Re: Dealing with Spam

From: James Santagata <jsanta_at_audiencetrax.com>
Date: Fri 09 Aug 2002 20:55:18 -0500

"Pesach Lattin" <info_at_adspyre.com> wrote:

> Anywho, one person read 20 something issues of my newsletter, sent us
> comment letters for publication twice, and recently sent a complaint into
> SPAMCOP that he was signed-up without permission.

I've experienced this phenomenon as well. Sometimes, it occurs from
someone who is upset by one mailing or is just lazy and doesn't
want to unsub in the normal manner (replying to the message
or clicking an unsub link).

About a year and a half ago, I experienced a situation where
we handled an email distribution of confirmed double opt-ins
for a cosmetic company. Surprisingly, we got a huge number
of spam complaints and I was very concerned and did some
research to find out what happened. What I found was that
all of the spam complaints came from MEN -- this prompted me
to dig deeper for answers.

What transpired was that women (being the cunning creatures
that they are) were using their husbands/boyfriends' computer
to sign up for the newsletter and even confirmed opt-in
using their hubbies/boyfriend's email account.

This was not some devious scheme on their part, they just
wanted this newsletter and used their husbands/boyfriend's
email account to get it (I guess that's the cyber
equivalent of a women wearing a man's shirt around the house).

This type of scenario is something that Spamcop and MAPS don't
(or didn't at the time) consider at all. I brought this up to
Peter Popovich of MAPS who happened to be giving a
presentation at an SVLUG meeting right after we experienced
this (Tom Geller was there, too -- do you remember that
conversation Tom?) and it seemed to be the first time Peter
had heard of it. Peter did say in these situations be sure to
keep good records and you should be fine if you need
to present your case. That may be true, but it does add an
extra hassle factor (i.e., raises the business costs) to the
ethical, opt-in email marketer.

> I'm a little concerned that people are still bringing up the
> myth that the unsolicited fax law somehow applies to this,
> since no one AFAIK has ever actually been successfully fined
> on this law.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020807/ap_on_hi_te/junk_faxes_fine_4

Fax.com Fined $5.4M for Junk Faxes
Wed Aug 7, 6:21 PM ET
By DANNY FREEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission ( news
- web sites) issued a record fine of nearly $5.4 million
Wednesday against a company for sending "junk faxes" to
businesses and consumers...


James Santagata

A U D I E N C E T R A X
http://www.audiencetrax.com





Received on Fri Aug 09 2002 - 20:55:18 CDT