Microsoft and the SPAM Game 277
The Seattle Times reported a while ago that Microsoft is pushing for Washington State Senate Bill 5734 which will overturn most of Washington State's laws that specify monetary penalties for companies who send out spam. This will completely exempt ISPs from current Washington spam laws, which Microsoft just happens to be. It seems that they are jumping the gun a bit. They are having a company named Digital Impact (save that address for you spam filters) send the email for them. Thankfully I live in Seattle so maybe I can collect an easy $500 before Microsoft guts the current law.
Micrososoft? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Micrososoft? (Score:5, Funny)
That it was not a typo but a secretive heads-up to Microsoft changing both their name and business focus/strategy.
That's right!. In the very near future Microsoft is to be known as MicroSoSoft. The new ad campaign will feature, among other things:
*Fluffy white rabbits and ducklings
*Adorable scamps kicking a MicroSoSoft plush football around a park.
*Picnics by beautiful undulating streams.
*The amazing results of MicroSoSoft fabric softener on both whites and colors.
Now lavish your kudos on krow for his timely covert communique. Dissemination for the people!
Re:Micrososoft? (Score:2)
Re:Micrososoft? (Score:2)
Micrososoft?? (Score:5, Funny)
Mod parent up! (Score:2, Redundant)
It's funny in the context. Please mod parent up.
Re:Micrososoft?? (Score:5, Funny)
Works as mosquito repellant too.
Re:Micrososoft?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Micrososoft?? (Score:2)
I've tried Skin-so-soft as a supposed 'bug repellant'. The only way that it works is through Brute Force. Cover yourself with enuf of the stuff and the bugs stick to you and cannot move/bite.
YMMV
Re:Micrososoft?? (Score:2, Funny)
Great.... (Score:5, Funny)
JoeLinux
Arguing on the internet is like winning the special olympics: even if you win, you're still retarded.
Re:Great.... (Score:5, Informative)
cannot be blocked
cannot be marked as "junk mail"
cannot be forwarded ( say to "abuse" at hotmail.com)
does not specify how i can stop recieving it
i think its the worst kind of spam possible. no other spam msg has made me feel so helpless and so angry. The fact is only hotmail itself could spam its users in this manner...they have a system where the "this is junk mail", "block sender" buttons etc, do not even appear when u view the msg. The first time i rcvd it was when i finally decided to get my own domain and buy some decent email hosting. I have still not completed the switching over, but am getting there...i definitely wont miss hotmail. its weird when one of the largest companies in the world finds it useful to spam its users.
Ghoul2
Re:Great.... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you can block those e-mail by going into Options, Custom Filter, and creating a rule that states, "Deliver mail that contains staff@hotmail.com in the from addr to my Junk Mail folder."
Works for me.
Re:Great.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't read Hotmail terms of use and I don't feel like reading that legal stuff either, but at least in theory it would be completely acceptable to run a free public e-mail service that gets its income from sending advertisements to the users. Spam is, by definition, always unsolicited. If you have registered a free e-mail address and you've agreed the terms of use that give the provider the right to send you advertisements, then you have opted in.
Re:Great.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Great.... (Score:3, Interesting)
cannot be blocked
cannot be marked as "junk mail"
cannot be forwarded ( say to "abuse" at hotmail.com)
does not specify how i can stop recieving it
You forgot:
is the single email message most frequently imitated/forged by hotmail spammers
Re:Great.... (Score:2)
Helpless? You can't be serious! Do what I did - switch to another webmail provider. Send everyone on your contact list your new email address. Done! Sure, it's inconvenient, but soon it'll be ancient history and you'll feel so much better.
Re:Great.... (Score:2)
Re:Great.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great.... (Score:4, Funny)
Eight weeks? Geez... (Score:2)
save that address for you spam filters (Score:5, Funny)
This will completely exempt ISPs from current Washington spam laws, which Microsoft just happens to be.
So Microsoft, aka Micrososoft, just happens to be a Washington spam law, or maybe you meant they happen to be an ISP? Nice job.
Where's the innovation? (Score:5, Funny)
Why can't they come up with some new inovative way to plaster ads in front of internet users? These people control the desktop, and 99% of the browser market after all.
At least companies like Gator offered new and different technology to monetize the users.
Microsoft is better than this. I never thought they would have to stoop as low as sending spam. They must really be hurting for new cashflow sources to impress "The Street."
-Pete
Re:Where's the innovation? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where's the innovation? (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but I was bartering for all of my goods until Amazon came along.
Re:Where's the innovation? (Score:2)
Nope, but give them a week and they'll patent it.
Re:Where's the innovation? (Score:2)
Easy? Hardly. (Score:5, Informative)
I also live in Washington state, and I can tell you from experience: collecting the $500 will not be easy. Here are the ideal conditions for a lawsuit (taken from the Peacefire webpage, which I have been a member of for four years now):
* The defendant is a corporation, and you know the state where they are incorporated. (Usually, the state where they're incorporated is either the state where they're located, or Delaware -- because Delaware makes it easy to incorporate there.) Legally, a company cannot use "Corporation" or "Inc." or "Incorporated" anywhere, unless they really are a corporation -- but that won't tell you where they're incorporated, or even if they're incorporated in the U.S. Unfortunately, with most spam, you can't even find out the name of the company that sent it, much less whether they're a corporation.
* You can easily prove one of the following (one of these conditions must be satisfied to show that the spam violated the law):
* The sender address ("From:") or return address ("Reply-To:") was forged. If you get mail from an address that looks blatantly forged, like "98of292h38h2r@hotmail.com", send a blank message to that address, and keep the error message that comes back to you saying that there is no such address. This can be used to prove, in court, that the spammer violated Washington's anti-spam law by forging the return address. The subject line was "misleading". This is a subjective determination, one that will ultimately be made by the judge. One of the spammers that I'm suing, sent me an advertisement with the subject line "Shareholder request", which I considered blatantly misleading since Peacefire doesn't even have "shareholders". (The gist of the advertisement was, "You will look good in your shareholder's eyes if you use our product.")
You have registered your address with the WAISP (http://registry.waisp.org/) registry -- to sue a spammer under Washington's law, you have to be able to show that there was some way for the spammer to determine that you lived in Washington.
More power to you if you can collect the $500, but it's a tough road ahead.
Re:Easy? Hardly. (Score:5, Informative)
99% of the spams I receive violate the law because they forge the headers in some fashion, use a misleading subject or use a third party domain name without permission. Using an ISP domain name for the return address is often an easy one as they rarely have permission to do so. Making up a fake persons name also qualifies as header forgery, and this seems to be very common at the moment.
It's usually fairly easy to find the company behind the spam, unless it's a blind order form. After all, they are usually trying to sell you something. Once I get a phone number, I call and ask for the company name and address as I'm sending a package. It never fails.
If it's a mortgage lead spam, I set up a name and voicemail box and submit that to the lead form. When the mortgage company calls, I get hold of a manager and warn them if they don't tell me where they got my details from (in a written affidavit no less), I'll include them in the suit. This usually works. At the very least the spammer won't be getting any more business from them.
A quick free search on Dun and Bradstreet or http://www.searchsystems.net/ and you can easily locate most companies once you have a name, address or phone number.
If they don't turn up on D&B, they probably aren't worth suing. With so many spams, I usually pick the companies that sent at least eight spams (8 x $500 =$4000 limit in Small Claims court) and that are listed in D&B. Dun and Bradstreet will also do collections for you, and in my experience they are quite effective since a companies credit record is at risk.
Re:Easy? Hardly. (Score:2, Funny)
My favorite part... (Score:2)
In theory, if you spent enough time working on it (and could make sure you got a LOT of spam, say by even HAVING a hotmail account) you could make a living doing this. Shit, I wish my state (Indiana) had a law like this. I would certainly become a full-on Spam vigilante if I could make $500 per message.
For the cost of a threatening letter/offer to settle, and occasionally an hour or two in court you could certainly reap a nice little income stream.
At least until somebody designs a mail protocol to replace SMTP that isn't so prone to abuse...
Re:Easy? Hardly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like living in WA can pay for itself. One $4000 suit/week can pay pretty good wages. Sounds like the ultimate work-at-home business.
So do you spread your e-mail address across Usenet?
Can you you sue the same people again if you open up a new e-mail address and they start sending it there too?
Can you recommend a good real estate agent?
Nothing says "serious job offer"... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy? Hardly. (Score:2)
it seems to be the locale determination thats the problem
Re:Easy? Hardly. (Score:2, Funny)
taken from the Peacefire webpage, which I have been a member of for four years now
I consider your unsolicited promotion of Peacefire to be spam. And, of course, the fact that you have a Slashdot handle of "SexyTr0llGal" means that you are forging your real identity in order to avoid recorse.
I'll take my $500 in a shoebox full of unmarked $20 bills, thank you.
Microsoft and spam don't mix (Score:5, Funny)
I therefore seek your assistance in providing a safe and genuine bank account to temporarily store my leader's rightfully owned assets. For your assistance, 0.01% of his assets ($2.76 Million Dollars) will be left in your account as payment.
Note that there is no risk for you or your family, but keep this correspondence private, as this is a matter of great secrecy. As soon as we receive your letter of acceptance/acknowledgement/, I shall give you more on this transaction.
This will completely exempt ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you want the laws to lead down a path where your ISP is financially liable for your actions? Because that road goes to the place where your ISP turns over audited logs of everything you've done to avoid liabilities.
Panic story? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like the way "spam" should be sent - target, restrained, and with the option to opt out. I don't see a problem.
What experience have other people had?
Re:Panic story? (Score:2)
However, I'm getting tons of spam from Microsoft-owned bcentral.com [bcentral.com], and as far as I am concerned, bcentral is a spamhaus. And that is not only spam from bcentral customers, but also spam advertising bcentral itself.
I suspect that they are spamming old Linkexchange users. Linkexchange was actually pretty cool, as long as you had a better-than-average click-through rate. MS bought Linkexchange in the dot-com days, I pulled out instantly, by apparently, the address I used then followed the purchase through to bcentral, and is now being spammed.
So, yeah, I think I can say that I am being spammed by MS.
Re:Panic story? (Score:2)
For a while last year, M$ was using an external emailing company, which gave the notices a funky header and got nailed as spam by our BBS filter (not to mention the header LOOKED like spam even to the naked eye). Funny how that went away after only a couple mailings.
I don't get it? (Score:5, Informative)
Taken from the WA lawbook, it's illegal when it:
(a) Uses a third party's internet domain name without permission of the third party, or otherwise misrepresents or obscures any information in identifying the point of origin or the transmission path of a commercial electronic mail message; or
(b) Contains false or misleading information in the subject line.
Retaliation (Score:2)
They'd also be reported to their ISP/mail host and shut down since I don't imagine there are too many ISP's that don't have anti-spam rules in their TOS.
Not that any of it matters. Tracking them down or blocking them isn't impossible. It just takes more time than hitting the "delete" button. If I cared enough I have direct access to the logs when mail comes in to my server. I could easily use a quick whois and start reporting whatever IP made the connection to my server and let it get through.
Ben
It's all the other spam... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take back the internet. Make ISPs responsible for ANY fraudulent email they transmit or relay. Legally reposnsible as in fines and jail terms. Then allow companies to send out unsolicited email provided the have a reasonable opt-out policy. Primary sellers only, email lists just for the sake of emailing people should be made illegal.
Then I think you have the problem solved. ISPs aren't going to allow just anyone to use their mail servers, esp. companies who go through a foriegn ISP, if the ISP here may be held accountable for anything passing through their systems (and take metaphore that anyway you like). Then only reputable companies w/ a recognized opt-out policy can send email. (Make the FCC or the FCT or some big government commitee decide who is "recognized".)
Big, reputable companies can be dealt with. I'm not scared of them. It's the creeps who hide behind anonymity and pedal trash that I want to get.
(And I know what an open relay is and why some mistaken people feel they have a need to run one. I don't care. I don't care about your frickin email server or your frickin (fake) political causes or frickin what not. You people with open servers are as bad as the spammers themselves.)
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for an ISP. I spend about 30 minutes to an hour of my 8 hour day, 5 days a week, tracking down and banning people who spam through our network. Our SMTP server is locked down to our own IPs, and limited to the amount of email it will send for one user, and we have outbound port 25 filters in place across the network. But, people still spam. They run form mail scripts against unsecure servers (we can't exactly block port 80, now can we?). They find open relays running on other ports. And they spam, and I ban their asses.
Considering the amount of money and time (I'm not the only one at my company who devotes part of my workday to killing spammers) we spend fighting spam, you now suggest we become criminally liable for it? I can tell you right now, if that law passed, we would shut down our SMTP server and that would be that. No outbound mail for anyone. Don't have to worry about spam when their is no email, period.
You want a workable solution? Allow us to block access to anyone blocking caller ID. Most professional spammers block caller ID because they know we can and do block them by their phone number, if we can get it. But blocking access to anyone who blocks caller ID violates privacy rights according to the FCC and we can't do that. (Mom and Pop ISPs might be able to, but we are a wholesale ISP.)
Why would blocking by phone number work? Because professional spammers use stolen IDs (credit cards, names, etc) to buy a throw away account that they use until we knock them offline. (We get the subpeona's for logs all the time to track down these people. Most never get caught.) They can get 10 stolen credit card accounts in an hour. Phone numbers aren't as easy to change.
Take it from someone fighting spam in the trenches, the concept of billing an ISP for any "bad" mail that passed over their server would simply shut down email. Period.
I won't even get into the debate that if an ISP *were* responsible and accountable for every email you sent, you better damn well believe that they would read and approve of every email you sent before forwarding it. Yay Free Speech! (Free as in hand-cuffs.)
Whew. Enough ranting. Mod away...
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:2)
They run form mail scripts against unsecure servers (we can't exactly block port 80, now can we?). They find open relays running on other ports. ...if that law passed, we would shut down our SMTP server and that would be that. No outbound mail for anyone.
How does shutting down your SMTP server block port 80 or access to open relays running on other ports? I think you've exagerated a bit here.
You want a workable solution? Allow us to block access to anyone blocking caller ID. Most professional spammers block caller ID because they know we can and do block them by their phone number
Okaaaay. Why can't you block based on caller ID now? Is there really some law preventing you from doing so? So basically you claim the same guy from the same phone is repeatedly zinging you for a $20 monthly fee, and you haven't done something about it? And the authorities and banks don't care that this guy is stealing "10 credit card numbers a week"? Hmmmm....
Maybe you *should* just shutdown your business, I don't see you you guys managed to figure out how to work your web browser to post this, let alone setup an SMTP server. Wait, this isn't a Microsoft server is it? I hear any idiot can get one of those running. Sorry for the cut down but the more I tried to post a reasonable response, the more I realized that your excuses were totally bogus. 10 credit card numbers a week, my ass. I'd go after the guy with a gun if it was my business, and frankly so would any small business owner I've ever worked for.
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Yes, sir, here is your brand new shiny internet account. However, you can't send mail or post to usenet until the 30 day waiting period is up and you've passed our background checks."
Yeah, that'll fly. Hmmm? Maybe a new slashdot poll? How long would slashdotters be willing to wait before being allowed to send mail on a new net account as a measure to fight spam? In all seriousness, I'd actually like to know the answer to that one... I'd guess it's pretty low, but I might be wrong. I've been wrong before. On occasion.
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:2)
If every ISP was required by law to do this, it would very quickly become "the way it is" and we could all get on with our lives.
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:2)
Sort of. I propose that outgoing mail on new accounts be throttled down with minor delays (a second or two per destination address up to the first hundred or so each day, increasing to 5-10 seconds per destination addresses after that). That would be trivial to legitimate users, but would restrain spammers sufficiently that they probably wouldn't find a single sucker before they got caught and booted.
Re:It's all the other spam... (Score:2)
This is an excellent idea. It'd be easy to implement; you could just drop a transparent proxy between your users and your mail server. It'd take minimal hardware, and be pretty quick to build. If an ISP is interested in something like this, drop me a line; a simple version would be quick to build. And I'll send Steve B a cut for thinking of it.
Inaccurate story (Score:5, Informative)
The current law can be found here [hybridelephant.com]. A report on a successfully prosecuted case can be found here [keytlaw.com]. If one reads either, it's easy to see that the current law only applies to fraudulent headers.
Given that the current law only covers fraudulent headers, I doubt that Microsoft is maliciously trying to destroy the current law.
However, last year the senate introduced bill 6568 which extended the old law to require that commercial e-mail contain ADV: as the first 4 characters of the subject line. That bill passed the senate with flying colors. Unfortunately, it got locked up in committee in the house and died.
House bill 5734 [wa.gov] is a watered down version of last year's senate bill 6568.
I don't like Microsoft much. That said, the story at the Seattle Times [nwsource.com] is riddled with half-truths and inaccuracies. For example, it claims that 5734 completely exempts ISPs. The senate summary of the bill says
So, ISPs aren't liable for transporting SPAM, as they aren't liable for transporting copyrighted material or child porn. They can still be liable for originating, or aiding in the origination, of spam. I think that's a reasonable exemption.I'd be really interested in knowing whether lobbyists that are partially funded by Microsoft also supported senate bill 6568 from last year. If so, this is definitely unjustified Microsoft bashing. However, if their lobbyists locked it up in the house then we can villify them for weakening a good bill.
Too bad the article doesn't comment on that, and I don't have a way to find out.
Re:Inaccurate story (Score:2)
Reality is though I can still go into my mail agent and have it remove all email from email.microsoft.com since the from line was set to that even though the actul receive path is from their bulk mailer.
And yes I will agree that this is splitting hairs.
Shame it only got a score of 1 in spam assassin
doesn't make sense (Score:2, Insightful)
SPAM as a sales mechanism (Score:3, Interesting)
--CTH
great (Score:2, Interesting)
Out of contest (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if after I report this kind of spam to spamcop their ISP will close their uplink.
Anyway, is particulary dumb from Microsoft to do that kind of mail advertising and thru a so known spammer. I know that I never should attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, but speaking of Microsoft you never know.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2, Funny)
There is a valid purpose for email marketing, and calling any mass email from a company Spam is ridiculous, if they have a method for opting out and/or unsubscribing.
Re:Out of contest (Score:3, Informative)
You are either trolling or - with a track record of Digital Impact / m0.net spams going back over four years long documented in news.admin.net-abuse.email, you are full of shit [google.com].
If I don't subscribe to a list, and m0.net sends me unsolicited commercial email telling me to opt out if I don't want more unsolicited commercial email from m0.net, then m0.net is a spammer.
> Everything they send out has clear and effective unsubscribe methods.
>
> There is a valid purpose for email marketing, calling any mass email from a company Spam is ridiculous, if they have a method for opting out and/or unsubscribing.
If you are neither trolling nor accept that the record demonstrates that you are full of shit, there's one more option: you're shilling for m0.net, the DMA, or some other interest that stands to benefit by redefining spam as "that which you don't do". Please - and I mean this in the kindest possible way - go fuck yourself.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
Snip from their site [digitalimpact.com]
Digital Impact works with the world's leading marketers to create permission-based email marketing programs that achieve superior results.
Digital Impact's role in supporting our clients may include hosting the actual collection site, delivery of email, tracking results of email campaigns, analysis of data, and transferring collected data back to the client. Digital Impact is contractually bound to keep our clients' customer data private and this data is never shared across clients.
Digital Impact provides both full service marketing solutions (utilizing our ASP product internally) and email marketing ASP products to its clients. For all clients (full-service and self-service), Digital Impact has a strict policy against sending unsolicited commercial email. If problems arise with a client's campaign, Digital Impact will work with the client to resolve the problems and prevent them in the future. If Digital Impact determines that a client has knowingly used our system for sending unsolicited commercial email, Digital Impact will revoke the right of this client to send email using our product and sending email from our system.
In addition to sending sophisticated email campaigns on behalf of clients, Digital Impact also provides web page-hosting services and a website tracking and analysis service. Some clients use all of our services. Some clients only use our technology to send email campaigns. Providing these services, Digital Impact acts as a service provider for our clients. This means that Digital Impact is a third party that processes data only on behalf of our clients for the completion of stated purposes. The client, not Digital Impact, owns data collected by Digital Impact on behalf of the client.
I just think that people with legit businesses can be hurt by a simple accusation in this world of "anything I don't like is spam" or "anything commercial is spam". Would you say the same if you had actually given them your email address at the store and they sent you an email?
Now before you lambaste me with accusations of being a shill or tell me to go fuck myself let me explain - some people actually do want solicited emails. I may sign up for an email from NFL.com when they have the draft listings, or sign up with Thinkgeek.com to know when they get the latest products in. That is legit commercial email. You may think it is spam but by definition it is not because I have opted in.
If I don't subscribe to a list, and m0.net sends me unsolicited commercial email telling me to opt out if I don't want more unsolicited commercial email from m0.net, then m0.net is a spammer.
So even if they provide a means to get out of this then they are spammers? Here you state that they provide a mechanism to get out of the list because obviously they made a mistake but yet they should be flogged? Stoned to death? I mean what sentence would you recommend? They actually do what is required of them by law and that is not enough?
SHOW ME where someone tried to contact digital impact to get removed from a list and they did not comply and I will rest my argument and join you to burn them at the stake. The fact is I could give two shits about digital impact but I think we need to slow the bandwagon a little and realize that there are legit reasons for bulk mailing and we should not hurt legit businesses with an angry mob mentality and empty accusations.
$100 says I get modded down because spam is bad and I am "defending it" ergo I am bad or a troll. I have my own opinion and it does not coincide with the group so I must be punished! But i dont care I got karma to burn
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
And just how, pray tell, am I supposed to tell who's "good" and who's "not good"?
> I just think that people with legit businesses can be hurt by a simple accusation in this world of "anything I don't like is spam" or "anything commercial is spam". Would you say the same if you had actually given them your email address at the store and they sent you an email?
If I gave them the email address with the understanding that it be used for solicitations, no, that's not spam.
Problem is, damn near every spam I get has a disclaimer telling me that I opted in (really? when?), and that I can opt out or unsubscribe by (clicking on the link, replying, whatever), and that the company sending it to me isn't a spammer, but is a permission-based marketer, or an high-profile legitimate marketing organization, or that they always respect remove requests.
> So even if they provide a means to get out of this then they are spammers?
YES.
Here you state that they provide a mechanism to get out of the list because obviously they made a mistake
Oh yeah, you reminded me of the one I forgot. "If we've added your address to our list by mistake..."
If you're not a spammer, you don't need these excuses, because you use a closed-loop confirmed opt-in list management [cluelessmailers.org] process.
Incidentally, if that phrase sounds convoluted, it's because what you're describing was called opt-out, and the URL above described "opt-in".
After a few months, all the spam disclaimers started saying "this is an opt-in mailing", or "you opted in". So the phrase became "confirmed opt-in", implying that a confirmation phase was necessary.
(The PHB in Marketing knew that "opt-in" was the "good" buzzword, so Joe Spammer says he doesn't do opt-out, but opt-in, and the naive PHB signs the contract.)
A year or so after that, spam disclaimers started using language like "This is a confirmed opt-in list. To confirm your subscription, you need do nothing", so the term "closed-loop" had to be added to describe what was meant by "confirmation".
(The same thing had happened - the PHB had learned that "opt-in" was also spam, but that confirmation was good... so the spammers rebranded themselves and started selling "confirmed addresses" -- meaning "well, we've confirmed the address doesn't bounce when we spam it!", not "the owner of the address has affirmatively replied to a confirmation request containing an unguessable token".)
I'm sure that within a year or two, spammers will attempt to redefine the terms of the debate again.
> but yet they should be flogged? Stoned to death? I mean what sentence would you recommend?
For the record, when /. had this as a poll, I clicked "Go all Vlad The Impaler On Them In Front of Level3's offices To Set An Example" :-)
> SHOW ME where someone tried to contact digital impact to get removed from a list
Too late. Too many spammers have used "remove links" or "global remove lists" (this goes back to 1997) as sources of harvesting and/or verifying the existence of email addresses.
Even the FTC [ftc.gov] is aware that asking to be removed is ineffective.
> $100 says I get modded down because spam is bad and I am "defending it" ergo I am bad or a troll. I have my own opinion and it does not coincide with the group so I must be punished! But i dont care I got karma to burn
The reason I accused (and still suspect) you of trolling is because these arguments have been hashed out over five years ago.
The system you describe - the sending of commercial email on an opt-out basis - is spam.
It doesn't matter if the company doing it honors remove links. It doesn't matter if the product is goat pr0n or E10000 servers with a terabyte of RAID-5. Spam is about consent, not content.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
Exactly, I agree. BTW, I was not the original poster you labled as a troll but I did feel the need to defend what he said.
My point is that if a mailing list makes a mistake and sends you an email, if you don't attempt to opt-out of it then how can you really complain? How can one determine who is a legit business person looking to solicit dollars from a willing consumer and a true spammer just looking for a hit if you don't try and actually track them down? There is no other side to this story, it simply stated that Digital Impact was a spammer and that was that. I find that wrong and here is one possible scenario to show why
Microsoft has a mailing list that it has harvested from a true opt-in agreement, in this case by using hotmail you basically agree to get email from them or MS. It wants to send email to it's users to tell them about the latest version of MSN but it determines that hiring an outside email company would be cheaper than rolling their own setup to not only send the email but actually track the results, so it hires Digital Impact.
Digital Impact looks at the list and the way it was harvested and determines that it really is a legit list and according to the law the addresses were gathered legally as part of an opt-in agreement. BUT they still are in the business of sending mass emails so they know that being labled a spammer in that business is the kiss of death so at the end of every email they send they provide a link to those that want to opt-out of the list.
Joe user gets an email from MSN because he uses hotmail and gets pissed. He posts to newsgroups "Digital Impact is a SPAMMER!", he contacts the ISP and demands that Digital Impact be blocked, he gets College Jake, an RBL admin to add Digital Impact to the realtime blacklist that other ISPs subscribe to, but not once does he try to Opt-out, not once does he try to contact Digital Impact and get their side of the story. In his eyes all spammers must die a horrible death and Digital Impact is a spammer, regardless of the fact that his address was obtained within the law and he is actually WRONG. Now Digital Impact must suffer because they are labeled as a Spam Haus and no one even heard their side of the story. Case closed, another spammer defeated.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
My point is that if I had a dollar for every time a commercial emailer has said "if you are receiving this email in error, click to be removed", my wallet would have undergone gravitational collapse and become a black hole.
> There is no other side to this story, it simply stated that Digital Impact was a spammer and that was that.
Spam: Unsolicited commercial email sent to people who have not participated in a closed-loop opt-in confirmation process. Consent, not content.
Spammer: One who sends spam.
Digital Eclipse: Typing "m0.net spam" provides a four-year history documenting Digital Eclipe's practice of being a spammer.
We're in agreement that there is no other side to the story. (That is, if you want to redefine "spam" as "that which Digital Eclipse doesn't do" - there's still no other side to the story. :)
In the specific scenario you described, in which (I'll paraphrase) "Users agree via clickthrough to receive mailings from m0.net as part of the user's agreement with Microsoft that allows said user to use Microsoft's servers to access a hotmail.com email account", I'll concede that it might not be an issue.
But that's emphatically not the case for the rest of m0.net's activities, as even the most trivial groups.google.com search shows.
Companies are called "spamhaus" because of what they do. Every buik mailer from m0.net to Alan Ralsky can scream all day long about how "non-spamming" they are, but it's what comes out of their servers and into users' inboxes that matters.
If you're willing to take the word of an email marketer, say, in the form of Digital Impact press release, over a documented history of spamming, more power to ya. I prefer to base my opinion on Digital Impact's "spamminess" on their actions, not their words.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
No thanks
But I did go through the google link you provided and mostly found cases where m0.net had sent what the user simply considered spam but prolly wouldn't fit a legal definition. I'm not saying I've scoured every inch of the web and it's history and found no account. Just that I couldn't find any legit complaints on the link you provided. Most where related to a large retailer, Eddie Bauer for instance, using m0.net to email offers, but they didn't go into details about if the address was obtained illegally, if they had forged headers, or anything else illegal.
I'll just have to dig further but I fear my attention span for defending them is dwindling exponentially. So I'll just give it a rest and say fuck 'em
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
Can you prove it's effective? Hell, "make penis now boobies here" spam has clear unsubscribe methods.
If DI/m0.net aren't spammers, why haven't they gotten out of the blacklists [openrbl.org] they are in? Why the complaints on usenet [google.com]
Why did I get an email bounce
23:36:06 Wirehub! Internet DNSBL 209.11.164.116 microsoft2003launch@email.microsoft.com
I don't recall signing up for product launch emails. In fact, the only reason MS has my main home address is for their security bulletins. My profile on MS's site only has this option ticked. I doubt that email from microsoft2003launch@email.microsoft.com is a security bulletin. Ironically, if MS had mailed it from their own IP space, it would have reached my inbox.
Re:Out of contest (Score:2)
So if I punch you in the nose, it's not really assault as long as I provide a method for opting out from future punches?
The answer, of course, depends on whether you asked me to punch you in the nose. If you did, then it's legal. An unsolicited punch in the nose, though, is both illegal and wrong.
Only Microsoft matters now? (Score:2)
Mostly filled with Microsoft these days.
Is it the only thing that matters now?
Could it be that... (Score:2)
Spamming, ads in Linux mags, attending the Linux shows?
All in all things might continue to look up!
The real tragedy (Score:2)
m0.net? major spam haus (Score:3, Interesting)
just look here
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=m0.net&ie
The fact that M$ would even consider such a slimey bag of spammers is typical of their unethical monopolistic behavior. Maybe its high time we added all of M$ ip blocks to the various rbl's and see how Uncle Billy feels when his corporate emails start hitting
So much for that butterfly commercial... (Score:2, Funny)
Now he asks, "Are you from Digital Impact? Oh, go on in!"
MAKE MONEY FAST!
Open relay filters (Score:2)
Given that Microsoft products are on over 90% of all PCs worldwide, would I be correct to read that this would mean the Microsoft could legally send 90% of the world's PCs spam? After all these machines are running a Microsoft OS, thus they must have done business with the Beast.
ANd to cover the last 10% is the ISP clause. So, if you are an ISP, you can legally spam anybody, even if they aren't your customer.
Anybody can use that loophole, really. If I put up a WAP free for the taking by any Joe Schmuckatelli, does this make me an ISP? Does this mean I can spam the world, assuming that I am originating from withing the state of Washington?
All in all, a bad idea.
It has been said here many times, but bears repeating. Legislation against spam will not come to bear any useful fruit. They are like gun laws; they will keep honest people honest. The spammers will simply locate offshore or find other ways to ignore the law. It is the ISPs that need to take a stand against spam for there to be any ground gained.
I started using MailWasher this week, and a key feature that it has is the ability to filter spam that goes through open relays. If such a filter is available at the user level, why not make it an option at the ISP level? An ISP or web-based mail site can give the user the option of blocking all mail that passes through open relays. A slightly less optimal option would be for an ISP to block ALL mail that passes through open relays, but then this gets into the issue of the ISP deciding what goes and what doesn't go through its system--like the discussion regarding AOL's 1-billion-blocks day.
My thoughts on spam for the evening.
Pretty doofy (Score:2, Insightful)
They didnt forge emails. There was no deceptive subject header. You've all owned a microsoft product before, so theres a prior customer relationship. Theres an opt-out link for future emails.
Microsoft sent out a bunch of emails to announce that Win 2003 is ready to go.
The best thing a bunch of outrage and pretend shock can do is lock down the 'net with more government controls. That's just the thing to teach bad ole Bill Gates.
Try this... oh and fuck Microsoft (Score:2)
Wait 24-36 hours and count the spam. Should be about 10-20 spams. I think I know exactly where M$ stands on the whole spam issue. [slashdot.org]
I was proxy spammed by MS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I was proxy spammed by MS (Score:3, Informative)
In future, if you wish to avoid things like this, use a longer username. Or don't use a free email service.
Re:I was proxy spammed by MS (Score:2)
However, only one of my accounts has ever gotten this spam... where the username is 6 characters long. The other is 9, no spam.
>8 character usernames sound like a good way to avoid at least common name-guess mass-mailing.
In defense of Digital Impact. (Score:4, Informative)
As for overturning spam laws I'm skeptical that it is in the public's best interest but Digital Impact does offer valuable services.
Bad grammar is our friend (Score:2)
Microsoft, apparently, == Washington spam laws?
Will it "exempt" ISPs from the laws, or will it "overturn" the laws?
Muddled.
What are you talking about? (Score:3, Funny)
It's cool to bash Microsoft everywhere.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2, Interesting)
Monopolistic practices happen, all the time, the companies gets reined in by the gov't. But you don't see the rhetoric when people talk about cable companies, phone companies, power companies, etc., only Microsoft. Curious...
You are jumping to conclusions about my post. I'm not pretentious. But think about why you posted your comment in the first place. It bore no insight; it conveyed no useful information. All you did was jump on the Slashdot bandwagon and yell "Microsoft sucks! Look at me I'm one of you!"
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:3, Interesting)
And the prequel [slashdot.org]
Monopolies, no matter who has them, are bad. It doesn't matter who the company is or what they control.
(scroll down a bit in the discussions for the "rhetoric" and if I really cared, I'd look up examples for cable companies and power companies too, but I don't
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
And I, personally, am not against DRM. The fact is, there are way too many people pirating music, movies, games, etc., and if ordinary people aren't willing to respect the companies' rights, who can blame companies for fighting back? It sucks that it's come to this, but the vast majority of people have no conscience and have decided that they deserve entertainment for free, which simply isn't the case. If you could convince people to pay for things, DRM would never be an issue. In other words, don't blame Microsoft, blame the people that are busy pirating shit and brought this on themselves.
It sucks that I have to drive 55 mph on the highway too, because there are a bunch of idiots that can't drive safely, so to counteract that, we restrict them to lower speeds to do less damage. It sucks, but it's necessary.
I think the restrictive EULA's that you can only agree to after you purchase the software are bullshit. But you can't blame that solely on Microsoft -- every software company selling a shrinkwrapped product does that. But, it sucks, and it should be illegal.
What do I like about Microsoft? Windows XP is a good operating system. It is intuitive. It doesn't crash. My mother, father, sister, and grandmother all can use it, whereas Linux, BSD, etc. would be completely inaccessible to them, since their computer-savvy is extremely limited.
Office is a fantastic suite of programs that is stable and gets the job done for most of the schoolwork I have to do.
I also applaud the humanitarian efforts [gatesfoundation.org] of the company's founder.
I don't like their monopoly games. I don't like that their OS's have security issues (every OS does though.)
Yes, Microsoft really is known for poor software. (Score:3, Informative)
Even as recently as last month, MSIE came in 6 out of 6 [eweek.com] in a comparison of web browsers. Opera and Mozilla, among others, have it beat by a long shot in all categories (well, Opera costs, but I get my boss to pay). It's even documented in U.S. Federal Court records that MSIE acheived market share over Netscape by bundling MSIE with new copies of MS-Windows.
Quattro, Lotus 1-2-3 and other spread sheets were faster and more mature. It wasn't until MS-Excel v4 when Microsoft's alternativs started to come up to near the same grade as competitors.
Likewise with small desktop databases. Foxpro, dBase, FileMaker, Reflex, and others were still a length ahead of MS-Access. After all Microsoft is still playing catchup, though they did manage to buy out Foxpro. Oracle9i and IBM's DB2 by far offer the best performance and functionality for high end SQL servers. Postgresql [postgresql.org] and MySQL [mysql.com] have the mid-range covered [infoworld.com] and would be what Microsoft's SQL server is trying hardest to compete with. The Microsoft SQL server is not up to snuff [informationweek.com] nor is it secure [cnn.com].
But almost-as-good won't displaced established tools. That's where leveraging and sales pitches comes in.
Early versions MS-Word were a unique exception among Microsoft's products in that they were actually competitive with contemporary products. However, whether MS-Word variants were actually better than WordPerfect, AMI and others is probably more an issue of taste than something objective. It and MS-Windows were used to shoehorn MS-Excel into sites.
Convicted of Anti-competive practices (Score:2)
As I menioned, MS-Excel became widely used when bundled with MS-Word. MS-SQL server is not very widely used in comparision to any one of Oracle, DB2, Postgresql or even MySQL. It has simply not reached the "good enough" point, plus it is restricted to the MS-Windows platforms, which are now on the decline from server rooms after relatively little interest.
To answer a rhetorical question, why MS-Excel and others are all over the place is because they have been bundled with a great many other packages. This came up in DOJ vs Microsoft. In other words, a monopoly in one market can be used to enter another market, even in spite of a lower quality offering than competitors. Using anti-competitive methods to prevent competition is why Microsoft was convicted in the U.S. and why Microsoft is in trouble in Europe [reuters.com].
Right now, Microsoft's behavior is hurting both the U.S. ane European economies.
Re:Convicted of Anti-competive practices (Score:2)
It's been around for a long, long time, and was a lot easier to use that Lotus 123 (and I even bought the Windows version of that, once).
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's use that as a starting point. Your turn.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
So? My original question for the logic-impaired was "What great product has Microsoft create in house?"
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
So my 'd' key is sticky. "Created." The point being, it doesn't matter that MS ripped Apple ripping Xerox. Microsoft still ripped, it's all their bland corp can do. The only defenders of them are either employees, VB programmers, or PHBs.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
The equation editor indeed is clunky, I'll give you that.
It's easy to write a paper in Word. It's easy to do a presentation in PowerPoint (in fact, is there anything better than PowerPoint?) Excel just plain rocks.
And LaTeX and TeX are not meant for office work, they are meant for people doing hardcore layout.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:3, Informative)
Utterly wrong.
Word was written in house for the Macintosh. Microsoft was built on the profits of selling software to the niche Apple market that the established application vendors simply ignored as unimportant. Meanwhile Apple could not see why the bundled applications were not enough.
Microsoft decided early on they wanted to do a good wysiwyg editor and had gone to Xerox Parc and hired most of the folk who wrote their editor. Why not? Xerox wasn't going to make use of their work. It is unlikely they brought any code over, the Parc stuff was in smalltalk.
The original word for Windows was simply a port of the macintosh application. That is one reason that Microsoft got pissed off with IBM at the time, they wanted to get a GUI O/S out for the PC so they could sell GUI applications.
Of course it is much easier to believe slashblather, everything from Redmond must be soooooooo evil.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
You might want to seek professional help.
Re:Yay! (sarcasm doesn't carry well on subject lin (Score:2)
And unix is fragmented. LOL.
Re:The Ultimate Solution to Spam (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Ultimate Solution to Spam (Score:2)
scripsit Scumbag Tracker:
Like me; this is getting more and more common. The best was when some bastard spammed RMS with my e-mail address.
Re:The Ultimate Solution to Spam (Score:2)
Oh, that's nice... (Score:4, Insightful)
and I hate to tell you this, but spam.thatgeek.com sounds like an invitation to me...
Re:The Ultimate Solution to Spam (Score:2)
Spamcop [spamcop.net] is a much better idea.
Re:Why spam? (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't. What they intend to do is interpose themselves between an advertiser and MSN's captive audience. They want to send other peoples' spam. For profit.
Re:Why spam? (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe for a loss. It is Microsoft after all.
Imagine the power they could weild if they put most of the other spammers out of buisness.
Re:Spam Haven (Score:2)
Sounds like they're afraid of being held responsible if thy are sued to relay spam. Surely there should be some defence in that case if they can show they made a good-faith attempt to prevent this, and close down the hole. If there's no offence at all, we're just in the same place we are now, or worse.