Re: Dealing with Spam

From: Cliff Kurtzman <cliff_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Wed 31 Jul 2002 12:31:11 -0500

Rob Frankel <rob_at_robfrankel.com> wrote:

>Responding back to those spam remove links only verifies
>your address, so forget that. Auto responders do the
>same thing, since spam vendors only promise to sell
>"valid" e-mail addresses to their victims.

This may be true in some cases, but I think this is largely
urban legend.

I had been getting about about 500 spams a day at my various
aliases and the aliases of some of my ex-employees whose
addresses now forward to me. As an experiment, I started
following the instructions and unsubscribing using the
links provided. My observations are as follows:

Most of the unsub links that actually take you to a working
page to unsubscribe are valid... they will remove you from the
list. Every once in a while, some jerk spammer that does not
want to process unsubs sends you to someone else's unsub page
just to make you think you are getting off their list... but
usually if the domain in the spam and the domain of the unsub
page match... the remove link is legit.

For example, last Tuesday, I found two of my addresses had been
suddenly subscribed to ADBUMB without permission... requiring me
to spend my time figuring out which addresses where being
spammed and follow the links given to unsubscribe them. Not
a big problem with just two addresses from one spammer, but
when it gets to hundreds of spams a day by dozens of spammers
a day, it results in a real loss of productivity to have to
mess with it.

That said, many of the spammers remove you from their list,
only to add you again a week later with the next list they buy.
Some of them keep a permanent remove list, and alway re-prune
you out when they acquire new addresses... but a lot of them
don't do that. And the folks that fed the spammer your address
in the first place are just going to feed it to someone else
next week, requiring you to go to again unsub from the next
list.

Also, in some cases it does take them a week or two to really
remove you from their queued backlog of spams... so you will
keep getting them for a while even after you submit to a legit
unsubscribe page.

Those that ask you to unsub by an email address that matches
the domain name of the links in the spam will usually work.
Those that send you to generic email accounts to unsub, such
as btamail.net.cn, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, aol.com, or
excite.com almost never work... don't waste your time with
them.

All in all, I'd guess that I have reduced my spam volume
by about 60% by unsubbing. The other 40% seems unsubbable.
I am not at all sure it was worth the time it took me to
unsub from all the lists.


--Cliff

Clifford R. Kurtzman, Ph.D.
President and CEO
The Tenagra Corporation The Online Advertising Discussion List
http://www.tenagra.com/ http://www.o-a.com/
281/480-6300
Using the Internet as a Strategic Asset





Received on Wed Jul 31 2002 - 12:31:11 CDT