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Spam is evil.

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I have been reading your blog for a couple of months now. Today I was reading your comment on unsubscribing from spam. It made me remember an idea that came to me a couple of days ago and I wanted to see what you thought:

What if, instead of religiously NOT responding to spam, everyone started to reply to spam? Is it possible that this would: a) Bring down the spammers servers? b) Bring down any servers clandestinely co-opted by spammers, thereby alerting the server owner of having been infiltrated c) Bury any legitimate (from the spammer's point of view) responses in a mountain of non-serious responses, thereby eliminating or greatly reducing the effectiveness of the spamming sales/marketing strategy as well as the value of any spam mail address lists?

I realize that this would not affect anybody using spam as a virus or DOS tool. It also would expose everyone participating to be then identified as a "live" address, but if a large number of people did this what value would all those "live" addresses have?

The key, obviously, would be to get everyone to adjust their behavior at roughly the same time. That's why I thought of you. If anybody could get a "ground-root" campaign underway, it could maybe be you and your network.

What do you think?

Daniel

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a) lend legitimacy to their perception that spam works, and they would just buy more servers

b) cause a lot of extra traffic in the net

c) do more harm than good.

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Doc says that responding to spam confirms that you are a live user, well I guess that is right providing they have the technology to deal with this. But as Doc has said in the past 'markets are about conversations' (sic sorry Doc) I am having a conversation with my spamers and those that care about conversation are listening! I _am_ getting less spam

1. I don’t believe that the vast majority of spamers are sophisticated enough to listen to replies, if they are that sophisticated then they stop sending it to you, some of the time. 2. Replying to bona-fide sites (those that have a registered site) has reduced my spam by 50% 3. We need to adopt strategies to cope with SPAM but I worry about 'loosing the conversation.' Ask me would I rather we legislate against spam and restrict the ‘conversation' or would I rather we all continue to winge about spam and ramp up the tool set to reduce it. 4. The risk of anti spam legislation closing the bazaar is too great, spam is pain so get smart and develop strategies to deal with it.

So suck it up and go get mail washer or some such. Junk mail will not go away nor will spam, making it go away may just make all sorts of other things like freedom to send email go away as well.

Do I like spam? NO! Do I like the internet freedom YES! will I get spam no matter what we do ......

</diatribe off >

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I am familiar with a number of e-tailers and e-commerce players. Some of them have come to me seeking consulting services. I am also quite familiar with the methods of aggregating and scrubbing, as well as the vetting of addresses.

Many e-mail marketing houses offer address lists. Hot addresses are the ones with proven response. They are sold at a premium. Hotter addresses are those with proven recent response and viability. Response includes requesting to opt out. Viability means a real and still-in-use address.

You, the receiver of Spam, may opt out of "List A" but your address is still being shopped around to Lists B through ZZZZZZZ. And at a premium, as a result of your attempt to opt out.

Some list groups include a response notification as part of the sale. So all opt-out responses come back to the list company.

Viable or hot addresses, with recent proven activity, go into costlier packaged lists. Since one-tenth of one percent response is like hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth when your team is down by three runs, addresses with proven viability and recent activity (as in opting out) carry greater value to those who purchase addresses for the purposes Spamming with intent to sell.

A client dragged me to a weekend seminar on marketing on the web. It was very interesting, if somewhat repugnant. Pay-per-click, Search Engine Optimization, Spam tactics, Pop-Ups and Pop-Unders, when coupled with proven viable addresses, are highly sought after commodities by this assemblage.

You may be fortunate in not currently receiving the volume of Spam as you suffered in the recent past. But the fact of the matter is this: opting out to one list is more often than not merely opting in to more Spam.

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So you think I should maintain the send it to /dev/null aproach. My spam has dropped by a lot, I will wait to see of I get a second wave as a result. From what you say I better download ADAWARE and a new version of mail washer.

Dick

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Ad Aware and a dev/null approach are the best ideas.

My son pointed a site to me, to purposely avoid possible spam and address gatherers: spamgourmet.com

One can actually use this to backtrack the source of some spam.

--Dean

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