[epub] Re: what's the policy?

["Paul Myers" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've sent Sparky the email addresses that SHOULD be the ones 
subscribed in an offlist mail. It's a bad idea to put someone 
else's email address out there in public without their 
permission, as it exposes them to any viruses that may have 
infected the readers of the mail. 

I'll say this much... Anyone on a list of electronic 
publishers ought to know better than to be using something 
like SpamArrest for subscriptions. 

I wrote this rant yesterday for the 8th anniversary issue of 
my newsletter, and yanked it for another time. This seems 
appropriate. 

---- Begin Rant ---- 

"Machine Answering"
 ================= 

Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon for people of low breeding 
to subscribe to lists with an email address that had a full-
time autoresponder on it. Many still do. 

If they're only mildly rude, they use text like "We got your 
email, and will respond soon if needed." The really boorish 
ones include full-blown ads in their autoresponses. 

Now you can pay someone else to be rude in your name. A la... 

    Thoughtless Joe here, 

    I'm protecting myself from receiving junk mail. 

    Just this once, click the link below so I can receive     
your emails. You won't have to do this again. 

    http://spamarrest.com/encodedgibberishfollows 


It's called "Challenge/Response." 

If you use one of these virtual pests, this rant's for you. 

.... 

I've mentioned a few times recently that I've been getting 
hammered with bounces from spammers forging my email address 
into their garbage as it goes out. 

Want to guess how many of those spams went to addresses that 
are hiding behind the silly challenge/response widgets? 

SpamArrest, for example, is pretty nasty... Make a publisher 
jump through hoops to send you stuff that you asked for. Once 
they've confirmed that they really read their own mail (and 
have nothing better to do than beg som eone to accept their 
mail) they get ads from SpamArrest, pitching them to be rude 
to THEIR correspondents, too! 

There's another one out there that's a live candidate for the 
orbital nuclear laser platforms... It includes 20-some 
kilobytes of graphic files in the challenges. 

I believe it's MailFrontier. 

Great trade. Instead of you getting a 3k spam from someone 
else, I get a 20k+ blast from your "virtual protection 
racke..." err... "anti-spam vendor." 

.... 

It's really not that big a deal for me, as I can filter it all 
out with the spam and spam bounces. Not everyone has that 
option (or the small amount of experience needed), though. 

If you're using one of those abusive systems, consider: A 
significant percentage of the spam that's sent has a real, 
working email address in the From field. One that does NOT 
belong to a spammer. All you're doing is forcing someone else 
to get hit with these ads for commercial rudeness for every 
such spam that's sent to you. 

Turn off the challenges and just quarantine the questionable 
mail. Check it yourself for stuff you want. Don't expect the 
rest of the world to get clogged by your system just so you 
can quietly ignore the problem. 

---- End Rant ---- 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone using one of 
those widgets is spamming, and should be held accountable for 
it. 


Paul 

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