DoubleClick Gets Into Spam 391
keytoe writes: "Well, just when we thought everyone's favorite Privacy Snoop was starting to mellow out a bit, we discover this little tidbit. DoubleClick
is now branching out from the ad serving business into the SPAM business due to the fact that direct email marketing 'is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving.' Using DARTmail, you can now target your bulk mailings 'based on profile data.' I wonder which profiling data they're talking about. Perhaps, say, all
the data they've been collecting for years?"
so! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so! (Score:2)
Prey upon the Stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd be surprised.
I recently spent several weeks doing my best to convince the people in my company's marketing department that they could not start sending unsolicited commercial email to potential customers.
My arguments were the familiar reasons why USCE is so evil. Their arguments amounted to "Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?"
To this day, I have to tell my father-in-law about once a week that the "money-making business idea" he's found out about through a 'helpful email' is in actuality a get-rick-quick scheme, a pyramid scam or something similiar.
Scarily enough, Spam *does* work. The people in my marketing deparment all have degrees! True, that doesn't say anything about their intelligence, but they had enough common sense to pass enough tests, (or kiss enough ass) to get through college sucessfully. To the more stupid, or those unprepared to deal with blatant profiteerism-- quite a few Spams prey on the eldery, trying to get them to 'invest' their social security checks-- Spam is a deadly trap.
What's the saying? It was in an article on evolution a few weeks ago. Went something like:
"Natural selection favors those who are too stupid to use birth control."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:so! (Score:3, Funny)
Hah! Ever since a Nigerian businessman dumped $38 million in my bank account and we split the proceeds 50:50 I have never bought porn or printer cartidges any other way
Spam isn't effective - market forces don't apply (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see that you can say "Spam is effective" with a straight face.
Canter & Siegal, the original Usenet spammers, gave it up after a year or so. Sanford Wallace, one of the most unrepentant spammers, with a history going back to fax spamming in the late 80s, gave it up. AGIS networks, host to Sanford Wallace, went broke. You can't name a single major company that spams. The only people who spam are pyramid schemers, shady pseudo-pharmaceutical marketers, online pornoographers and internet casinos.
Spam isn't effective, at least not for someone on the right side of the law - it generates too much ill will. Spam me, for instance, and I'll complain all the way to the top, making clear that I won't buy your product or service again.
What spam does have going for it is lack of control by market forces. Conventional ads, tee vee, newspaper, billboard, etc, all get paid for by the advertiser up front, before the consumer makes a choice about buying the product. Those ads must be effective, and must not offend too many potential customers, or the advertiser won't recoup the ad costs, much less sell any product. The consumer who chooses to buy a conventionally advertised product does end up paying the cost of the ads, but only after seeing or hearing the ad.
This isn't true of spammed ads: everyone who recevies a spamvertisement pays some amount for it (dial-up time, CPU cycles, disk space allocation, etc), whether a spammed ad convinces them to buy the product, or revolts them so much they'll never buy from the spammer again.
The Invisible Hand of the marketplace only acts very lightly on spam - spamvertisements can be as lurid and grotesque as possible because of this. That's why we need laws against spamming - market forces don't apply.
Spamming is theft, plain and simple, and spammers must be punished.
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:2, Troll)
DoubleClick is now branching out from the ad serving business into the SPAM business due to the fact that direct email marketing 'is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving.'
Clearly, regardless of your intuition or otherwise, Doubleclick thinks that spam is more profitable than banner ads. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to remember that while YOU personally may not respond well to spam (or anyone you know, for that matter) geeks generally do not. In fact, geeks tend to get really overexcited about the issue (for example, claiming that it is theft "plain and simple") but most people couldn't care less, and even seem to be buying spammed products. All of your postulations are all well and good, but the only reason to advertise is to sell more products, spam has been around for a while and its presence is only growing, therefore spam must be an effective way of selling products. That is what is plain and simple.
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:3, Troll)
Clearly, regardless of your intuition or otherwise, Doubleclick thinks that spam is more profitable than banner ads. ... but the only reason to advertise is to sell more products, spam has been around for a while and its presence is only growing, therefore spam must be an effective way of selling products. That is what is plain and simple.
Oh, please; Are you seriously asking me to believe that any business, especially "natural viagra" spammers, pyramid schemers and an ad company like DoubleClick actually use some kind of analysis to decide what to do? You might as well ask me to believe that Pro Wrestling isn't rigged. It's pretty clear that DoubleClick's backed into a corner by the low rates that people will pay for crappy banner ads. DoubleClick is grasping at straws in the only business they know: lying to people.
Besides the issue of businesses making decisions on minimal data, you should read what I wrote: spam may be around, but whether the amount of spam is growing or shrinking has little to do with selling products. Your intuition that a relationship exists between spam quantity and selling products is demonstrably weak. Read the article to which you respond.
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:2)
The key is that they're all scum.
Spam is very *cost-effective* - but that's not very effective in absolute terms. As long as backbones are willing to look the other way as long as the bills are paid, spam will be a problem.
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:3, Interesting)
Spam is an offer for a penis-enlargement pill from a randomly-generated Yahoo account. Spam is (as best I can tell) a Japanese porn site sample. Spam is a make-money-fast offer. Spam pulls tricks to hide the sender. Spam will send the same message to the same nonexistant address 50 times.
Pick your battles. If you fight them all, you will not win (unles you're one of those blackholes-will-save-us-all-from-evil types, in which case have fun on your small isolated island of the internet).
Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl (Score:3, Interesting)
All the stuff you're talking about adds to the annoyance, but it's not *necessary* for spam. For it to be spam, it has to be unsolicited, bulk, and email. That's it. If I didn't ask for it, and lots of people are getting it, it's spam.
Sure, Amazon is glad to tell you how to remove yourself; at one point, it was to send mail to "no-special-offers-ever-3@amazon.com". But they don't always honor removes.
They're in our spam filters because (and yes, I called and verified this with them) they have said they will *NEVER* ask for permission before sending their promotional mailings. You know that little "Send me special offers" checkbox most places have? They've said they won't have one, and that they'll spam until told to stop.
There are lots of companies that ask first. I do business with them, and I lose only a few sites that, frankly, weren't doing anything for me to begin with.
SPAM in place of washington on 1$ bill is next (Score:2, Insightful)
So essentially double click will spam up, while advertising to companies that their SPAM works.
Personally I have NEVER received one single SPAM email that I had even a remote interest in.
For instance, you sign up for a mortgage with a company, and get SPAMed for some 'investment opportunity.' What does the one have to do with the other?
Not to mention phone spam, and fax spam. I get more phone spam than anything. They have ruined my phone totally. Ever day I gotta run downstairs to grab the phone and look that the number is 'out of area' before I Ignore it. They should pay for the energy I burn up and down the steps. My fax machine fires up, only to be some real estate spam. My postal mail box is always busting fresh with spam from the big chain super markets and credit card applications. My olfactory nerves are spammed as I drive by Steve's soulfoud, but that kinda works...As the final insult, my email is spammed.
Watch out, there will be spam on the one dollar bill next...
Re:so! (Score:3, Insightful)
I see absolutely no moral obligation to provide advertisers with a "worthwhile" alternative. They aren't entitled to my eyeballs.
Perhaps I should also provide murderers with an alternative if I don't like being shot? Or provide con artists with an alternative if I don't like being cheated?
The day advertisers start advertising products for their functionality, durability, and versatility, rather than sexy-lifestyle-fu and blinking lights, I'll consider advertising an honest endeavour.
--G
Million dollar idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
This would undoubtedly cause Big Brother to take notice. I'm sure that they would gladly pay you off for a few hundred thousand.
Re:Million dollar idea! (Score:4, Funny)
Hi Friend,
Do you hate SPAM. Are you sick of direct marketers sending you a seemingly endless stream of stupid offers? If so, click here [links to software program to update the hosts file].
If you would prefer to be hung like a horse, see young, virgin, barely legal redheads or get a masters degree through the mail from a fully accreditted college, click here [links to a message explaining why responding to SPAM is bad]
Profits (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, yes. Sure. "Spam works." There are also other industries that turn a considerable profit too. Psychic teleservices [csicop.org] and technological snake oil [cnn.com] are two recent examples. They are both high-profit, highly visible / advertised... and under Federal investigation.
Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really interested in catching flies, I am interested in smacking them dead. And I can find better uses for honey than to feed it to flies.
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Interesting)
1: They'll rethink their position,
2: they'll be forced to remove you, and
3: their phone lines will be clogged and they won't be able to make any sales.
If only we could get the same number of people to call that number that attack every site that's published on here... Of course, the circuit would probably overload are a relatively small number of callers.
I have a spam I need to send out:
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:2)
It's not spam, I paid good money for this list!
(Hint: If you bought my email address and emailed it, I didn't opt in. Whether you bought it from a guy in a trailer park or a guy in a suit makes no difference. It's spam.)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:2, Interesting)
How does DoubleClick verify that the lists in use are opt-in? And what penalties will they enforce if they aren't? If a DoubleClick customer spams via the DARTmail service, DoubleClick has just as much responsibility as an ISP does when one of it's customers starts spamming. Moreso, in fact, since bulk email is the stated point of the DARTmailservice.
As for the cost issues, there have been other companies who have charged (and continue to charge) a hefty price to act as an email marketing service provider. That didn't stop their customers from using it for spam.
How do I know? Because I've worked for an email service provider, and have seen it happen. Given DoubleClick's spotty history, there's no reason to think it won't happen with DARTmail.
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:5, Informative)
So let's go:
1. How does DoubleClick verify that the lists in use are opt-in?
When you are negotiating for the process, at least one sales person and probably a pre-sales consultant goes to your site and goes through the registration process multiple times. Some of the addresses they then ask to unsubscribe - if you spam them anyway there's a problem. They also go through your privacy policy to ensure compliance.
Also, if you send out a mailing that comes back with large numbers of unsubscribes and bounces, that raises a big red flag. Lastly, there actually are people monitoring the abuse@doubleclick.net address. If a particular client crops up enough, it will be addressed.
2. What are the penalties if the list isn't opt-in?
If it's proven that your list is not opt-in then your contract is abruptly cancelled. And depending on how bad a PR flap you can be sued.
3. DoubleClick has no responsibility for spam like an ISP.
DoubleClick's number one responsibility is to its shareholders. Bad PR has significantly hurt their business.
4. Bulk email is the stated point of the DARTmail service.
Nyet. You are misunderstanding "bulk" means large numbers. If you send out 1.8MM newsletters like I do, Outlook or some small scale provider isn't going to cut it. That's bulk. The stated purpose of DARTmail is bulk OPT-IN email.
5. Cost issues.
We left DARTmail because it was too expensive. Period. Most SPAM is only cost-effective with a cheap CPM. That's not a 100% guarantee but a general truism.
I have no doubt that there will be abuses of the technology. DoubleClick's client base is large and there are certainly issues in monitoring compliance for that many clients. But there's a huge difference between a legitimate product that will be fractionally abused and actual spamware.
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's opt-out, not opt-in.
Look, folks, no matter how much marketing drones would like to redefine it, the phrase "opt in" has a meaning in the English language. It means that the person took an affirmative step to get on the list and get the mail. It does not mean that they forgot to uncheck a button on a Web form somewhere, or that they signed up for something unrelated but were too apathetic (or too paranoid) to ask to be removed from the list when some huckster started bothering them.
If the user has to take action to get off the list, then it's not opt-in. If there's a check box on a Web form somewhere, but the default value is "yes, send the mail", then that's not opt-in, either. For a list to be "opt-in", the user must actually request the mail. And that's not common.
Capische?
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3)
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:2)
Even if it's answered by a single working mom with no technology training, she's being paid by the call, so you're giving her business.
Re:Call them and let them know how you feel. (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, in the US, if you call from a pay phone, it will cost an additional 35 cents.
Let's get 'em (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Let's get 'em (Score:3, Informative)
Junkbuster (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Junkbuster (Score:2, Informative)
don't forget... (Score:2, Troll)
The lameness filter won't let me paste the list in here and post but the hosts blocking list they have there is a good 400k long. I use it religiously.
Here's a hint for the less informed: In windows9x/me edit the file \windows\hosts to allow you to redirect sites like doubleclick so they won't receive their web bug, cookie and other ad-tracker data. The text to insert can be found at the above site. For win2k/NT it's in \winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.
In linux, the hosts file is in \etc\hosts.
Go have fun
Re:Junkbuster (Score:4, Informative)
Also, for spam in general, or rather against it, SpamMotel [spammotel.com] and especially SneakEmail [sneakemail.com] work like a charm; SneakEmail even lets you reply to (suspected) spammers without revealing your real address.
Of course, if you have your own domain/MX and mail server, you can generate these "one-time" email addresses yourself - but using sneakemail is just too easy and convenient.
Unrelated to the core business? (Score:2, Interesting)
No personal information is used by DoubleClick to deliver Internet ads.
So either their software doesn't include doubleclick customers, or the Privacy policy is wrong.
Course, if they've got any lawyers, both are probably right.
Re:Unrelated to the core business? (Score:2)
Spam is an email ad, not an Internet ad. So, technically, spamming people who have viewed DoubleClick ads on web pages is OK per their privacy policy. Besides, it's their privacy policy, not yours. They can change it anytime they like.
Re:Unrelated to the core business? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unrelated to the core business? (Score:2, Informative)
This Dartmail system... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This Dartmail system... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm wondering if there's a method of rerouting incoming connections to port 25. Say if someone from a specific host tries to connect to port 25, your server acts as a transparent redirect, reconnecting them to their own mailserver so that they end up overloading themsleves.
I'm probably not thinking that through all the way, but one of the best methods, IMO, of countering spam is with methods that cause the spammer's mailservers to crash in mid-run.
Re:This Dartmail system... (Score:2)
Re:This Dartmail system... (Score:2)
Spammers look for Open Relays (Score:2, Interesting)
My server logs are full of relay attempts coming from cable modem and dsl users.
I think that they just start scanning for SMTP servers and then attempt relays. I see various attempts addressed to "test9483@hotmail.com" or such, probably from the open relay probe. Once they get a live one, the spam spews forth.
One could argue that anyone who operates an open relay should have their server overloaded, maybe then they would take care of their problem.
OTOH, it's entirely possible that it is you that they'd go after, rather than the legions of spammers.
Gordon.
I hate to say it... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I hate to say it... (Score:2)
Good thing! (Score:5, Funny)
And what do you think? (Score:2)
It's not like DoubleClick is monitoring how many times per day people go to Monster or HotJobs job board, and how many resumes they have sent, to determine how desparate they are to find a job, and then alert the President to send them a bigger check in the mean time so that they can survive^H^H^H spend and contribute to the growth of the economy?
Specificially Targeted Porn (Score:3, Funny)
this looks like an acquired product (Score:5, Informative)
Re:this looks like an acquired product (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait, MessageMedia is FlowGo, a known spammer operation. Doubleclick aquired them some time ago.
Re:this looks like an acquired product (Score:4, Informative)
DoubleClick (Score:5, Insightful)
according to WHOM? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to whom?
Every single person I know complains about spam. Every single one of them deletes without reading the crap. Almost every one of them uses some sort of filtering/blocking.
And no, these aren't all geek-centric folks. Hotmail, yahoo, etc., all have basic filtering in place. Some UCE gets through, but most get filtered to their spam box.
Where the hell are these numbers coming from?
I realize that 1% of 10000 emails sent out is an acceptable return rate, but I wouldn't call it thriving. Show some solid proof that this is true and I will believe you.
Are people out there really this gullible? For pete sake, if I purchased all the products or services offered in spam, I'd be one highly educated, rich, successful, hung to my knee, always hard, in great shape, sexual tyrannosaurus.
And we know that ain't gonna happen.
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, if you'd really be one of those... why haven't you purchased the products yet? Or are you already a highly educated, rich, successful, hung to my knee, always hard, in great shape, sexual tyrannosaurus?
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I don't know about you, but there are actual online copanies that I don't mind getting emails from. Amazon is one of them. I like to know about upcoming DVD releases and if Amazon emails me about them, I will sometimes read them. How many of you are also signed up to receive American Airlines SuperSaver fares or something similar? This is the type of direct marketing email that we are talking about here.
So when someone is truly interested in a company's products enough to signup for and confirm interest in receiving emails, there is a good chance that at some point that person will buy something based on one of the emails.
I used to work for a company that was one of the first companies to make money using direct marketing email. We were a public company (in the dot-com craze, that is) and the direct marketing email part of the company made double what the online banner advertisements made. It was well into the millions of dollars per quarter range. Now that isn't a ton of many, but it was respectable for the number of people it required to run the company and the very lost cost of sending the emails.
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:2)
If EVERYONE who'd hit no was getting spam, APC (not sure who they are, but if they are a legit customer facing business, its good enough for the sake of this point) would either be under a lawsuit or, in the very least, well enough known to do this such that
Just a reminder, you may simply be one in a million, and that its hard to be polite to that one when 999,999 others are lying outright.
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:2)
Several people have pointed out "If I send out one million emails, and have only a .001% response rate, it still was effective." HOWEVER, anybody who has ever worked in any position dealing with the public should realize that if you have 999,900 pissed off people, a small percentage of them are going to be wackos who will do anything to take you down. I guarantee that one pissed-off customer, if motivated enough, can do more than enough harm to counteract 100 good customers.
However, I still think the Spam business is thriving, for the sellers of Spam tools and lists. The fact that everyone gets Spam makes these tools and lists look effective. People think, "I get a lot of Spam and must be effective," purchase and use the tools, and spread the "Spam is thriving" meme some more. In fact, I wouldn't put it past the Spam folks to try to spread the meme even more, and hire a few poor chumps to post to every forum possible that "Spam works." (Play "Spot the plant on Slashdot" with me...)
Find me a company that made money off of Spam, and I'll show you a company that sells tools and lists.
Re:according to WHOM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually 1% is many times higher than the response rate a spammer needs. A response rate of one hundredth of 1%, i.e. one response out of 10000 recipients, is enough. Do the math. you send 20,000,000 emails at tiny cost (to you), and if you make $50 profit out of each person who responds and one person in 10,000 responds, you've just made 2,000 times $50 which is $100,000. Do it once a month and you're pulling in a million per year. That's why there's a lot of spam - because it's extremely profitable.
The fact that your spamming makes more than 99.9% of the people who receive it very angry, is completely irrelevant if all you're interested in is making money.
time to change /etc/hosts again... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:time to change /etc/hosts again... (Score:2)
Speculation (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe that's no better and I could be wrong but there's nothing in the article to suggest that they are selling actual personal data of any kind as part of this deal.
Read the article! It's for customers (Score:4, Insightful)
-- q
Re:Read the article! It's for customers (Score:2)
So...? (Score:2, Funny)
Personally, I think this is an excellent move! WTG DoubleClick, spam yourselves into oblivion, please!
Targeted mail? (Score:2)
Note the "Market-ese" at work (Score:2)
I love the spin they put on this. They make spam out to sound like the latest & greatest form of advertising.
It's SPAM. Not advertising, SPAM. Just because it is "thriving" does not give them the right to spam us.
In addition to helping advertisers segment their customer data to launch more targeted ads, DartMail 3.5 also helps track customer transactions in more detail, recording such information as the value of a given purchase and whether it was made in direct response to an e-mail transaction.
Invasion of Privacy becomes "Track Customer Transactions in Detail". Amazing.
After all, that's JUST what we want...for people to be able to track us even more. When did invading our privacy become a good thing??
The internet is NOT Television, and these marketers need to stop trying to treat it like that. They can NOT force us to look at ads, no matter what they do. And dumping unsolicited emails on us isn't the solution.
Until these guys get it, I suggest 2 things:
1) Block doubleclick (wildcarded, of course) on your router/firewall.
2) Make use of SpamCop.net [spamcop.net].
Re:Note the "Market-ese" at work (Score:2)
It certainly does seem to give you and the rest of the slashdoterati the right to jump to wild and hysterical conclusions though. Doubleclick acquired MessageMedia. MessageMedia makes mailing list software with html mail click-through tracking abilities (same way those email valentines cards do) so they can tell who was interested in the mailings. Their main business is in doing systems integration, to massage the marketing data from various databases into mailing list categories. Sounds like a lot more work than address harvesting for spam, don't it?
But it's easier to jump on the scapegoat, isn't it? They should have to prove their innocence and justify whatever they do isn't wrong, because it's just too darn hard to find facts, isn't it?
Good! (Score:2, Insightful)
Doubleclick's press release (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't appear to be spam-tastic at all -- they talk through the whole thing about newsletters/customer bases/permission-based marketing.
You guys really want to go after a spam tool provider, go nuke Earth Online, or any of the guys who produce stealth emailers.
-- q
Simple Solution using DNS (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a good list [csuchico.edu].
Cheers!
Re:Simple Solution using DNS (Score:2, Informative)
lynx -dump 'http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/spam/Hosts.s
Then copy or append new.file to your
OK, tell me, is *anyone* is surprised by this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this really surprise anybody? Doubleclick has been a bunch of capricious, dishonest bastards for as long as I can remember. They were one of the first names associated with evil cookie tracking practices(tm) all the way back in 1995 (and even earlier?), IIRC.
direct email marketing "is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving"
As someone pointed out above, I wonder what they mean by "thriving." A 0.1% response rate is not particularly "thriving" -- I think it's more because there is no way to punish them for spamming.
Wasn't there some kind of paper published recently that showed that, in one of those game-theoretical situations with two equilibrium strategies (everyone cooperating, or everyone backstabbing each other -- I think it's called the "prisoner's dilemma"), people tended to pick a cooperative strategy if the group was allowed to punish backstabbers? Because IMO, the situation with spamming is very much like the prisoner's dilemma.
I did an experiment one time, I blocked doubleclick and a bunch of other ad sites at my firewall. The problem was, there were so many sites it was like trying to stop a firehose with a bathtub stopper. There have been efforts like the RBL, but they always seem to start charging money. IMHO, this is not just because they are "greedy," it's because their operational costs are too high. And why? Because there are too many spammers. I think the only way to really fight spam is with a distributed solution. Here we'd run into all the network poisoning problems people worried about with gnutella et al. in the early days. Is anyone working on anything like this? Is anyone even talking about it?
It seems like we're getting spammed with spam stories nowadays, not just from slashdot but on zdnet and others as well. Is spam getting worse, or is the spam lobby getting more aggressive, or what? :-)
Just my $0.01
---Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise! [zappadoodle.com]
excrement of the net (Score:2)
Stuff like doubleclick I wouldn't miss either . . .
Re: (Score:2)
Do you know what spam is? (Score:2, Interesting)
That having been said, there is a huge difference between spam and the mail this service is sending.
Like it or not, at one time or another you didn't read a privacy notice and your email address was sold to another company.
When we send out 5 million+ mailings, about 2000 TOS (terms of service) or Spamcop violations will come back. What most of these morons don't realize is, there's both a link and an email address they can send mail to to unsubscribe permanently and effectively from our lists.
This won't get you off other peoples' lists, but it will get you off ours. Currently, about a 1/4 of our customers actually have a timestamp and IP address telling us exactly when and where these addresses came from. I would expect in the near future that everybody will start doing this.
Now, this isn't so say that all people are nice. That's not to say that people don't troll web pages and people don't fake mail-from headers. It happens. But there's also a lot of promotional mail that YOU OPTED INTO whether you realize it or not.
What I'm saying is, before labeling every piece of mail that you get as spam, try unsubscribing. And yes, I know that some unsubscribe links are fake. What are you going to do? There are also fake breasts and fake watches. Will you spend the rest of your life wandering around as a confused virgin? (well.. maybe the wrong place to ask this)
So, in conclusion, I know how fashionable it is to love linux and hate companies that are "out to get us" like Microsoft and DoubleClick, but this article is inflammatory and causing a lot of stupid people to post a lot of stupid comments.
If you want to get out some angst, try:
http://www.postmastergeneral.com/
http://www.e-centives.com/corp/
http://www.messagemedia
Or, combining microsoft AND email:
http://www.bcentral.com/
And lots of other companies (like mine) that send lots of LEGAL, NON-SPAM, promotional email.
Re:Do you know what spam is? (Score:2)
The general perception these days is that nobody should ever click an unsubscribe link, because it will prove your email address works. It's nice to find someone who might be able to provide some real facts about this.
Re:Do you know what spam is? (Score:2)
You have NOT opted in until you've confirmed your subscription via some unique generated URL or reply-to address. There's just no other practical way you can be sure your list only contains those that chose to opt-in.
If you're afraid to use confirmed opt-in, perhaps it is because you know most people aren't interested in the spam you already send out. Who knows though.
Postmastergeneral [google.com] on groups.google.com shows many, many hits regarding their spam.
Re:Do you know what spam is? (Score:2)
That's not a fair comparison at all.
Hitting a fake unsubscribe link has the potential effect of making sure you get a lot more SPAM when my address gets promoted from the '60 Million Email Addresses' list to the '3 Million KNOWN GOOD Email Addresses' list. As a consequence, I'm not going to ever click on an opt-out link that came unsolicited - too risky.
Hitting a fake breast would result in a slap to the face - and would be worth it!
Re:Do you know what spam is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
If I opted into it, and didn't realize I'd done so (perhaps I'm the dr00ling AOLer you seem to think I am), then show me the opt-in.
That's what "double opt-in" (or more accurately, "confirmed opt-in", the "double" is your industry's language, trying to make it sound unreasonable) is for. Until you can demonstrate to my satisfaction that I opted in, it's spam.
>What I'm saying is, before labeling every piece of mail that you get as spam, try unsubscribing. And yes, I know that some unsubscribe links are fake. What are you going to do? There are also fake breasts and fake watches.
So, because some tits are fake and some Rolexes are fake, and since I wouldn't give up feeling tits, or wearing a Rolex, just because I can't trust the owner of the tits or the seller of the Rolex, I should trust you? Holy non-sequitur, Batman!
The overwhelming majority of the claims of "click here to be removed" are lies. The overwhelming majority of the "You opted in" claims are lies.
So what I'm not gonna do is this: I sure as fsck ain't gonna trust your unsubscribe link, that's what.
And what I am gonna do is this: Find your upstream, and report you to them as a spammer. Don't want the 2000 TOS violation reports? Don't spam.
And if your upstream ignores those reports, what am I gonna do? Well, I'm probably gonna add your netblocks to my private blocklist. Don't want to be blocked? Don't spam.
> And lots of other companies (like mine) that send lots of LEGAL, NON-SPAM, promotional email.
How come (and I don't mean you specifically, I mean the general case over the past few years) every spammer always tries to re-define "spam" in such a way as "Well, whatever we do isn't spam."
If it's in my mailbox, it's unsolicited, and it was generated in bulk, it's spam, and I'll choose to either block the server that sent it, or report it to the sender's provider. What are you going to do?
DoubleClick tried this before with NetCreations (Score:2)
The deal fell apart [list-news.com] after DoubleClick's stock price tanked, and NetCreations sold themselves instead to Seat Pagine Gaille.
So, they've tried this before, and it failed to gel. Let's hope that it fails again. The threat of targeted spam is far greater, I believe, than mass-mailed spam, because it's much more difficult to filter out.
thad
No biggie for me. (Score:2)
DARTMail Targeting (Score:5, Informative)
I am a bit familiar with DARTMail (actually used the product), and from what I know, it does not use the vast amount of information that DoubleClick has for it's targeting - instead you upload all of your site's registration data, and target based off of that. It allows you to put together different emails for different groups of people, assembling HTML emails like building blocks.
The real murky area (I felt) is that what they do with the information once they have it... Do they integrate it in with their master list, getting even more info? I was assured that would never happen - that all of the info uploaded would be segregated, but I never read (or had access to) any of the fine print.
Re:DARTMail Targeting (Score:2)
Cool! (Score:3, Funny)
ARIN Info (Score:2, Informative)
GENUITY (NET-GNTY-199-92) GNTY-199-92
199.92.0.0 - 199.95.255.255
Double Click, Inc. (NETBLK-DOUBLECLICK3) DOUBLECLICK3
199.95.206.0 - 199.95.209.255
Cable & Wireless USA (NETBLK-CW-10BLK) CW-10BLK
208.128.0.0 - 208.175.255.255
Inflow (NETBLK-CW-208-169-16A) CW-208-169-16A
208.169.16.0 - 208.169.23.255
MessageMedia (NETBLK-NETBLK-INFLOW-MMEDIA) NETBLK-INFLOW-MMEDIA
208.169.22.0 - 208.169.23.255
Here's a profile that we can build (Score:3, Funny)
Are unemployed
Use the Internet
Claim to own their own business
Spent time in a dungeon in Europe for sending unsolicited e-mail
Discovered that technology has reduced the response rate to their mass mailings to near 0%
We take this profile and tell DoubleClick to mail every piece of spam to people who match all of these criteria. If all goes correctly, the number of addresses to be hit is one, and that lucky person is Bernard Shifman.
Targeted ads just mean that... (Score:2, Funny)
Hopefully, it will all come from the same domain or sender so it's easily filtered.
Doubleclick IP blocks (Score:3, Informative)
-------------------
204.176.152.248/21
206.65.181.96/22
206.65.18
63.85.84.0/24
204.176.177.0/24
208.211
208.203.243.0/24
204.178.112.160/19
2
216.230.65.64/28
63.77.79.192/27
192.65.80.0/24
128.11.60.64/27
128.11.92.0/24
199.95.206.0/22
Since when is opt-in email marketing spam? (Score:3, Funny)
To my fellow readers, please don't fall for Timothy's silly attempt at enraging you. Go ahead and mod me down, but I just disagree with misleading posts. They do nobody any good and a company's image some harm, and for no good reason. Victor
Actually one thing Microsoft does right (finally) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
take a deep breath... (Score:3, Informative)
It's a premium email delivery engine. It is much too expensive for spammers. This is for publishers who maintain newsletters and house advertising lists. Hell, it's too expensive for a lot of publishers for that matter... Anywho, DoubleClick, like most email providers, is extremely uptight about their clients using opt-in only lists (albeit IIRC I think they still let you get away with pre-checked single opt-in). I know this personally from having them investigate mailings that had high rates of bounces and unsubscribes (it was a list import problem and the primary key wasn't properly parsed from the email address - I'm not a spammer!).
Plus, there is nothing new about this - if you read the article, you see that it says this is DARTmail 3.5. DoubleClick has been in the email tech biz for a couple years now. v1 was scratch built, v2 was when they bought Flo, v3 is integrating Message Media's technology.
New Circle of Hell Established - film at 11 (Score:3, Funny)
Tim et al owe Doubleclick an apology (Score:3, Interesting)
Spammers don't really need what Dartmail offers. Spammers are working in high volume with low conversion rates and don't pay attention to removal requests. Dartmail is for organizations that want to target messages by the kind of detailed customer profile information (zip code, age, income, favorite color, products owned, shoe size, etc.) that spammers don't have, and want detailed reporting tying back to all of this, along with rock-solid, hassle-free subscribe/unsubscribe services to keep customers happy. This service is billed at something like $0.02 USD per message, which is more than spammers pay per message by several orders of magnitiude.
Tim, Rob, and the rest: do you guys read the stories that posters submit links to? Do you understand them?
Why Assume Spam? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doubleclick is not the first or only company offering hosted outbound email services. There are many subscription newsletters which recipients are happy to receive, and the people responsible for them don't always have the time or skills to properly support them. Therefore there are companies that specialize in this.
I also saw no mention in Doubleclick's announcement of any plans to utilize pre-existing data from click tracking or any other source. Rather, I saw them offer to let the list owner send targetted mailings or ads to some of his subscribers based on their "profiles". In other words, like much business software, this is kind of a programming language for non-programmers. It will presumably let the list owner say "If income > 60k then insert lexus add; else insert toyota add" where income comes from the signup form by which the user requested the subscription.
Will spam be sent through this system? Certainly, if Doubleclick allows users to import pre-existing lists. The question is whether Doubleclick will be adequately responsive to spam complaints. If they decide to ignore spam complaints, their IP's will be blacklisted. If Doubleclick terminates a customer under this program, the impact to the customer will be greater than the impact to a typical spammer terminated by his ISP. The spammer just needs to find another source of IP connectivity. But the Doubleclick customer will typically be dependent on the Doubleclick infrastructure. I don't expect this to be a significant source of spam.
Re:How about an opt-out clearinghouse? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about an opt-in clearinghouse?
Users could register with the Doubleclick, the DMA, or the marketing agency of their choice with three flags set:
Any request to be placed on the list would be validated, by either a request received in writing (with signature), a telephone call (with recording archived), or an email with a randomly-generated token ("Someone entered this email address on the opt-in website. They were using IP address xx.xx.xx.xx. To confirm your opting-in, please reply to this email with '54771989981' in the Subject: line").
Any snail/phone/email list would be filtered through the opt-in list. If the address is not found on the opt-in server, no mail is sent.
Oh, right. The only people getting the ads would be the people who asked for it. The rest of us would be spam-free.
Can't have that, can we?