Community Corner --------------------------------------------------------- Dear Spammer From - Judi Singleton Dear Spammer, I am writing to you to tell you that as a very small business person with a big dream you are costing me my time, money and energy. By the time I empty my business emails every night I am almost to tired to do business. You consider yourself a legit business person and you think if you bombard me enough with your offers I will buy something from you, Wrong. First of all I don't buy things from burglars that break into my home or spammers that steal my time with their offers. The ones that really bug me are the spammers that subscribe to my ezines with autoresponder addresses, and or send me thousands of offers to lose weight, look at porn, buy their newest program that will make me a millionaire in 30 days. Because they have subscribed to my ezine they are technically not spamming as they have received mail from me. One even wrote me the other day and said "How can you accuse me of spam and treat your subscribers this way?" The creeping belief that bulk e-mail is acceptable is making spam growth rates take off. The U.S. government years ago outlawed commercial faxes, because they cost the recipient money and time. But the same argument hasn't yet banned spam, which its apologists confuse with "free speech." It isn't free speech, and here's why: It costs the recipient money. EarthLink, the Internet service provider, estimates that 10 percent to 30 percent of the e-mail traffic that ISPs carry is spam. This doesn't include the labor costs of engineers and programmers who must deal with spam, for which the company says it pays millions of dollars per year. You pay for this as part of your monthly ISP bill. It costs the recipient money. In February, AT&T WorldNet's e-mail systems were paralyzed for more than 24 hours by an overload of bulk e-mail. And it isn't only ISPs that get shut down. Users of free Hotmail accounts, for example, face a 2MB storage limit on their inboxes. Spam can push you over this threshold in a few days, causing important messages to be rejected. Many Hotmail users must now pay $19.95 per year for extra storage space to keep their addresses from refusing mail. Here is what two of our Supreme Court Justices have to say about spam: US Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin: "[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands." Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court "Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain." While the legal definition of UCE varies from one place to another, http://spam.abuse.net provides a general description on their "What Is Spam?" page: http://spam.abuse.net/overview/whatisspam.shtml The following is an excerpt from that page: Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender. As of right now, the best tool we have in fighting spam is to REPORT it. Most people feel that they are just helpless against spam, so they just delete it. One ISP recently told me that they receive very few spam complaints, but that if EVERYONE would report it, we would soon see it stopped. Spam should be reported to the ISP's, servers and web-hosts of the spammers. However, since this information is often difficult to ascertain from the header (much of the header info can be faked), I advise novices to use a reporting service (more on headers in a moment). If you decide to report spam (and I wish everyone would), you must know how to retrieve both the headers and the source code of the email. The header tells where the email originated. The source code is needed for html formatted mail. Links to websites in html can look like anything, but the source looks at that coding and picks out the links. Do not complain to the sending address (that is usually fake) and never use the removal address (although that is quite often a fake, it is sometimes used to confirm a good address). You can learn how to read the header, but I just use Spam Cop (see below). You still have to know how to get the header and source code to use Spam Cop. Here is how to retrieve the header and source code in Outlook Express: (1) highlight the unopened message. (2) Right click (3) Choose PROPERTIES. (4) A window will open with two tabs. Choose the DETAILS tab. (5) There will be a button on that windows that says MESSAGE SOURCE. Click that button. (6) Highlight ALL of the information in that window and copy it. To copy it, press the ctrl key on your keyboard. While you are holding it down, press the c key. (7) Paste all the info you just copied into your complaint message, or, if you are using Spam Cop, into the Spam Cop reporting window. To paste, press the ctrl key on your keyboard. While holding it down, press the v key. Reporting spam helps, but not much. If you report it to the ISP they used, some ISP's will terminate the account. The spammer will just use another ISP. If the spam is advertising a website, the website is usually hosted in a country that is not concerned about spam. 90% of the non-porn spam I get is advertising a site hosted in China. 90% of the porn spam sites are hosted in Korea and Indonesia. Complaining to web hosts in these countries is useless. Well, so much for advise on getting rid of you Mr. Spammer but as long as people buy pills to enlarge their penis, or believe that you are trying to get two million dollars out of your country and will split it with them if you just help them get this money out of their country spam will continue. So if you really don't want to have your time wasted and spend your hard earned money on spammers don't buy from them. Never reply to their emails even to unsubscribe this just tells the spammer he/she has hit a good address. Well now that I have that one off my chest I will go on emptying my email box and try and run my business. Whew I have had this on my mind all week I feel 20 pounds lighter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the author Judi Singleton is the webmistress of http://www.Jassmine.com and http://www.gotojassminesitenow.com Join her ezines: jassminesjournal@rapidreply.net alightinthewindow-subscribe@yahoogroups.com anangelonmyshoulder@rapidreply.net creativeimagination@rapidreply.net herbalharvest-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Totheuniverse-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Use the "BACK" button in your browser to return to Carlton's Corner...... |