For me it is just not acceptable at all that a global company like Siemens is sending via Frankdata / Teluis (69.64.156.44, 70.32.43.3).

STOP SPAMMING US SIEMENS

I am disappointed that you cannot see the difference between disgusting emails sent illegally from hi-jacked machines anonymously and an email sent mistakenly to you by the RAC.

Perhaps when you have dependants who might innocently come across this vile torrent of insidious sin you might alter your opinion.

If the law hasn’t yet caught up with this then morally it should and I hope it will, soon.

Yes, it was wrong, you should have been treated better. I have already stated what should have happened.

Lumping these two *very different* forms of email together allows you to take the stance that you are involved at the front line of combat against spam.

This is not true. You are involved in combating the 1% of spam that is easy to trace and sent by companies in error such as the RAC.

You have chosen to fight the 1% battle.

To the uninformed it might appear that you are taking a major stance against spam. You are not.

If your header had said ‘ignoring the bulk of spam, often of a pornographic and just plain nasty nature, I have selected this one from the RAC as it’s easy to trace to publicise my fight against the 1% of spam’ I probably wouldn’t have read any further.

I would have been much more impressed had you tracked down some of the perpetrators of the seedier spams. Now that would have been hard, and possibly dangerous.

And my whole point was that the RAC did not comply with the law! So I cannot see what point you are trying – and failing – to make. Spam is spam is spam. It makes not one jot of difference who sends it. It makes not one jot of difference whether its is sent via “a zombie network” or from Spamhauses in Korea, China or Florida. It’s still Spam.

And whilst large UK-based companies continue to flout the legislation they are no better than those flogging warez or pharmaceuticals or dump stocks.

It’s like this.

o The RAC wants to attract new customers
o The RAC uses a marketing company to select likely customers
o The RAC expects the marketing company to use opted in emails (it may even be in the contract), they may also supply data
o The marketing company buys data, sorts it, categorises it from a variety of sources – all ‘guaranteed’ opted in (FX: ROFL) they may or may not have comeback clauses
o the marketing company broadcasts. As it wants to stay in business, it is not in it’s interests to bite the hand that feeds it.

As I have already said, it’s all about the data.

What is broken here is the data – and it’s provenance.

There is nothing wrong with marketing to people who have agreed to receive marketing.

It’s really quite simple. Comply with the law.

The above steps *do not apply* to the guys who send nasty stuff via zombie networks. So whereas in the above there is an identifiable process to attack (I’d like to use ‘improve’) the 1%, there is none for the *95%* of bad stuff coming through.

They are not the same!

Ignoring the 95% *by far the worst* in order to drive down the 1% seems to me to be – how shall I say it? surprising?

Concentrating such effort on punishing the RAC/service provider may be laudable but does it supply the most good?

…which is back to my original point. The RAC wants new customers and has chosen to flout the legislation by buying list of e-mail addresses from a Spammer. And you don’t seem to have a problem with that.

The “think of the business community” crap is one reason why it took so long to bring in anti-Spam legislation here. Funnily enough, we do well enough in terms of new business through our web presence and the search engines without ever having had to resort to spamming anyone.

“I received about 180 spams yesterday”

…whereas I received 1,214 – my daily average is around 1,000.

And there is no difference between people trying to sell me pharamceuticals or breakdown services by UCE. It’s still Spam. It’s still not a legitimate way of doing business.

You would need unprecedented support to achieve these aims by pushing (kicking?) governments into a position where they’d. take your stance. Of course it would be easier if they were able to make money out of it, but I don’t see that opportunity here.

We are wandering off topic.

I use http://assp.sourceforge.net/ to trap spam. It’s *very* effective. I received about 180 spams yesterday, many of which were phishing, phamaceutical (!), other scams or pornographic. I expect 95% were zombie produced – I am quite happy to go through this with you if you wish to firm up the stats. Personally I don’t bother unless something I am expecting doesn’t get through. The remaining 5% was made up of items I had requested but ASSP thinks is spam (Laverda owners club) or other spam. Thunderbird mops up a couple that get through.

I just can’t get excited about the couple that sneak past. Like most people, I run anti spam software – and it’s very effective and free. Was the email you received offensive? If it came via the RAC I doubt it. I think getting hot under the collar about this level of traffic is rather yesterday.

I can’t yet stop the new pdf’s and straight images. I find these *far* nastier. But then it is so much harder to track down the real culprits. These guys send the kind of stuff I’d hate my kids to see, if they glanced at my monitor at the wrong moment.

My kids already know about nasty filthy spam and it doesn’t come from the RAC.

BTW, WRT to MPS, FPS, TPS I have subscribed to all three. They stopped almost 100% all mail, phone and fax pestering. The ‘almost’ is fine by me – my wife no longer thinks we are being stalked as a result of those delightful ’silent’ phone calls. I think they are a great service and far far better than nothing at all – whoever runs them. Now the banking ombudsman… that’s another story.

If you are being pestered by faxes after subscribing to the FPS, why aren’t you pursuing them with the same zeal you apply to email? I just don’t get it. Why is one OK and not the other? I find faxes far more offensive as they cost me money to receive and tie up my phone line. I might add that I have never received filth over the fax. That’s a fair indictment of nasty emails.

Does it come down to what is trendy to think and talk about? Fax is 80’s and lacks kudos, email is – well, 90’s ish. Everyone likes to go on about the 1% of unsolicited marketing they may receive – and ignore the 95% of nasty, criminal philth or even worse bundle them up together.

I think you are on the wrong soapbox. There are worse things going on in the world.

Or the global ability to opt-out your domain names.

Or for respectable companies to simply follow the law…

Oh and the TPS is run by whom? Oh yes. Maybe that’s why I still receive junk faxes.

Data should have provenance. That comes either from a full audit trail concerning the opt-in, or provenance supplied by the data supplier. Either way, you should be able to request the opt-in provenance from the service provider and if it isn’t present, you should be ‘outed’ from the list. Even better, you should be able to do it for yourself.

Having the provenance means that you can identify the *source* list and be removed from that – hopefully removing you also from any companies using the list.

We have this…
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/
for fax too, which is *really* useful.Something global like this for email would be a move forward.

If they were a legitmate company, yes. Of course the fact that the e-mail they added to their list – along with many others in the past – was never opted-in in the first place speaks volumes about their legitmacy.

I doubt the RAC wanted to break the law, I think it is down to rubbish data. Nevertheless, pursuing the RAC will achieve something, as they will pursue the service company. I wanted to outline that there is more that can be done for a long term solution rather than bandwidth sapping short term fixes.

Ignoring your request to discuss it is appalling. WRT the service company, I would expect them simply to remove you from the list and let you know it has been done.

British law is flawed WRT to bulk email broadcasts – see http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/newslog/CategoryView,category,SPAM.aspx