Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Spam The Internet United States Your Rights Online

Candidate Ads, Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You 505

ooby writes "MSNBC reports that Bush and Kerry plan to shoot off a million or so emails to their closest friends. By using the Internet to distribute ads, presidential candidates believe they can reach more people using less money. I guess that's why they wrote that loophole in that awesome new spam law."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Candidate Ads, Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You

Comments Filter:
  • if they spam me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cyrax777 ( 633996 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:19PM (#8300594) Homepage
    They will certanly not get my vote!!
    • by Reverend528 ( 585549 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#8300634) Homepage
      They're actually going to send spams advertising their opponent's campaigns.
    • by calmdude ( 605711 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:30PM (#8300720)
      Kodos: It's true, we are aliens, but what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system...you HAVE to vote for one of us!!

      Man: He's right, this is a two-party system!

      Second Man: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.

      Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away! (evil laugh)

    • Re:if they spam me (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iminplaya ( 723125 )
      Looks like you might not be voting this year. :-)

      -Vote for Nobody, because Nobody cares.
    • by TheGuinnesseur ( 652937 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:23PM (#8301169)
      Would they be more likely to get your vote if they sent you a piece of cardstock in the mail with some witty slogans and a pretty photo?

      I think email campaign ads are a great idea from an environmental perspective. Imagine if your candidate of choice could say that he had saved 10,000 more trees than Pres. Bush--and all because of email. While I hate spam as much as the next guy, a nice, polite email from a candidate sent from a valid address would be great. I'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who spammed me (and let's be honest, this isn't really spam) than one who wasted paper on mass-mailings.

      Email costs significantly less than physical mailings and is a heck of a lot easier on the environment. Seriously? Would you *rather* get a piece of card stock over an email? As an added plus, maybe this could even out unbalanced campaign contributions?

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @11:08PM (#8301504)
        If I want to hear it, I'll go to their website. Saves the trees, and keeps my inbox clear.

        They're profitting by this e-mail (paid if elected), so it's spam.

        So fuck um both. I hope someone brings a class action lawsuit against them if they do this horse-shit.
        • by TheGuinnesseur ( 652937 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @11:51PM (#8301831)
          1. They're profitting by this e-mail (paid if elected), so it's spam.

          Let's get real. People don't run for president because of the salary and benefit package. They do it for power. Now, in an ideal world the Presidency would be a selfless job (I'd still like to believe it is), but it's not about "paid if elected."

          If you're idealistic, it's about upholding the Constitution and enforcing laws enacted by Congress. If you're cynical, it's about cronyism, nepotism and using the people of the United States for fun and profit. Whatever way you slice it, it's not about the $250K salary.

        • "If I want to hear it, I'll go to their website. Saves the trees, and keeps my inbox clear."

          Or go to their blog. I mean, all serious candidates have blogs, right?

    • Dear Candidate,

      Thank you for your spam. As one of the many Americans who believe that spammers are a somewhat lower life form than pedophiles, you can rest assured that the only vote you will receive from me is as a jury member in the felony trial you so clearly deserve.

      Regards,
  • The solution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:19PM (#8300595) Journal
    Email them all back. See how they like it.
    • by c1ay ( 703047 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:31PM (#8300729) Homepage
      cc contact@ataconnect.org while you're at it to make sure they get enough copies to send to their friends. Everyone should probably forward their copy to darl@sco.com as well. He's hoping to have about $5 billion available that he could contribute to the campaign effort as well so I'm sure the candidates would really appreciate it.

    • Re:The solution (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheIzzy ( 615852 )
      Leave it to slashdot to have people completely overreact and blow things out of proportion. I actually see email as an effective means of campeigning.

      According to the headlines, only about a million emails will be sent, and only to "close friends." That means less than 1% of the American population will see one of these emails, and I'd bet a pretty penny it won't just be in typical spam style (hint: it will actually be from a *real* address and company). The emails will probably be sent to people who h
      • by c1ay ( 703047 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:43PM (#8300829) Homepage
        Maybe not though. According to Dave Barry [miami.com] there's at least 14 or 15 people that are not on the internet yet. This type of campaigning would miss these people.
      • Re:The solution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:01PM (#8300988) Homepage Journal
        Blockqouth the poster:

        According to the headlines, only about a million emails will be sent, and only to "close friends."

        Funny. You'd sort of think all of their "close friends" already know that they're running... This will be used to drum up new contributions. It's political spam, pure and simple.
      • by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:04PM (#8301012) Homepage Journal
        Leave it to slashdot to have people completely overreact and blow things out of proportion.

        WHAT!? I will do NO SUCH THING!

        I will overreact AND blow things WAY out of proportion whenver I please!
        I won't let a facist like YOu dictate how I am allowed to react! That is the absolute worst thing I have ever heard! You sir are a monster! I'm adding you to my enemies list and I urge all slashdotters to do the same! You won't get away with such OUTRAGEOUS controlling statements!
        Our ancestors died to protect us from people like you, you MONSTER!

        HOW DARE YOU?!?!?!?!!!!
      • Re:The solution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @12:20AM (#8301983) Homepage Journal
        Leave it to slashdot moderators to label a Brainless Troll as +5 Insightful.

        Unlike YOU I actually read the article. The headline does not in any way mention "close friends" in fact, the article specifically says "to millions of the Democratic and Republican rank-and-file" which not only is not "only about a million" it actually sounds like another way of saying anyone and everyone we can find an email address for and even the vaguest excuse to claim they might possibly be interested.

        Even the writer of the articl is quick to admit how devious and underhanded this scheme is "And unlike those TV ads, the videos that appear on the Internet face none of the content regulations of the 2002 campaign finance law, including the statement by the candidate of "I approved this ad" that has given some campaigns pause before launching negative political ads. Web videos have the potential to be nastier than the typical TV ad."

        This is not even slightly about "save the environment" and other tree-hugging fantasies it's purely and simply a loophole they've carefully crafted so that they can circumvent some very important campaign laws.
        • a loophole they've carefully crafted so that they can circumvent some very important campaign laws

          That's impossible. Government would never act in self-interest. They represent us, not themselves. For the people, by the people.

      • Re:The solution (Score:3, Insightful)

        by BHearsum ( 325814 )
        Overreact?! They're SPAMMING FOR VOTES. It's as simple as that. Political campaigns are treated as a form of marketing, so why the hell should they be allowed to spam?
    • Mailwasher Software [mailwasher.net]
      I just send a bogus invalid email addresses back at them.
    • by Mateorabi ( 108522 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @12:03AM (#8301897) Homepage
      From the article, it sounds like they are only sending out to party loyalists / people already on distribution lists in order to create a 'buzz'. So you probably won't get one directly but it will be forwarded from a 'friend'.

      It'll probably even say something allong the lines of "Forward this to 10 friends or you'll be cursed with 4 years of bad govornment."

  • This will get ugly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:19PM (#8300597)
    This is what will allow this form of campaigning to get very ugly.

    And unlike those TV ads, the videos that appear on the Internet face none of the content regulations of the 2002 campaign finance law, including the statement by the candidate of "I approved this ad" that has given some campaigns pause before launching negative political ads. Web videos have the potential to be nastier than the typical TV ad.

    I don't think either campaign will be able to avoid the tempation. I also don't think the virus writers will be able to hold back either...

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    • by E_elven ( 600520 )
      >I don't think either campaign will be able to avoid the tempation. I also don't think the virus writers will be able to hold back either...

      Everybody thinks Kerry is going to get the nomination and that's why he probably will. Not saying he's any better or worse than any of the other guys, but he's played his media cards well.

      I'd personally go with Kuchinich since he's the most sensible of the lot (crazy as hell, but sensible.)

      My advice: vote for whomever you think is the best candidate, be it one of
      • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:50PM (#8300897)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by E_elven ( 600520 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:01PM (#8300985) Journal
          It's not just that.. somehow the American political culture is heavily bandwagony -a trend that's much less prominent in the other five or so cultures I've witnessed an election in.

          The key is to have the media spin you as the likely winner. It will make you so. Kind of like if Greenspan says things are looking down, they suddenly do so because, well, Greenspan said so and it must be true so let me just put this money under my mattress.
        • by gcaseye6677 ( 694805 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:21PM (#8301147)
          Dean's support being eroded by the scream is a myth. He never really had all that much support. Remember the scream came AFTER losing the Iowa primary by quite a lot of votes. Dean made a lot of money early on, but pretty soon all the people who were going to donate money on the internet had donated already. His actual numbers were pretty low, in spite of media hype. Its not surprising, considering Dean has the opposite position of the average American on just about every political issue.
          • by demachina ( 71715 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @02:32AM (#8302537)
            "Dean has the opposite position of the average American on just about every political issue."

            This is an odd assertion. I think its widely recognized that Dean was the only Democrat with the hutzpah to:

            - attack Bush
            - oppose the Patriot Act
            - oppose the Iraq war both for the deception used in selling it and the mess its proving to be
            - denounce special interests and the way they are outright purchasing our government

            Dean's fortunes really turned because Kerry, in particular, stole his message when he realized it was resonating with the majority of Democrats if not half the electorate as a whole. This leaves us with a bizarre hypocrisy where Kerry is now critical of the war in Iraq though he voted for it. He is critical of the Patriot Act though he voted for it and may have written predecessors of it. He is criticizing special interests though he takes more special interest money than anyone in the Senate.

            A real plus about Kerry is, if you don't like his positions on the issues, you can just wait a while and he will flip sides to the one you like. Of course he also flips from positions you like to ones you don't with equal randomness. He is completely devoid of conviction which means he is "electable".

            In all fairness, Dean did a lot of damage to himself when he stuck his foot in his mouth a few times on things like Saddam and Bin Laden. Its real hard to be a loose cannon, and take controversial positions, and also not stick your foot in your mouth sometimes.

            If it hadn't been for Dean the Democrats would have gone in to this election cowering in fear of Bush's invincibility and they would have gone down in flames. Now they at least have a chance since Dean gave them a backbone. Dean also made the first attempt in a while to actually restore democracy to this screwed up country by getting ordinary people involved in politics again, especially with the aid of the Internet which is likely to be the only thing that might save democracy in America. Unfortunately all those people are tasting the bitter pill of how the establishment and the media destroy anyone trying to restore actual democracy, with a little d, to this country. End result is we will have two wealthy aristocrats, both Yale grads, both members of Skull and Bones squaring off in November, to see whether we will have an establishment Democrat or an establishment Republican taking their turn in the White House.

            Dean might have said stupid things about Bin Laden, but its not quite as bad as the Bush family having intimate ties to the Bin Laden family. Bush also hushed up the extent Saudi Arabia was involved in 9/11 at the same time they were trying to pin it on Iraq which was probably the country in the Middle East that had the least involvement with Al Quaida, Bathists being secular socialists, not fundementalists, who claim to be Muslim mostly out of convenience. It still seems to be completely lost on Americans, smart people that they are, that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi for the most part. There were no Iraqi's.
    • by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:50PM (#8300889)
      We've already seen this set of loopholes exploited by the Bush team who e-mailed out an anti-Kerry video that doesn't contain the "I approve..." video from Bush that would be required if it was placed as a TV ad. Not too many people saw the e-mailed ad, but the major news organizations did and the cable networks all felt obligated to run the 30 second a few times amid several segments that discussed it.

      It's not exactly an ad that's destined for the hall of fame of political advertising. This is far too early in the campaign to be going negative. It really seems like we're in for a bumpy ride of an election, especially if Kerry decides to return fire.
      • by demachina ( 71715 )
        Its not well known but George W. learned dirty campaign tricks as far back as the 1972 Senate campaign which is at the heart of his Alabama National Gaurd controversy. This campaign is noteworthy because Bush's team, though perhaps not him personally, apparently doctored and spliced audio tapes of their Democratic opponent so he appeared to say that he was in favor of busing to force desegration at a time when this was the kiss of death for a politician in Alabama. It didn't work but they tried. Indicati
  • by pheared ( 446683 ) <`kevin' `at' `pheared.net'> on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:20PM (#8300614) Homepage
    With all this talk about how much everyone hates spam, even legislation supporting this idea, why would a candidate want to even come close to looking like they are spamming?

    It seems like it's too dangerous. Although, I guess there is a reason why spammers continue to spam. They really want that walking-around-in-their-underwear-at-walmart-scopi ng-the-latest-penis-enhacement-pills crowd. It almost makes sense when you consider it that way.
    • by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:32PM (#8300735)
      "With all this talk about how much everyone hates spam, even legislation supporting this idea, why would a candidate want to even come close to looking like they are spamming?"

      For the same reason they continue with political attack ads and the like even though nobody likes them: Everybody else is doing it, so why not? You may lose votes, but it certainly won't give votes to the other guy since they're doing it, too. Don't forget that many of the same members of Congress that supported the national do-not-call list still use telephone campaigning. Come to think of it, the "everybody else is doing it..." bit also explains much of their behavior while in office (re: USA PATRIOT Act).

      Then there's the additional reason "Because it works."

      "It seems like it's too dangerous."

      It's kinda like "Mutually Assured Destruction." They'll all stop as soon as everybody else stops.
    • by DeathToBill ( 601486 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:42PM (#8300820) Journal

      Spammers don't need you the way a candidate does. Most spammers have already annoyed most people, and expect that their emails will get deleted/filtered by 99% of people. Candidates need a large percentage of the population to support them, so campaigning in a way that loses you more people than you gain (such as spamming them) is not a Good Thing (TM).

      Thank God Australia hasn't gotten this far... yet...

  • by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#8300623) Homepage Journal
    I've gotten 3 or so phone calls from *#$#$ Kerry supporters. When the last one started off on all the great things Kerry was going to do, I basically said "That's exactly why I'm not voting for him. Thanks for calling!"

    Of course, I probably wouldn't be so annoyed if his platform didn't amount to nothing more than "I'm not Bush!" As a Senator, he's voted in favor of just about everything that Slashdotters despise. Why do you people like this guy?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:23PM (#8300657)
      I think you said why we like this guy.

      "I'm not Bush!"
    • by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:41PM (#8300809)
      Last year we here in Louisiana had a gubenatorial run-off. The year before we had an ugly US Senate run-off where both sides did copious amounts of telephone campaigning (canned messages from Bush, Daschle, et al) which pretty much got everybody angry (or so they say, there were still more voters in the run-off than the open primary).

      At any rate, last year there was very little telephone campaigning, except towards the end there were a few calls here and there at annoying hours for one candidate, and when word got around that candidate accused his competitor of hosting the telephoning in order to frame him.

      Are you sure those calls are really from Kerry supporters?

      One of the two reasons I'm not happy about "campaign finance reform" is that focusing more on limits and less on accountability actually helps things like this happen. The more otherwise legitimate contributions are forced to be made in roundabout manners, the more chaffe the truly despicable campaign practices have to hide among.
  • by Skynyrd ( 25155 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#8300627) Homepage
    I'm not too impressed with anybody in the race, but if I'm getting spam from them - there's no way in hell I'd vote for them.

    Their spam will be sent back. Their "voter feedback" form will be used to explain why I would never buy a product advertised by spam - including the President.
    • If enough of us do what you suggest, we won't receive any more spam from candidates advertising themselves. After all, a commercial spammer who pisses off only 99 people for every purchase would be a roaring success, but a political spammer who pisses off 4 people for every new convert would be a horrible failure, since 1 or 2 of those 4 people probably vote and will now vote against him.

      This won't do anything to stop negative spam, though. If you get an email talking about what an idiot Kerry is, does t
    • There is only one solution in my eye...vote libertarian.

      Of course, it really makes me want to form a new political party--the Technocrats. This party would focus on the use of technology to better the lives of everyone, and go by the philosophy that technology should be placed in the hands of as many people as possible. This, of course, can best be done by making sure everyone has the highest possible income, and that taxes are low. (I will figure out a way to justify it...don't worry).

      All right. Who'
    • by starm_ ( 573321 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @11:02PM (#8301463)
      Am I the only one who thinks that text is a much better medium that television for political campaigning? With television parties are force to blurt out only the catchy slogans that alure the general public because of time constraints.

      With text, tey can explain much more what their vision is. They can put links to more information. They can educate the public on their views much better.

      I mean it depends on what they do with it, but I think it could have potential.
  • who's paying? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gtrubetskoy ( 734033 ) * on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#8300630)

    So are they going to make my bandwidth [ispol.com] tax-deductable?

  • Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#8300635) Journal
    Which would you prefer:

    1. Junk mail, which has a realworld cost (printing paper means felling trees); or

    2. An email, which has negligible cost and is easily disposed of by deletion?
    • Which would you prefer:


      1. Junk mail, which has a realworld cost (printing paper means felling trees); or

      2. An email, which has negligible cost and is easily disposed of by deletion?
      I think I'd prefer the one that actually costs the candidate some money to send. If you want to send me your unsolicited message, then by God you ought to be the one paying for it, even if you are the leader of the free world.
    • Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fancia ( 710007 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:45PM (#8300848)
      I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If, during a week's vacation, physical junk mail is delivered in such quantities that it overflows my porch and causes the post office to begin burning or returning to sender all of my mail, including actual personal mail *and* each piece of junk mail can end up costing *me* and not the sender, then I'll hate it more than I hate spam.
    • Re:Oh please... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cyberformer ( 257332 )
      This tradeoff would work if every spam message actually replaced a piece of physical junk mail. The problem is that a junk mailer can send millions of spams for the cost of one paper flyer, and they do.

      Does anyone know if spam has actually decreased the volume of paper junk mail, or at least slowed its increase? My guess is that it probably hasn't, except in a few specialist areas such as press release distribution.
  • by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#8300636) Journal
    Na-na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na-na, Leader!
    Na-na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na-na, Leader!

    D'oh!
  • by LordKazan ( 558383 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#8300642) Homepage Journal
    If kerry spams me -- i'll send an email to his campaign HQ speaking about the evils of spam

    If bush spams me - i'll send an email back bitching him out for sending me an unsolicited email and continue on to bitching him out for being a complete retard
  • by Michael Crutcher ( 631990 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:23PM (#8300653)
    Bush might try to send me some email to try to solicit a contribution but I'm reasonably sure that my adult content filter will delete it.

    If I can devise a Lurch [addamsfamily.com] filter I might be able to avoid any messages from Kerry too.

  • Sure (Score:3, Funny)

    by barenaked ( 711701 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:24PM (#8300662)
    Sure it's annoying but it sounds like a good strategy to me.... Hell maybe Kerry oughta send out "VOTE BUSH" E-mails. Sure would get people riled up at Bush
  • Candidate spoofing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irhtfp ( 581712 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:24PM (#8300667)
    I can see spoofing (as in faking the source of) these types of emails to become very common.

    In fact, it was the first thing I thought of! How will I know whether the email I got was really from the candidate who supposedly sent it?

  • What Spam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by USAPatriot ( 730422 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:25PM (#8300676) Homepage
    The article doesn't say anything about you and me receiving "spam", or unsolicited bulk email from these campaigns.

    It only refers to their respective rank-and-file, I guess these people have signed up on some list to receive them.

    Once again, Slashdot hypes and puffs something up to be more than it really is. No need to get worked up over "Your Rights".

  • by Nakito ( 702386 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:28PM (#8300704)
    . . . is this: Where are they obtaining the email addresses for these mass mailings? The article states that they have "millions" of addresses. I find it hard to believe that millions of people have opted in to receive political email. I wonder if they political parties are instead using the same kinds of purchased email databases used by other large-scale spammers.
  • by corby ( 56462 ) * on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:30PM (#8300719)
    I gave to a Presidential campaign during the 2000 cycle. Over the next few months, I was deluged with snail mail and phone calls begging me for more money. I found it very frustrating and invasive. This year, I tried to give to a candidate's campaign through his website, but the process required me to provide an e-mail address that was verifiably mine. I did not complete the donation.

    I will give to a Presidential campaign that I support when I can check a box that says, 'Do not spam or harass me.' (Or when I can provide darl@sco.com as my e-mail address) But not before then, I'm afraid.
  • by admiral-v ( 548095 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:47PM (#8300864)
    IAAL

    The anti-spam law was limited in scope for constitutional reasons. The bill focused on content such as obscenity which could be regulated anyway based on established legal principles.

    I can't imagine the Supreme Court upholding a law that restricts people's right to political expression, the heart of what the framers intenced to protect, based on the reasoning that people find deleting the messages annoying.

    Here are some legal concepts I've heard people trying to use to support anti-spam legsilation.

    "Captive Audience": This concept, though related to the issue at hand, does not support anti-spam legislation. The fact that you receive the message in your inbox and then have to delete it is directly analogous to the snail-mail equivalent. Just because you have to look away when someone wears a "Fuck the Draft" jacket that offends you doesn't mean your rights have been infringed.

    "Time Place and Manner": This legal concept in all likelihood does not apply here. Though it's true that mass spam creates a nuissance on the part of the receiver, laws that inhibit speech need to allow an alternative method of expression. A blanket spam ban would offer no alternatives.
    • by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:57PM (#8300952) Homepage Journal
      Blockquoth the poster:

      I can't imagine the Supreme Court upholding a law that restricts people's right to political expression, the heart of what the framers intenced to protect, based on the reasoning that people find deleting the messages annoying.

      I agree completely. This is totally analogous to the decisions wherein the Court said that political activists can come uninvited into my home and staple campaign posters to all my walls...
      Oh, wait...
  • by ragingmime ( 636249 ) <ragingmime@@@yahoo...com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:52PM (#8300910) Homepage
    As a senator, John Kerry may have given his vote, and as President, George Bush signed it, but these two [senate.gov] wrote it, not Bush or Kerry. The CAN-SPAM act may be pretty bad, but Bush and Kerry didn't put loopholes into it to help their campaigns. If you're going to put political jabs into news posts, please do a little research first. :)
  • by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:00PM (#8300981)
    What happens when major providers start blacklisting their servers? Will they a) give up, b) resort to the same underhanded server-hopping techniques as the rest of the spammers or c) find a way to make blacklists illegal.

    If they have the right to spam me, I reserve the right to spam them back. On to the game of 'how many religion and porn lists can I sign up their staff for?

    Hint: it's scripted :-)
  • by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:04PM (#8301009)
    ...will get reported to Spamcop and then badmouthed "Yeah, KerBush said he could make my dick bigger..."
    Seriously, they have the law on their side, but morally they're no different than any other spammer.
  • by MattyCobb ( 695086 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:04PM (#8301020)
    I can see it now: "Need a better preSIdeNTT!>???!? Our pills make your president 25% better in as litte as 3 months*. CLICK EHRE! GET FREEEEE congress reports**!!!!!! ANDD make MONEYY at home offff CONGRESS-BAY!" *never ** porn" I for one welcome it though. At least it will be spam that won't refer to my special member, the rack i don't have, or a cable descrambler. That and I imagine any spam GW sends out will fill my heart with laughter.
  • Referrer spamming (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fatwreckfan ( 322865 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:14PM (#8301097)
    Disturbing as this is, a friend that has a blog has been getting referrer spam to candidates' webpages of all things.

    If you're unfamiliar with the term, referrer spamming is when fake HTTP Referrer headers are used to make referrers show up in webserver logs so the webmasters think they are linked to by that site.

    He was getting only porn spamming up until about a month ago, when the presidental candidate pages started showing up.
    • Re:Referrer spamming (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kris ( 824 ) <kris-slashdot@koehntopp.de> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @02:00AM (#8302418) Homepage
      The aim here is not to make the webmaster think that they are linked by that site, but to boost page rank.

      Referer stats are often part of stats pages that are made available under the original URL of your site. For example, if your domain is http://example.com/, your stats may be made available to you from http://stats.example.com by your hoster. The hope is that your stats are available without password protection and are found by Google.

      By showing up in your referer stats, the spammers are essentially creating a link from your stats domain to their site, boosting their general google page rank tremendously.
  • by EvilLiberalGuy ( 739004 ) * on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:19PM (#8301135) Journal
    People who react to this spam with profanity laced rants and/or death threats can now be jailed in federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison for threatning the President or a presidential candidate. Good way to stop the opposition.
  • by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:31PM (#8301224)
    I'm not excited about spam, but politics by email seems like it is leveling the playing field a bit.

    Someone who isn't a rich, "preapproved" canidate can stand toe-to-toe in emails.....well, at least come closer to it.

    Steve
  • by lkaos ( 187507 ) <anthony AT codemonkey DOT ws> on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:58PM (#8301431) Homepage Journal
    I certainly wouldn't object to receiving one email from each candidate stating their stances on important issues and why I should vote for them.

    This email should contain embedded flash or any of that nonsense. Basically, it's like a candidate coming to your door. As long as they are respectful, polite, and only do it once, I see no real problem with it.
  • by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @12:10AM (#8301938) Homepage Journal
    After all the years we've spent bitching and moaning about SPAM sucking up the last vestiges of space in our inbox - these presidential candidates think they're going to win votes by emailing out a VIDEO attachment?

    "The format is a Web video message e-mailed to millions of the Democratic and Republican rank-and-file."

    You have GOT to be kidding me!

    You have to wonder WHY are they DOING THIS?

    "And unlike those TV ads, the videos that appear on the Internet face none of the content regulations of the 2002 campaign finance law"

    No surprises here: Politicians find new ways in which The LAW does not apply to them. Details at 11.
  • by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @05:13AM (#8303062)
    I just hope they've gone over their lists with a nit comb to remove all non-US email addresses... cos I for one do NOT want to receive any...
  • by rodney dill ( 631059 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:59AM (#8303618) Journal
    Filter anything containing the candidate names and party names
  • by CrimsonTemplar ( 450939 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:28AM (#8303825)
    ...someone decides to spoof one (or both) of the candidates email addresses and begins sending out viruses. I'm sure that'll be a boon for their campaigns.

Avoid strange women and temporary variables.

Working...