Really stupid question...

[angelicafire]

So I was reading the spam thread earlier (http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=21334) and I had a question. I get like 50 spam emails a day on my yahoo address, and most of them come with a shiny link that tells you to click there to remove yourself from the mailing list. If I do that, am I actually removing myself? Or is it more likely that I just agreed to let 50 other people add me to their list? I've never asked, and I'm kind of jaded, so I figure it's the latter.

[digilight]

from my understanding they are legally required to have the unsubscribe link on the email (CanSpam act) and on the level marketing companies will adhere to this when you click on it. The problem comes from the majority of the spammers who are operating out of boiler rooms or basements and just don't care. I would dare to say that at least 60-99% of the spam you recieve falls into the second catagory.

When you click on the link to unsubscribe you have just allerted them that you are a live one and not a dead address. While there are methods in place to tell at times if it is a good address or not (again used by good companies that have a valid reply to address) if you are talking about a company that is using a spoofed address thru a re-mailer program then the bounceback would never make it to them.

You are better off utilizing the spam filter on yahoo or to create folders that have specific filters that will catch emails that you would normally get before they go to your inbox.

An example of a filtered folder that I use is for Freecycle. Ever email from freecycle has the word freecycle in the subject so I just set preferences to send any email with this word in the subject to the Freecycle folder.

[MadMike]

from my understanding they are legally required to have the unsubscribe link on the email (CanSpam act) and on the level marketing companies will adhere to this when you click on it. The problem comes from the majority of the spammers who are operating out of boiler rooms or basements and just don't care. I would dare to say that at least 60-99% of the spam you recieve falls into the second catagory.

Which makes the CanSpam act (or as some people call it, the "You Can Spam act") pretty much worthless.

Legitimate companies aren't going to spam in the first place, since most people associate spam with scams. And companies that aren't legitimate aren't going to care.

[Rapscallion]

The other part is that some do remove you from their list. They then just legitimately transfer you to another list of theirs. They can, and will, have hundreds.
Rapscallion

[Gravekeeper]

Yep, either you just confirm for them that its a live email address or you just get moved over to a similar, slightly differently named list. So just use a spam filter.

I've never understood spam and never will. You have to be a raging moron to fall for it. But it must be working on SOME people since its so wide spread and that makes me weep for humanity.

[Rapscallion]

http://www.spamprimer.com/ for some free information. A few Google Ads, but it's fairly sensible.

Rapscallion

[lordlundar]

$20 says that with those are activity links. In other words, it's showing you are using the account and are there. Click it once, then if you get another mail, just delete it. After a while, the account gets identified as inactive and they won't waste the bandwidth on you. Some of the time.

[Rapscallion]

Actually, I do remember that there's some sort of program available that will bounce spam email back to the source with the obligatory "Not known at this address" message. Anyone know more about this?

Rapscallion

[chops]

Actually, I do remember that there's some sort of program available that will bounce spam email back to the source with the obligatory "Not known at this address" message. Anyone know more about this?

Rapscallion

Bouncing spam, in the case of your garden-variety spammers, would be ineffective as the return address is almost always forged and numerous steps are taken to attempt to conceal the real source of the messages.

Sometimes it's a random, made-up address, and sometimes it's the address of someone who ticked the spammer off, in the hopes of causing that person to be mailbombed.

Now, if it's 'mainstream' spam, like from a major company, then something like that would work, but that's a very small piece of a big pie.

[MadMike]

Sometimes it's a random, made-up address, and sometimes it's the address of someone who ticked the spammer off, in the hopes of causing that person to be mailbombed.

Ah yes, I was a victim of that about a decade ago. Not sure who I pissed off or how, but someone had it in for me.

Someone started posting on Usenet with my email address, even going as far as to forge the same signature I was using at the time. I didn't know it was happening until I started getting replies. There were three that I know of:

First was one offering warez via a FTP server. The address was bogus (might have been 127.0.0.1, I don't remember), so naturally, anytime anyone tried to access it, it wouldn't work. Got all kinds of emails from people asking for help.

Second one was offering illegal porn. I'm sure everyone knows what I mean by that. I'm not sure which was worse -- the complaints and threats I received, or the responses from people who were interested. One person was about to start sending me stuff, until I explained what was going on and told him in no uncertain terms what would happen if he did.

Third was the classic "Make Money Fast!" scam. Sadly, I received far more threats and complaints about that one than from the porn one.

I found where it was coming from and notified the ISP. I guess they shut him down, because everything was quiet for awhile. I even went searching for more posts that were supposedly by me just to make sure.

A few weeks later, I logged on to check my email, and there were a hundred or more, all with gibberish as the subject line and an obscene message in the body. Every time my email program would check for more, there would be another 50 or so. I was being mailbombed, and I'm guessing it was by the same idiot from before, who was furious that I dared to get him in trouble with his ISP.

While I was trying to determine where it was coming from, I was still getting hit with wave after wave of more junk. Then, shortly after I reported it, maybe 10 more showed up and then it all came to a dead stop. I'm guessing they caught him in the act and shut him down for good.