There is a new advertiser here called Web Hosting Prospector.
I may be way off base with this one but it looks to me like they are 100% supporting and selling spam.
Could someone correct me if I'm wrong, because if I'm right I think is really cheapens this forum to have that type of advertising.

Hmmmph. It does appear to be a site that sells spam lists.

WebHosting Prospector relies on a Web data extraction tool developed by Netvention (www.netvention.com), a leading information extraction company. With its patent-pending technology, Netvention has been able to harvest the contact information found on corporate web sites along with key technical data (i.e., IPs, Web Server Info, DNS data, etc.).

At $0.10 per email address, you can buy a list of contacts for a specific industry. Then you send off your email (SPAM) to them. Personally, I think it stinks...

I have to wonder why they were accepted as an advertiser... :mad:

Vito

Heh, even somethings about the company are a little sketchy. One of their "testimonials" at the bottom was from a Sean Adams, Marketing Specialist at Aliant Telecom. Well now...seing as how I'm sitting @ work right now....at aliant...let me just bring up the employee database.....

There we go, Sean Adams....nope, not an Aliant Employee, infact he just works for one of the sister companies...and how strange, he's never been in marketing...He's an account representative... sounds a little sketchy to me.

I won't even go into the legal bounds of scrubbing data from the web and what you need to do to it to resell it.....I'm sure we'll see this company die off sooner or later, their "Patent-pending" technology sounds more like, lawsuit-pending.

Doesn't WHT monitor the advertisers that apply for ad space?

I mentioned this to SWR in a PM and we exchanged messages as soon as the ad went up. Nothing was done, apparently such advertising is condoned here....

Originally posted by Fazel3
I mentioned this to SWR in a PM and we exchanged messages as soon as the ad went up. Nothing was done, apparently such advertising is condoned here....
That's hard to believe. It's not like Headsurfer is hard up for cash. Would they really condone this type of ad if they knew it was spam-based??

Vito

heh I guess money is green, no matter how it's printed eh?

Originally posted by idoogleceo
heh I guess money is green, no matter how it's printed eh?
Nah, I don't believe that. I have to think that they draw the line somewhere...

Vito

I would hope so.

But that just leads back to my question.....

Doesn't WHT monitor the sites who apply for adspace, before they just throw an ad up for some cash?

I mean, you would think they do, since we haven't seen any "hacks & cracks" or porn sites being advertised

Well to be honest, anyone who looks at that site can see it's blatently about spam and nothing but spam. Are you telling me Isobel or whoever manns the advertising desk @ RS/EV1 wasn't able to comprehend what everyone else seems to be able to with no problem?

I even pm'ed SWR (thinking it was a mistake of understanding on my part). He gave me a reply, I described in detail that the ad was on WHT and asked him to look into it... then nothing...

The only reason that I can come up with at the moment is

a) RS don't screen potential advertisers
b) RS don't care who advertises here

Anyone else with a more reasonable suggestion?

I'm not sure I agree that Web Hosting Prospector is "blatently about spam". WHP does not send out spam itself. Neither does it suggest that its users should spam prospects. It is up to each buyer of WHP's lists to use the information responsibly.

A couple of years ago I used to publish Web Hosting Magazine. I rented my initial mailing list through a company similar to Web Hosting Prospector. Most recipients were very pleased to see the magazine and said so. A handful objected to my unsolicited mailing and were prompted removed from the list. My experience seems to indicate that there can be circumstances in which direct marketing (a very well established, if not always popular, practice) is productive.

Back to the issue of Web Hosting Prospector advertising on WHT. Does WHT screen its advertisers? Absolutely. Before each ad placement goes live, I confirm that
(a) the company is not offering anything illegal or fraudulent,
(b) they have not been banned by WHT moderators
(c) what they offer may be of interest to at least some WHT members and visitors.

I do feel that WHP meets all three criteria. It seems that Netvention, their parent company, has been in business for quite some time, and has work with the likes of Microsoft, AT&T, DellHost and so on.

Of course, this does not mean that any of you has to like what they have to offer. At the same time, your objection to their product should not prohibit them from marketing it.

For those who aren't already aware, Isabel handles the advertising here at WebHostingTalk. Just in case you are wondering why she has "Moderator" under her username :)

Isabel, I can understand you guys having a loose interpretation of the actual spam vs providing a vehicle for that spam in order to make advertising dollars, but this is blatent regardless.
I can think of no other reason for these guys to harvest the information they are harvesting. The seller should be just as responsible if they have a pretty good idea what the product is going to be used for.

Originally posted by Isabel
I'm not sure I agree that Web Hosting Prospector is "blatently about spam". WHP does not send out spam itself.



Umm...WHP does not have to send out the spam for them to be considered as supporting spam.

Then you said "A handful objected to my unsolicited mailing"

Maybe you should learn the definition of spam. Spam is the sending of unsolicited mail where the customer has had no previous relationship with the entity sending the message.

The fact that their site states they use data mining to get the email address confirms that what they are doing is not honest. It may not be illegal...yet...but it will eventually be. They are offering email addresses that they have gotten through searching the internet (aka data mining). These addresses were never opt'd in making every single one a cold contact. If that is not supporting spam I don't know what is.

Originally posted by savageghost
Maybe you should learn the definition of spam. Spam is the sending of unsolicited mail where the customer has had no previous relationship with the entity sending the message.


This isn't my defination of spam, that is for sure. Every relationship begins with one person contacting another. If the above defination holds, would it be considered the verbal equivalent of spam for me to begin to talk with people at bars, parties, etc. just because I hadn't actually met them before? Get real! What a wonderful world it would be in if everybody just shut up and never spoke with one another simply because of the risk that some of those people might find the approach annoying (thick sarcasm). I believe deeply in the freedom of speech and these people have the right to try and communicate with whoever they feel like. If you don't like it, unsubscribe and then hit the delete key. All marketing is not the same thing as spam.

BTW, my defination of spam is when someone contacts you AGAIN, after you have told them to buzz off or those people who send you e-mails where it is impossible to unsubscribe. That is spam. The mere fact that an e-mail is "unsolicited" does not make it spam, IMHO.

Daniel

Greetings Isabel:

"A couple of years ago I used to publish Web Hosting Magazine. I rented my initial mailing list through a company similar to Web Hosting Prospector. Most recipients were very pleased to see the magazine and said so. A handful objected to my unsolicited mailing and were prompted removed from the list."

One of the definitions of SPAM (a felony in VA, and against the law in a lot of states) is UNSOLICITED.

BTW, I'm one of the people who believe that SPAM punishment needs to be severe even if only one person complains.

SPAM costs providers lots of money. Hit the delete key... not!

Users who pay $ for a minute to be on-line (parts of Europe)... it costs money to read UNSOLICITED SPAM.

Providers end up having more and more mail servers to process SPAM.

It is my hope that the government cracks down on SPAM companies, and people who buy and use such mailing lists.

The most recent reports state that more and more people are going to stop using Internet email because of the SPAM problem.

One of the local manufacturer in our area gets 50,000 email messages per day. Approximately 42,000 of those messages are SPAM. They have already spent over $30,000 trying to combat the problem.

Either contribute to the problem by allowing such companies to advertise, exist, etc. or help stop the problem. There is no middle ground.

Thank you.

Originally posted by dynamicnet
[B]
One of the definitions of SPAM (a felony in VA, and against the law in a lot of states) is UNSOLICITED.




You might want to look here...http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html

The VA law is sometimes misunderstood. The fact that the e-mail is unsolicitated is only part of the legal definition. There is a long list of other factors that need to be satisfied as well. Go to the above link for details. The law supports my contention. The fact that an e-mail is unsolicited is not--in and of itself-- sufficent to classify it as spam.

Originally posted by worlddan
You might want to look here...http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html

The VA law is sometimes misunderstood. The fact that the e-mail is unsolicitated is only part of the legal definition. There is a long list of other factors that need to be satisfied as well. Go to the above link for details. The law supports my contention. The fact that an e-mail is unsolicited is not--in and of itself-- sufficent to classify it as spam.

It's all semantics. If I receive an email from someone I don't know, that I didn't request, trying to sell me something, it is spam pure and simple not matter how you try to gloss it over or try to look for legal justifications.

Originally posted by worlddan
This isn't my defination of spam, that is for sure. Every relationship begins with one person contacting another. If the above defination holds, would it be considered the verbal equivalent of spam for me to begin to talk with people at bars, parties, etc. just because I hadn't actually met them before? Get real! What a wonderful world it would be in if everybody just shut up and never spoke with one another simply because of the risk that some of those people might find the approach annoying (thick sarcasm). I believe deeply in the freedom of speech and these people have the right to try and communicate with whoever they feel like. If you don't like it, unsubscribe and then hit the delete key. All marketing is not the same thing as spam.

BTW, my defination of spam is when someone contacts you AGAIN, after you have told them to buzz off or those people who send you e-mails where it is impossible to unsubscribe. That is spam. The mere fact that an e-mail is "unsolicited" does not make it spam, IMHO.

Daniel


What??? Going up to someone in a bar and talking to them does not even come close to this situation. Are you walking up to that person to sell them something they have to shell out money for? I think not.

Speaking to someone and making an unsolicited sales pitch are two completely different situations.

Don't even try to throw the "free speech" thing in here. That is a copout many people try to use and fail miserably at. People do not have the right to solicit anyone they want for whatever product they want. If you don't realize that...I feel sorry for you. I'd also like you to do some research. Look at the no-call lists that have been approved. They make it illegal to cold-contact someone (over the phone in this instance). Anyone who does is subject to prosecution...and they do get prosecuted. The state of Missouri alone has racked in thousands of dollars from fines being payed by companies cold-contacting individuals who have never had contact from a company before. If they did have contact with the solicitor, then the solicitor can contact them.

Your definition of spam is the reason there are now so many spam filtering and reporting mechanisms out there. Most email programs now have a way to identify and delete them before they reach you. Spews.org provides lists to ISP's of spammers. The ISP uses that list to block those who send spam. Why? Because people don't want it...plain and simple. Saying we can just remove ourselves from the list is another copout. You know darn well that by removing yourself from a spammed message, in most cases, only makes it worse. By responding the spammer now knows your email is active and you get listed in thousands of lists.

If you cannot run your business by not cold-contacting people you have never met or had any prior dealings with you, then you should not be in business.

For the record, I buy data from a company similar to this one. In my instance, I do not use them for the email contact, but rather for the mail contact and phone information.

We will honor teh balance of their contract and we will not accept further ads from that company on WHT only. They will be free to advertise on our other sites.

Data mining is a legitimate and legal business that is employed, albeit very quietly, by many firms in our industry.

Robert

We all have to read the fine print... when you give out your e-mail to some companies and forums you open yourself up to be sold to their "partners" for a small sum or traded. I run several sites and I don't even take my e-mail list from ONE of my sites and send an e-mail to them from my other sites.... if they did not go to my site and put in their e-mail and hit "submit" I don't use it.

My e-mail list also could never be sold or traded! People trust us to keep info private... not handed out to highest bidder. Legit or not, it is not "sound" business.

Exactly...if you do send out newsletters or bulk email, be sure you use an opt in method...or even better, a double opt in. A double opt in virtually assures the person getting the mail wants it. Sure you will get less sign-ups because of it, but it covers your a** should someone report you to a spam database.

headsurfer has stated his position on this.

If you want to discuss mail lists in general, feel free to open another thread.