mailing lists are then sold to other spammers.
This may explain why sometimes you see spam which appears to be targeted at an alphabetical list of customers, or why you receive spam at an address which you may not have publicized.
We do have systems in place which catch a great deal of these attempts as they arrive, before the messages reach any valid addresses; however, no system such as this is 100% effective, and we are constantly working on improving the "intelligence" of our spam prevention methods.
Do cookies have something to do with this?
Cookies are short pieces of text, stored on your computer, which are placed there by websites you may have visited so that those websites can remember who you are (or preferences you may have selected) the next time you visit. Although this can be convenient when making frequent trips to the same site, there are also well-known concerns regarding their use.
Q: How do bulk E-mail companies get the addresses for their
lists?
A: The majority of them glean the addresses from America Online
and Compuserve online forums and member lists, from classified ad sites on
the Web, from posts to discussion lists and from posts to newsgroups.
These are random email addresses of people who did not ask to be placed on
a list. One practice seen is to compile a list of such addresses and
then send out one mailing to the list, saying: "If you do not wish to
receive future mailings, reply with..."
This is fine, but if I never asked to be on the list in the first place,
why should I have to unsubscribe? It's a waste of my time.
Q: What other techniques do bulk unsolicited email companies
use?
A: Some are ethical and some are unethical. One of the latest
scams on the Net is to send out an email inviting you to put your email
address on a master remove list, that is supposedly checked by the bulk
email companies prior to doing mailings. Many people have added their
address to these remove lists, only to find that what the companies are
actually doing is confirming that your domain is active and adding it to
their own lists for mailings. I myself stay away from these types of
master remove lists.
Q: Is there a security problem with your mail server?
A: The security problem extends, unfortunately, to the e-mail protocol itself. Mail administrators are required to return, as undeliverable, any messages addressed to an invalid address on a particular network (such as Imbris, Inc.). This opens up the possibility for abuse by spammers running software that attempts to send messages to as many different addresses as possible.
Q: Is there a security problem with my web browser?
A: There have been some security issues identified in the two most popular web browsers, Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. In one case, a problem with Javascript was identified as potentially allowing websites to capture a visitor's e-mail address without their knowledge.
Q: Is bulk unsolicited email an effective marketing tool?
A: Yes and no. It can be if the company you use offers targeted
lists. This means for example that they visit 1,000 small business sites
and manually copy the email addresses of the site owners, calling it a
"Small Business list". It is now a bit more targeted than just stripping
general addresses off the Net, but will still make those on the list angry
to receive the mailing.
I would say that overall, bulk unsolicited email is not an effective
marketing technique, nor is it one that you should use for the promotion
of your business on the Net. It is a sure-fire way to ruin your Internet
reputation before you have built it.
Q: Then how can I promote my business using email?
A: There are many ways. If you like the idea of direct email, use
a company that offers "Opt In" lists, such as Postmaster Direct. Opt In
lists are targeted lists that people can sign up to receive, and
advertisers can pay to send to. For example, if you wanted to get email
on health products, you would visit their site, enter your email address
and select Health Products. If I wanted to promote my health products
business, I could pay fifteen cents per address to do a mailing to the
health products list. It would have a much better response rate since it
would be made of people that are expecting ads on health products.
In addition to "Opt In" lists, you can conduct what is known as "Business
to Business Direct Email". This is where you conduct a search in the
search engines and visit specific web sites in your targeted demographic.
Find the specific person who you want to receive your email, and send them
a short 1 paragraph email. It is important to personalize it to them,
with their title and last name, and to ask their permission to send them
further information on your business. I have had response rates as high
as 30 percent using this method. If done correctly and not abused, it can
produce real results - but it is time consuming. That's why many people
just want to pay $29 and send their message to 4 million people -- they're
too lazy to take the time to do it right.
You can also participate in email discussion lists, forums and newsgroups
using a four line email signature at the end of each message you post,
telling others about your business. This is acceptable as long as your
post is not a promotion of your business, but is pertinent to the
conversation going on in the forum or list.
Q: Isn't SPAM Illegal?
I got spam that says it "complies with federal requirements".
A: The only federal legislation prohibiting the sending of unsolicited e-mail messages is CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. However, you
may have noticed that some spam messages include the following language (or something similar):
This message complies with the proposed United States Federal requirements for commercial e-mail. For
additional information see: http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/commerciale-mail/e-mailAmendText.html. Current
information on the status, text, and summary of Title 3 of S. 1618 and H.R. 3888, its companion bill, can be
found by using Thomas, the legislative information system run by the Library of Congress.
Or:
This message complies with the proposed United States Federal requirements for commercial e-mail bill,
Section 301. Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S.1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of
this e-mail may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this e-mail address with the word "remove"
in the subject line. For additional info, see:
http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/commerciale-mail/e-mailAmendText.html.
Although this all sounds rather intimidating, it is also misleading in that it strongly implies that the
spammer has acted within federal law in sending you their message. The bill to which these spammers refer
(commonly called the "Murkowski
bill") would have legalized the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail provided certain requirements
were met. However, although this bill passed the Senate, it died in conference committee and never passed the
House. Therefore, it never became law.
Q: What states offer SPAM laws as protection against unsolicited e-mail?
A: While we cannot promise that this information is up-to-date, we have compiled a page with state laws on SPAM.
Q: Why am I Getting E-Mail not addressed to me?
Q: Where did the SPAMMER get my E-Mail address?
I don't publicize my imbris.net address and yet I still get spam.
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