Created and maintained by Bill Beaty
IPTOOLS (very useful!)
Should email advertising be made illegal? Well, here's the message I send
when companies send me junkmail:
Unsolicited email advertising hurts me. I run a service which answers children's email science questions, and it is being significantly damaged by the flood of unsolicited advertising. Eskimo.com blocks most spam, but still I must read up to 30 ads a day before deleting them, because I cannot take a chance and delete a child's message.I say, YES YES YES, ban unsolicited email advertising totally!!!I only have about 1/2hr per day to help kids, so you can imagine that the spam plague is seriously hurting my service.
But won't this have repercussions for Freedom of Speech? No.
Why? Well,
right now it's illegal to send junkmail ads by fax machine. This hasn't
wrecked freedom of speech in this country. Fax-machine junkmail is
illegal because it lets outsiders tie up your phone and use up your fax
paper without your
permission. If it wasn't illegal, you'd probably get fifty fax ads per
day (and in the UK, where fax advertising is legal,
people do receive this many ads.) Note that if you receive an illegal fax
machine junkmail ad today, the government won't do a thing. However
YOU can sue the sender for $500, or $1500 if the sender broke the
law intentionally. Actually, many collection companies exist which will
(for example) go after the fax-abuser, get the $500, then get a $300
"take" and give you $200.
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 CourtLATEST NEWS: it is now illegal to send spam to residents of Washington state, but only when the "from" address or other email headers are forged, if the spammer uses 3rd-party ISPs without their permission, or if the "subject" line is misleading. Individuals of course must take action against the spam they receive. Some people make a hobby of taking spammers to court, and they make thousands of bucks per year doing so. Maybe other states in the US will enact such laws.
"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."
Spam is not just an irritant. For those who haven't figured it out...
try to calculate how many email ads you personally can expect in the
far
future. To do this, first ask yourself how many companies are currently
using the internet. What if all of those companies freely sent their
advertising to EVERYONE on the net? (There are no limits on bulk-email,
so such a thing is perfectly possible.) If this started happening, then
everyone who sent a spam message would also receive hundreds of thousands
of spam messages every day. People who DIDN'T send spams would receive
the same number. See? Hundreds of thousands of companies, and each one
wants to send you just one measily little email ad. Since bulk-mail
spamming does work, and it's also very
inexpensive, there's good reason for ALL companies to send advertising to
EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, CONSTANTLY!
Am I getting too shrill? :) Well, that's the worst case example. I
doubt it will ever get that bad because at present, we know that people
who send out email advertisements are unethical scum. Very few legitimate
companies are so clueless that they ever use unsolicited advertising.
Since nobody wants to receive huge numbers of spam emails, ethical people
know never to SEND email advertisements, even if it's legal. If you
receive a spam ad, it's almost guaranteed to be from an ignorant
slimeball.
However, if spam ever achieves even a little respectability, then we
should expect to receive FAR more junkmail than we do now. The ISPs
support the cost of it, therefore there is no upper limit. If an
advertiser says "Don't complain, I only sent you a couple of messages per
year" ...and if hundreds of thousands of advertisers say the same thing,
then you'll receive a couple thousand pieces of unwanted email PER DAY.
Other than banning spam entirely, there's no good way to limit the number
of spams you receive, since there's no way to limit the total number of
advertisers on internet.
The situation is similar to the one where people throw trash out of car
windows. An occasional napkin or gum wrapper is nothing, but if such
behavior becomes acceptable, and if everyone everywhere constantly throws
their McDonalds bags and their used kleenex out the car windows, then our
streets instantly look like snow-drifts of garbage. See? When huge
numbers of people are involved, if all of them commit a small unethical
act, it ends up causinag a huge problem. Same with spam messages: to
prevent your inbox from becoming a garbage dump filled with thousands of
messages per day, *YOU* must never send out unsolicited email
advertisements. Ever! That's the only simple way to deal with the
problem.
In addition, we must come down hard on even the well-meaning companies who
only rarely use unsolicited email to advertise, and we must give a very
nasty response which is all out of proportion to the minor act of sending
email advertisements. This is how it works with litterbugs too.
Whenever a cop sees you throw a tiny gum-wrapper out of your car window,
that's a $500 fine for littering. Too severe for just a gum wrapper?
No. To eliminate the giant pile of garbage, each "napkin" or "gum
wrapper" must attract fairly extreme retribution, otherwise the many
cheaters in our vast population will all say this to themselves "it's only
one little gum wrapper, jeeze!" And they'll *ALL* be tempted to add their
tiny contribution to the giant pile while ridiculing all who complain.
Yet tiny infractions plus vast population equals vast piles of garbage.
And tiny harmless email ads plus a huge number of clueless advertisers means that your inbox will become choked and useless. Unless sending just one email ad becomes a major crime, thousands of advertisers will say "Jeeze, I only sent you a couple of messages, what's the big deal?" And if you convince one advertiser to take your name off their list, ten more will find you and start sending you emails. Huge spam fines and draconian anti-spam laws become appropriate. These are the same types of laws that are currently aimed at the clueless cheaters who pitch trash out of car windows onto highways.
Yes, spammers send spam, but think for a moment: Why do they bother? How
can anyone make money at this? The answer is simple: spam advertising
works. In other words, SOME IDIOTS RESPOND TO SPAM ADVERTISING! It's
true! They send money to spammers. And that's the only reason that
spam exists.
Let me make it simpler. Suppose you receive fifty spams a week for crap
that you would never buy. Then one day you receive an ad for a half-price
CD from a band you like. Or maybe it's discount vitamins at a decent
price, and so you go to their webpage and order some. BINGO, you are now
the cause of spam. You have given money to one spammer, and justified the
existence of all the others. "But what's the harm in buying something
once?" Yeah, right, and hundreds of thousands of other people are
thinking the same thing. If it wasn't for people like you, spammers could
make no money at all, and email ads would not exist. All the spammers
which are sending you crap are only doing so because SPAM WORKS! Spam
advertising works really well. Send out billions of messages for free,
selling cheap cameras and eBay books and even fake Viagra... and a few
idiots will actually buy from you. Why should spam advertisers ever want
to stop?
Even simpler: people who buy things from spammers are evil.
:)
A simple definition of "evil" is this: evil is doing something that, if
everyone
else did it too, this would ruin everyday life for all of us. People who
pitch bags of greasy hamburger wrappers out of their car windows are
"evil" in this way. People who buy
products from spammers are "evil" because they are the sole reason that
spam exists. Spammers themselves are "evil" because nobody wants ten
million spam ads per day. Even the relatively few cheaters who send
us only fifty spams per day are perpetrating the same kind of genuine
evil.
PS
Spam is not bulkmail. Spam isn't fly-by-night advertising.
Spam is not unwanted emails. "Spam" has a simple meaning: it is
unsolicited email advertising. Period. Why do I say this now? Because
I've met many people who buy stuff from spammers, and they justify their
action by insisting... that those advertisments weren't spam! They say
that spam is *only* the ads for penis pills and pyramid scams. They think
that "spam" means ads for crap, while the unsolicited email ads for
interesting things are not spam. Wrong.
If it's an email ad, and if you didn't sign up with some sort of advertising service, then that ad is spam. That's what the word spam MEANS. And, if you respond to unsolicited email ads, then you are dealing with spammers, even if the spammers are selling products that you want to buy.
And also, it is illegal, it is a scam, it is a lie. Since you
must send your money through the mails it is classed as mail fraud, so it
is A FEDERAL OFFENSE.
David Rhodes started the "MAKE MONEY
FAST" pyramid scheme. He spent time in federal prison for it.
Go here for info about the
illegality of "make money fast" chain letters, pyramid schemes, etc.
Unscrupulous spam-senders often send messages having false
return addresses. In this case your complaint will do no good.
However, if the unwanted ad contains a webpage address,
it's usually possible to find the spammers' ISP (internet provider)
and send your complaint there.
Most ISP companies hate spammers and have policies against unsolicited
ads. If you complain to the spammers' ISP, chances are that the ISP
company will delete the spammers' entire website.
Use the WHOIS service to discover the spammers' ISP. For example, if the
spam message contains this URL: "www.spamco.com," then go to the
INTERNIC "whois" server here:
http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois
...and type "spamco.com" into the search form (NOT www.spamco.com,
but instead just the last two words of the spammers' webpage address.) If
the
WHOIS search gives WEBMASTER@SOMEWHERE.NET as the admin/billing person
for that company, then send your complaint there, and also send it to
postmaster@somewhere.net, and to abuse@somewhere.net. Attach the original
unwanted advertising to your complaint, and also attach the header of that
advertising message.
Sometimes the WHOIS search reveals that the spammer is also their
own Service Provider company. (This is frequently the case for larger
companies such as computer discount houses and porno services.) In this
case, the owner's email address will be
something like INFO@SPAMCO.COM. Complaining to these people will
probably do little. You can still do something, though. The same
WHOIS search will give you the Domain Server for that spamming company
(DNS, or Domain Name Servers.) This gives you a clue as to who connects
them to the internet. You can send your complaint there. For example, if
the
Nameservers in the WHOIS report are something like DNS1.BIGCORP.NET,
you can send your complaint to POSTMASTER@BIGCORP.NET and to
ABUSE@BIGCORP.NET
If a particular unwanted ad gets you really ticked off, there's no reason
to hold back, why not send a copy of your complaint to ALL of the above
postmaster and administrator sites? The owners of the bosses of the ISPs
of the spammers will then know who is misusing their services. If enough
people complain like this, then even the somewhat-advertiser-friendly
Service Providers might be persuaded to stiffen their User Regulations
to ban those who send unsolicited advertising.
While NETCOM may have been mentioned somewhere in the headers of the email
you have received; those references to NETCOM's accounts and servers were
FORGED. Please do not try to email the accounts mentioned in the email, as
they probably do not exist.
Spammers on the internet will guess at your email address. If it's easy to
guess at, ie "sam@domain.com" you will get 'probe' emails. They usually
state "Reply with REMOVE in the subject line to get off this list." If you
follow their instructions, YOU WILL NOT BE REMOVED. Usually instead they
take your now VERIFIED email address and sell it off to a premium mailing
list, making money. At that point the spam in your mailbox usually will
increase by a large amount. I highly recommend not replying to any spam
you receive, and I also recommend that your email address be something
unique, not being found in a dictionary helps.
Please also realize the importance of contacting the original domain when
you receive spam. It's impossible for them to know it's happening until
someone forwards them a complaint. If everyone were to ignore spam, the
originating domain would never know it's happening. With your complaint,
NETCOM can always track down it's own user and disable the offending
account.
Here is an example of spam originating from Netcom, even though it does
not have the word 'netcom' anywhere in the headers. This is intended as
an instruction to people who do not already know how to read headers. If
you know how to read headers, please disregard.
This is an EXAMPLE of junk mail headers. Please do not send to any of the
domains referenced. The IP numbers have been changed except the ones
referencing Netcom.
Received: from server1.fake (server1.fake [266.0.93.1])
by server2.fake (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA13218
for <>; Thu, 1 Nov 1961 21:11:53 -0600 (CST)
Received: from internet.abc (server.internet.abc [266.32.0.4]) by
server1.fake (8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA06062 for <>;
Thu, 1 Nov 1961 21:11:53 -0600 (CST)
Received: from 432BRxr9q ([205.184.139.163])
by internet.abc (8.8.7/8.8.6) with SMTP id VAA16385;
Thu, 1 Nov 1961 21:54:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Nowhere@Nothere
Received: from login_0246.whynot.spam (mx.whynot.spam[206.0.231.0]) by
whynot.spam (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA02135 for <>;
Sat, 13 January 1961 01:51:22 -0700 (EDT)
Date: 05 Nov 10 10:07:12 PM
Message-ID:
To: friends@mine
Subject: Generic junk mail example
Content-Type: text
Let's start reading this from the top. You reside somewhere in the
server2.fake domain. Let's see where you received it from.
Received: from server1.fake (server1.fake [266.0.93.1])
by server2.fake (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA13218
for <>; Thu, 1 Nov 1961 21:11:53 -0600 (CST)
You received it from server1 [266.0.93.1]. Never go by what is in the
parenthesis. It could be forged, always go by the IP number in brackets.
Where did server1 receive it from?
Received: from internet.abc (server.internet.abc [266.32.0.4]) by
server1.fake (8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA06062 for <>;
Thu, 1 Nov 1961 21:11:53 -0600 (CST)
This means that server1 received it from [266.32.0.4], there are tools on
the web that will help you verify the name associated with the IP
number. Let's keep going down and see if this IP was the originator or
if it was relayed through them.
Received: from 432BRxr9q ([205.184.139.163])
by internet.abc (8.8.7/8.8.6) with SMTP id VAA16385;
Thu, 6 Nov 1997 21:54:25 -0500 (EST)
This means that it was relayed through internet.abc! It came from
205.184.139.163. Now we go to one of our tools to find the name associated
to that IP number. I use nslookup
on 205.184.139.163. It tells me that it
is knx-tn7-03.ix.netcom.com. Let's go down one more time to see if this is
the originator, or if it was relayed through netcom also.
Received: from login_0246.whynot.spam (mx.whynot.spam[206.0.231.0]) by
whynot.spam (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA02135 for <>;
Sat, 01 January 1914 01:51:22 -0700 (EDT)
If this was a valid Received line, it would show received by netcom.com.
Since it doesn't this is a FORGED header.
Conclusion: It originated at [205.184.139.163] which is
knx-tn7-03.ix.netcom.com. It was relayed through [266.32.0.4] which was
internet.abc.
Remember, always go by the IP addresses in brackets. Never go by the From
line, Reply-To line, Authenticated Sender line, or the name of the domain
in the parenthesis. To find tools such as 'nslookup' on the web, use your
favorite search engine to lookup that word.
Thank you
Eric
NETCOM Policy Management
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NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc. abuse@netcom.com
NETCOM Policy Management: (408) 881-3499 M-F 9AM-5PM PST
24-Hour Technical Support: (408) 881-1810 support@netcom.com
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