After I talked to the alleged offender he said that since

"---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be unsubscribed from the mailing list simply click on the link below
http://www.***********/smpro/s.pl?r=1&l=3&e=mail@mail.com"

was in his email that it is not classifed as spam. The reason that he gave for sending mail to people that had not subscirbed was that he combined the mailing list from two of his other sites and sent out a new list. Now what should I do?

How about a warning and let it go at that.

3 strikes and you're out

Originally posted by Ironlung
..he combined the mailing list from two of his other sites and sent out a new list. Now what should I do?

I would consider this action as spamming.
Except he put an anouncement into two of his sites, that the subscribers agree that they will receive newletters contain news for his other sites.

If I were you: Once I receive many complain regarding his action (send mass mail) in the future, I will terminate his account.

Just beware there's a new modus.
Spammer send tons of emails and may put:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To be unsubscribed from the mailing list simply click on the link below
http://www.***********/blahblah.cgi?e=mail@mail.com"

Just to create a new VALID email database.

Spammers have a repertoire of lies they include to make it seem as if something isn't spam. They include:
"if we have removal instructions, it isn't spam"
"if we label it as advertisement, it isn't spam"
and a host of others. The simple fact is that if it is unsolicited bulk e-mail, it is spam. They can't redefine it to suit their desires.

That didn't work for Clinton and sex, and it doesn't work for spammers. They also reference bills about spam in Congress (bills are not laws), even failed ones from previous sessions.

Remember these rules about spammers"

1. Spammers lie.
2. If a spammer appears to be telling the truth, see Rule 1.
3. Spammers are stupid.

Spam it is.

Well, at Worldzone we have a clause in our TOS saying that you are agreeing to recieve any newsletters we may send out when you signup. For the first time in 3 years we sent out a newsletter to all members. Would you believe that we actually had people claiming we were spamming and trying to get us shutdown, as well as reporting us to places like abuse.net???

As you can see, we did not get shutdown. But it's still a matter of what's spam and what's not. By the way, if anyone in our upline had shut us down for something like that, I would have had them in court just as fast as I possibly could. At the very least, we would have had attorney's all over them. But gratefully, they do a good job of determining what is a legit spam report and what's bogus. I never heard a word about it from any of our providers.

But also, what's considered "bulk" e-mail. I mean many people seem to think that when they're sent an e-mail with more than about a dozen recipients that they've been spammed.

If the guy sent the e-mail messages out to addresses he had personally collected, I think he deserves one more shot along with a warning: Any more complaints and his account will be shut down without notice (along with a fine, if that's included in your TOS). It *could* have been just an ignorant mistake, and if so chances are good the guy will clean up his act.

I don't think I dare sending e-mails anymore! (-:

There's also one that goes along the lines of "under section blah of the blah law this doesn't constitute as spam because blah"

Originally posted by Jonah
I don't think I dare sending e-mails anymore! (-:

If you would like to be safe, use 3rd party mailing list management such as Listbot, Yahoogroups/Egroups.

Both of the offering free and paid services.
They have authentification mail checker so it would be a safe opt-in list.

Usually HR 1618, the failed Murkowski bill from the previous session of Congress. I've even seen South American spam, in Spanish, that used the same lie. Rule #1 appplies, always.

Legitimate marketers estimate that by 2005, we will all get 6500 pieces of unsolicited bulk e-mail [a month Even yearly, that's way too much. It would render e-mail useless fro legitimate communication, just as many newsgroups have been rendered useless from newsgropups spam, from adult sites and others.

This is why no mercy can be shown to deliberate spammers.

Here are more of their lies: http://members.tripod.com/~SpamCanners/lies.htm


"The spam wars are about rendering email useless for unsolicited advertising before unsolicited advertising renders email useless for communication." - Walter Dnes/Jeff Wynn

"Anti-spammers are the immune system of the Internet." - CDR M. Dobson



[Edited by Duster on 02-21-2001 at 11:17 AM]

Ai! I found it!


This message is sent in compliance with the new email bill section 301. Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th US Congress, this message cannot be considered SPAM as long as we include the way to be removed, Paragraph (a)(c) of S.1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a "reply" email with "remove" typed into the subject line. We really will remove you immediately.

Originally posted by Dylan
We really will remove you immediately.


Remove from the none working email list? and you to the working email list?

Dylan,

That was the Murkowski bill. It was never passed into law (see Rule #1). It died in conference. TO date, no national law against e-mail spam has been passed. Good thing, in a way, as they have all been weak. Some (like the dead Murkowski bill) were even terrible as they would have legitimized spam.

Current proceedings can be checked at http://www.cauce.org/legislation/index.shtml

Duster, how the hell do you remember all this????????? :confused: Whats your secret?

Can't you limit the number of people on a mailing list? This would surely solve the mass sending of internet cloggin, crap and clutter that 99.9% of the time is instantly sent to the trash can without reading e-mail.

Whatever happened to opt-in .. Cause I surely hate to share my internet surfing with mail that cloggs up the net more then it does my inbox.

Originally posted by Newbie
Can't you limit the number of people on a mailing list?


You can, but what would be the limit? Who decides the limit? on what basis?

Originally posted by Lawrence
But also, what's considered "bulk" e-mail. I mean many people seem to think that when they're sent an e-mail with more than about a dozen recipients that they've been spammed. A more common, and I think better, definition than unsolicited bulk email is UCE: unsolicited commercial email. If it shows up in my inbox, why do I care how many other people got it? Whether it's bulk (however you might define that) doesn't matter at all.

Part of the problem you describe, though, is the use and misuse of the vaguely-defined word "spam." The way it's commonly used today has veered far from its original use on the net. In fact, now people just use it to mean whatever they want it to mean!

Originally posted by kunal
Duster, how the hell do you remember all this????????? :confused: Whats your secret?
I'm gifted with a pornographic memory. Ooops. That's photographic memory.

Never mind, I was right the first time.

Stopping spam is important to me and I've read information at several anti-spam sites, use all the MAPS features, take the time to decipher headers and report spammers, and hunt them down and shoot the mangy curs (oops, a bit of fantasy slipping in now). I keep up with legislative and technological efforts to stop it, news about it, and have managed to reduce the spam I get . I'll be content when it is totally gone.

I know that limiting the number of messages that can be sent at one time is pointless and any administrator who does that and thinks s/he is stopping spam is only kidding themself. Not only does it not discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate mailings lists, but spammers have software that can send in batches (and other tricks), thus evading any limit on the number.

I know that Jay's definition of spam is invalid, and why. Rather than post an explanation, I'll post a URL from one of the anti-spam sites. Some of the references are a bit outdated (Sanford Wallace was put out of business a couple of years ago), but the information is still pretty good and they have the best definition and explanation of spam I've seen, including how the term originated. It even has a sound clip from that origin.
To read and hear it, go to http://members.tripod.com/~SpamCanners/directory.htm

[Edited by Duster on 02-21-2001 at 05:26 PM]

Hey, you're welcome to your opinion, but... just because somebody wrote his opinion on a website and put a picture of a can of Spam on it doesn't make their opinion law.

At the beginning, I was there. And Spam only meant newsgroup spam. By the way, it had nothing to do with the group of vikings "making it difficult to talk." It was simply the repitition of it: "spam, spam, spam, spam..." that brought that term to be equated with repeated posting of advertisements to usenet newsgroups. Originally by Cantor and Seigel, the "Green Card Lawyers," who were the first and later wrote the book about it. Literally.

If you weren't reading usenet prior to the "September That Never Ended" you have no idea how shockingly objectionable their actions were, and what a firestorm they set off. We were amazed then; today it's routine.

But enough of history.

My opinion remains: use the word "spam" any way you want to (my approach is generally not to use it at all, because there is no widely understood meaning attached to it), but unsolicited commercial email is objectionable because it's unsolicited. When I, or any user, sees it in my inbox I don't care at all whether it is also in the inbox of a hundred others, or a thousand, or a million, or two. I just don't want it in mine. And so I have every right to lodge the same complaints regardless of whether there's any evidence that anyone else got it. The volume doesn't matter because from the recipient's viewpoint (except for the dolts who use the long strings of email addresses right in the To: line) isn't even apparent to the recipient. I only know that I got one. And it's unsolicited. And commercial.

Going back to look at my first post, it might appear that I was saying that UCE was the "definition" of spam. That's not what I meant. What I meant was that the only to stop whatever you want to call this email stuff that people don't want to get and you don't want your customers to send, is not to define it by volume. So, to be effective, a TOS statement has to say that the customer can not send "unsolicited commercial email." If you say "bulk email," as was pointed out, no one knows at what point it becomes bulk.

If you want to stop it, stop it. Don't say "it's ok as long as you only do it a little."

I am a bit familiar with Cantor and Seigel.

There are a lot of things that aren't spam that are just as objectionable, which I think was mentioned in that article. As far as their definition of spam it fits with what I've read on several other anti-spam sites. I think they just make it clearer than most of the rest, which seem to have a piecemeal definition.

If you say "bulk email," as was pointed out, no one knows at what point it becomes bulk.
That's why a TOS should say no unsolicited bulk email.

Originally posted by Duster

There are a lot of things that aren't spam that are just as objectionableAbsolutely. That's why I'm saying I avoid using the term to begin with. And I'm also saying that if you read a definition of the term "spam" in my message, I wasn't writing clearly. I didn't define it, and don't want to.

I think it was a good, useful, descriptive term upon its inception, years ago. I don't think it's any of those things now; now it's a misused and misunderstood term. A term worth avoiding in favor of more precise descriptions. After all, you couldn't write your TOS simply to say "you can't spam or we'll cancel your account" and expect it to be effective, because you'll just spend all of your time arguing about what "spam" is.

Originally posted by Duster

If you say "bulk email," as was pointed out, no one knows at what point it becomes bulk.
That's why a TOS should say no unsolicited bulk email.
But again, while "unsolicited" is clear, "bulk" is not. If I sent 25 messges, is that bulk? What if I only send them once an hour for 25 hours? What if I type each one out by hand, that can't be bulk, right?

Compare and contrast: "Don't send unsolicited commercial email." Presto! Loopholes are gone!

Unless, of course, someone would argue that sending 25 unsolicited commercial emails a day really is ok, and so the vagueness of "bulk" is useful. There we'd certainly part ways.

I took a look at:
http://members.tripod.com/~SpamCanners/directory.htm

and my opinion of their view would lead me to say:

If I discussed reselling on this forum (thus taking me our of a random population) and a reader sends me email (thus not a bulk mailing) making me a commercial offer then that is not spam.

Again, this is not my view but my opinion of their view.

However, I believe that I recall forum members stating that they had been spammed when just such an email was recieved.

Gary

Originally posted by projo

If I discussed reselling on this forum (thus taking me our of a random population) and a reader sends me email (thus not a bulk mailing) making me a commercial offer then that is not spam. I'd agree, assuming that by "spam" you mean objectionable and worthy of complaint. Because if you post in a forum and make your identity/email address known, you're assumably open to on-topic emails from people who read your post. Assuming the email in question was on-topic: regarding hosting. If it was an attempt to sell you, say, a green card, it'd be objectionable. In my opinion.However, I believe that I recall forum members stating that they had been spammed when just such an email was recieved. In my opinion, they'd be wrong. And it'd just reinforce the point that the term is misunderstood, it's definition is in dispute, and it is pretty much not worth using.


[Edited by JayC on 02-22-2001 at 12:36 AM]

I agree that the terms "spam" has become meanignless for definiton becasue of its misuse and that a precise definition is called for. Unsolicited commercial e-mail is not it.

I've gotten e-mail in the past from businesses interested in doing business with my (scuba diving) site. It was clearly directed to me alone. It was certainly not spam.

You can't separate the unsolicited from the bulk and have to consider both together. On some of the anti-spam sites I've read in the past, I read where no one cared to set a hard limit for what bulk is. If you do, some spammers will send one less than whatever that number is. Make it 1,000 and they'll send 999. Make it 200 and they'll send 199 at a time.

Combine it with the unsolicited part of spam and it can be wrong in any numbers.

Originally posted by projo

If I discussed reselling on this forum (thus taking me our of a random population) and a reader sends me email (thus not a bulk mailing) making me a commercial offer then that is not spam. I'd agree, assuming that by "spam" you mean objectionable and worthy of complaint. Because if you post in a forum and make your identity/email address known, you're assumably open to on-topic emails from people who read your post. Assuming the email in question was on-topic: regarding hosting and in response to your questions about hosting. If it was an attempt to sell you, say, a green card, it'd be objectionable. In my opinion.However, I believe that I recall forum members stating that they had been spammed when just such an email was recieved. In my opinion, they'd be wrong. And it'd just reinforce the point that the term is misunderstood, it's definition is in dispute, and it is pretty much not worth using.


[Edited by JayC on 02-22-2001 at 12:36 AM] [/B][/QUOTE]

Originally posted by Duster
Combine it with the unsolicited part of spam and it can be wrong in any numbers. Yup. Which is why it can't be defined as "bulk."

Really, after a little consideration, we've drifted (and I'm guilty) into combining what should be three different discussions:

1 - what does the term "spam" mean?
2 - what kinds of email are ojectionable or deserving of complaint?
3 - how can a TOS best address the problem?


Ha! I wish I could go on, but gotta be at the airport in the morning. I'll be back in a few days, have fun!


[Edited by JayC on 02-22-2001 at 01:17 AM]

Originally posted by JayC
Yup. Which is why it can't be defined as "bulk."
Not bulk alone, but unsolicited bulk email. Unsolicited + bulk + email=spam

1 - what does the term "spam" mean?
2 - what kinds of email are ojectionable or deserving of complaint?
3 - how can a TOS best address the problem?
1. See above
2. Number 1 and some others
3. Make sure a customer is deliberately violating the TOS by sending unsolicited bulk e-mail and then terminate them if there is no doubt. Be completely sure though.*

Use good judgment. There are some anti-spammers who are rabid and not the least bit reasonable. If someone has a mailing list that was originally not verified as opt-in and are making an attempt to convert it to certified opt-in, many of us feel they are justified in doing so. The rabid will insist that the list be discarded and that they should start from scratch. That's not likely to happen.

* See my post about funniest apology from a spammer. Some companies are suckered by spammers.

I thought I had posted my experiences with webeasy.com wher ethey had falsely accused my e-mail address of being a known spam source. I couldn't find the posting here. It serves to illustrate the importance of making sure a customer is indeed a spammer.

Originally posted by Duster
1. See above
2. Number 1 and some others
3. Make sure a customer is deliberately violating the TOS by sending unsolicited bulk e-mail and then terminate them if there is no doubt. Be completely sure though.*

1. OK, except that it discounts repeated posts to newsgroups, which is historically what it is.
2. OK, if you're willing to define something by using a phrase as vague as "and some others."
3. We disagree; I don't care whether it's "bulk" at all, by any definition. If a piece mailed to three people gets complaints by two of them, for example, it's worthy of action by the host in my opinion. But if the TOS says "bulk" you really can't take action.

And you should be able to, whether you lump it into the definition of "spam" or not -- and as I've repeatedly said, I'm not arguing that it's spam because I don't care what the term means, I don't want to use it because it confuses people.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JayC
1. No one here is talking about newsgroup spam (except maybe you)
2. Of course not. I'm just saying that spam (as defined above) and some other things that I'm not going into (which would include newsgroup spam) would be things that a host could ahve in their TOS.
3. If you take the bulk out of it, it is not spam. Bulk is an essential component, as is unsolicited. Remove either and you have something else. A lot of email is unsolicited. That doesn't make it wrong. It's how many discussions are initiated. Legitimate mailing lists are bulk mailings and there is nothing wrong with them. Privatge (to one address) commercial mailings, perhaps to determine interest in doing business together, are merely discussions between businesses and there is nothing wrong with that.

However, unsolicited, bulk email is wrong, regardless of content. It doesn't have to be commercial in nature. I object when people put me on a list to send an email message to see how far around the world it goes. That is spam also. I got spammed last year from a politician, and from somebody peddling religion. Neither were commercial, yet both were unsolicited bulk email messages.

Originally posted by Duster

1. No one here is talking about newsgroup spam (except maybe you)
2. Of course not. I'm just saying that spam (as defined above
3. If you take the bulk out of it, it is not spam.Spam, spam, spam. You're insisting on pulling me into a discussion that I'm not having. Several (many?) messages back this started because I said "a better definition" and you took that as "a better definition of the word `spam'" Which I've repeatedly said I'm not defining. What I was saying was "a better definition of what would be objectionable and worthy of complaint."
Bulk is an essential component, as is unsolicited. Remove either and you have something else.Something that is objectionable and worthy of complaint.

Originally posted by JayC
Spam, spam, spam. You're insisting on pulling me into a discussion that I'm not having. Several (many?) messages back this started because I said "a better definition" and you took that as "a better definition of the word `spam'" Which I've repeatedly said I'm not defining. What I was saying was "a better definition of what would be objectionable and worthy of complaint."

If you look at the point you joined in the discussion, you'll see a reference to both bulk mail and being spammmed, so there was some ambiguity.

As far as objectionable email, UBE is a better definition than UCE. I've already given real life examples of why UCE will not be objectionable in many cases and why it may simply be communication between two businesses. That makes UCE invalid as a definition of objectionable material when applied to other than individual preferences.

UBE, on the other hand, is sent indiscriminately to large groups of people, most of whom will have no interest in it and have expressed no desire to receive the mailings. UBE may be commercial or not. I've given real life examples of both commercial and non-commercial UBE. There is no difference insofar as being objectionable. I don't care if they are peddling preachers, pornography, politicians, pyramid schemes, Pizza Hut, or anything else. They are all objectionable.

[Edited by Duster on 02-22-2001 at 12:32 PM]