| |
| |
|
Spam Blocker Information |
|
|
|
Three Faces of SPAM
Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three categories. The first is the Nigerian scam about helping some poor, pathetic soul collect megabucks, supposedly from someone who has died and left a fortune. I'm not sure what is worse: that there are people desperate enough to believe those messages, or that there are people despicable enough to prey on the desperate. The net result is the despicable con the desperate into sending money which the desperate will never see again. The second type comes from people who sound innocent enough. They have a product or a business or a service or something else that is perfectly legitimate. They surf the web, find one of my sites, find the "contact us" link, and send me information about whatever they have to offer. I suppose, in their minds, it isn't any different than walking down the street or going through the telephone book writing down addresses, and then sending out bulk business mail with the same offer. They could get the same information for more money and less time by buying a mailing list. THAT is perfectly legitimate. Harvesting e-mail addresses off of web sites is NOT. Spam is officially defined as "unsolicited commercial electronic mail." The key word is "unsolicited." If I didn't ask for it and you send it anyway, it is unsolicited. When people harvest e-mail addresses off of web sites and then send commercial messages, that, by definition, is spam. I report them to my ISP and you should, too. The third type isn't so innocent. These people, like the second type of people already discussed, surf the web, find sites, and harvest the e-mail addresses from the "contact us" link. Instead of starting out by sending you what they have to offer, they get devious, sneaky, and just plain under-handed. They send you a message asking for more information about whatever you have to offer on your site. When you graciously respond, it turns out they couldn't care less about what you have to offer. The ONLY thing they want is to confirm your e-mail address so they can start to dump offers on you, hoping you will buy something from them. Nasty trick. Let me give you an example from one that once came across my screen. It seemed to be from a nice lady with homey graphics and nice colors in her e-mail. If my memory serves me well, she even stated that she was disabled and looking for ways to earn a living off the internet. In my mind, that's a hard combination to resist. A great deal of effort was put into this to make it sound as if she had built an internet community around her site and services. Maybe she did; I don't know. Anyway, I was naďve enough to respond with the information she had requested. Soon solicitations for this, that, and whatever business offer, etc. began arriving in my inbox. I finally put two and two together and realized that they were from her, but I was still reluctant to report it as spam, so her messages went quietly into the trash. I mean, she seemed SO NICE! Then I got this huffy message, apparently broadcast to her entire mailing list, about how if people didn't want to receive her messages, why didn't they just unsubscribe, etc. It seems quite a few people had reported her as a spammer and she was getting into trouble. It was time for me to respond, so I told her, bluntly, that what she was sending out WAS spam. It was unsolicited. I never signed up to be on her mailing list, and no doubt the people who had reported her never signed up to be on her mailing list, either. I only responded to a request FROM HER for information and that in no way implied that I wanted to be on her mailing list or that I wanted to receive her offers. She must have gotten the message because I have received nothing else from her. So how about you? Are guilty of sending out e-mail to people who did not specifically request to receive offers from you or about a business that you represent? If you go around looking for e-mail addresses to harvest for your own purposes, you are guilty of sending SPAM. Instead, post your offers on your web site and market them legitimately. It's the right thing to do. When people fill out your form, they are giving you permission to send them information. Keep a record so you can defend yourself if they ever forget what they did. If you are on the receiving end of unsolicited offers, go ahead and report them as spam. Don't feel guilty; you are not the guilty party. Just make sure you really didn't sign up for a newsletter or something and then forgot! It is sooooooooooooooo not cool to report spam that really isn't! Sandi Moses has been involved in internet marketing since November, 2003. Visit her sites at http://www.123iwork4me.com http://www.123-home-based-business-works-4-me.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Spam-Blocker - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
FTC Botches Fight on SPAM, Microsoft Takes Over the Battle While the Federal Trade Commission is busy fighting over definitions of "What is SPAM;" Microsoft and Bill Gates are taking it to the enemy. Today Microsoft announced another case and legal action, which is being taken against a spammer who is in Germany. Email Chain Letters - Harmless Fun or Not? I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet that remembers getting the occasional chain letter in school.. Fight Spam and Fortify Your Web Site with RSS RSS is the answer to the Spam epidemic of the past. Spam, any mass distribution of material across the Internet, can cause systems to back up and crash with unwanted and unsolicited material. Block Spam with An Easy Behavioral Change E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I will leave the technical aspects out of this article. Anti Trackback and Comment Spam Methods What is spam ? Spam is text or URL, in one or several exemplars, neither being waited nor wished, not having, neither directly nor from its shipper, no relationship neither with the recipient nor with a possible resource related to the recipient. How does spam appears in blogs ? Through the comments' body and commentator's URL. Stop Spam: How To Escape The Spam Hell-Hole If you're anything like me, you're pretty sick of it, and just want it to stop. What? Spam, of course. What To Do When You Get Spam When you go to your mailbox and find pieces of junk mail mixed in with important correspondence, you throw it out. It is a mild nuisance and you probably don't even give it a second thought. How To Analyze A Rip-Off Scheme This review is taken DIRECTLY from a piece of "junk mail." It is or the program that starts out with the heading: "Before You Decide To Throw This Away, Please Read The Enclosed At Least Once - Then Decide. Get Your News Releases Through the Spam Filters in 11 Easy Steps In today's spam-filled email world, it's sometimes VERY difficult to get your news releases and PR pitches to the media person you are trying to reach. These tips hold true for personal emails, too, so even if you don't do P. Winning the War On Spam For years I didn't worry much about spam.But lately it's got out of control. Edating Readers One of our Australian clients sent out a campaign using a list which had been complied manually.The message contained information relevant for the specific job position that these recipients held. Dealing With SPAM - An E-mail Address Strategy With SPAM being such a problem it might seem the right thing to do is never give anyone your email address. As a strategy that's not bad but it misses one rather important point; the purpose of having an email address is to be able to exchange emails, both with friends and also as a means to receive eZines from online forums and information sites. Do Not Spam The temptation among internet marketers to SPAM is greater than ever. By now, most people know that SPAM isn't the popular food from Hormel but a pseudonym for "unsolicited commercial email," also known as UCE. The 4 Ws of Junk E-mail Junk e-mail or spam has become the scourge of the modern computer world. It eats bandwidth. Take Back Control of Your Inbox: Eliminate Annoying and Potentially Harmful E-mails Are you tired of spam stealing your time, your money, your bandwidth and your hard disc space?The time you devote each day to sort and delete spam from your inbox could be put to much better use. In the European Union alone, the working hours employees are spending on sorting and deleting spam is costing the companies and estimated 10 billion euros every year! By manually sorting out spam after it has reached your inbox you are loosing time and money, as well as bandwidth and space. The Great Spam Scam: Five Strategies To Stop Brand and Revenue Robbery Marketers usually think of anti-spam tactics as 'how to prevent' readers from perceiving their e-communications as spam. There is another, more sinister, consequence that may affect you. How Spammers Fool Spam Blacklists - And How to Stop Them Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. Protecting Your Business From Spam Even being as careful as possible with my email address, I still used to receive more than 100 email messages a day, which is no exaggeration. Only about 10% of those emails were from people that I knew and the rest of the messages were unwanted email?"spam". The Anti Spam Challenge - Minimizing False Positives Email is the quintessential business communication tool, so when it doesn't work like it's supposed to, business suffers. Anti spam software is designed to protect your inbox from unwanted messages, but unless your system is properly trained even the best software misses the mark and flags legitimate messages as spam. I Must Be The Luckiest Person Alive! Spam I must be the luckiest person alive! My inbox is just crammed with good news, great advice, and millions in accounts just needing the ok from me. Right now, I've two million euros just waiting to be claimed.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
