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Thread: I Hate Spam .co.za - first F.U. Award to dealaday.co.za

  1. #21
    Email problem daveob's Avatar
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    By the BOOK !!

    OK. Following the comments and ideas gained from this thread, I've done the latest addition to www.ihatespam.co.za as follows :

    1. got the junk e-mail from mmsjobs.co.za ( to multiple e-mail addresses )

    2. it was not requested, not opt-in, therefore qualifies as spam.

    3. e-mailed mmsjobs.co.za and asked for explanation / reason for the spam.

    4. received the reply :
    we have purchased databases with emails in order to make ourselves seen by the public, we are a legitimate business and you have the right to unsubscribe there is a link at the base of the page

    5. added them to www.ihatespam.co.za

    Any objections now ?
    Last edited by daveob; 08-May-08 at 09:43 AM. Reason: typo
    Watching the ships passing by.

  2. #22
    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Sorry that was quite a short comment. I'll try to explain a little better.

    If we just look in terms of this site. Firstly, the newsletter. Let's say there was a separate feed for the newsletters (however that happened to be generated). Anyone who wanted to receive the newsletter subscribes to the feed. In this way you never have to worry about the newsletter getting through firewalls, spam filters, and Mweb - the user fetches it with their feed reader (a so-called "pull" technology, vs an email "push").

    Users can easily unsubscribe (they just remove it from their feed reader), and just as easily subscribe.

    The down side is that you can't automatically add a user (as with a mailing list), and (currently) feed readers are not as widely used as email clients (although they are everywhere, they are just not used as much......yet).

    I personally wouldn't worry too much about the private notifications, although it could probably be done (I think there is a way to make an RSS feed which requires a password, or at least place it on the site such that it requires the users password).

    I think about feeds more in terms of how they can replace the marketing function of email. The major issue is a move from push to pull - and a lot of marketers aren't willing to give up that "control".

    (BTW if you don't know what a "feed" or "RSS" means, then watch this video)
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  4. #23
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    If you have never opted in I don't have an objection but you could have registered with a website which says that we reserve the right to share your email with partners. Now that company you just 'blacklisted could have thought what they were doing is ok even though it is not.

    They have to learn the hard way and people really do learn very well when it is the hard way

    RSS feeds are nice if you know how to use them as a reader. So many people still do not understand what it is, never mind how to import a feed into a reader.

    If you do emailing the right way you should be fine and generally people do not mind if they get the option to legitimately opt-out and know why they were getting it in the first place. A good way as a sender of bulk emails is to say how you are getting this mail (to remind the reader) and to say if you wish to to receive it click here. Makes them know that you care what they want.

    Those are my personal feelings

  5. #24
    Email problem daveob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seagyn Davis View Post
    you could have registered with a website which says that we reserve the right to share your email with partners.
    This is always a possibility.

    However, I am the only user of all e-mail addresses for my specific domain, and have never used addresses which appear on my web site, like admin@.., accounts@.., info@.., etc. I always use 1 specific address ( dave@.. ) for all correspondence and replies. Just shows the probability of the addresses having been harvested.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seagyn Davis View Post
    Now that company you just 'blacklisted could have thought what they were doing is ok even though it is not.
    Well, then they are a bunch of suckers !! I'm pretty sure that the list they bought wouldn't have come cheap, so they didn't research the origin of the list/s, didn't question the definition of SPAM, etc.

    Or, they knew exactly what they were doing and are, like webmail ( a seperate thread ) prepared for a little flak - you always get 1 or 2 % unhappy customers, but the sales / orders generated make it worth it.
    Watching the ships passing by.

  6. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by daveob View Post
    Well, then they are a bunch of suckers !! I'm pretty sure that the list they bought wouldn't have come cheap, so they didn't research the origin of the list/s, didn't question the definition of SPAM, etc.

    Or, they knew exactly what they were doing and are, like webmail ( a seperate thread ) prepared for a little flak - you always get 1 or 2 % unhappy customers, but the sales / orders generated make it worth it.
    Either way, they will learn the hard way.

  7. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by duncan drennan View Post
    Sorry that was quite a short comment. I'll try to explain a little better.

    If we just look in terms of this site. Firstly, the newsletter. Let's say there was a separate feed for the newsletters (however that happened to be generated). Anyone who wanted to receive the newsletter subscribes to the feed. In this way you never have to worry about the newsletter getting through firewalls, spam filters, and Mweb - the user fetches it with their feed reader (a so-called "pull" technology, vs an email "push").

    Users can easily unsubscribe (they just remove it from their feed reader), and just as easily subscribe.

    The down side is that you can't automatically add a user (as with a mailing list), and (currently) feed readers are not as widely used as email clients (although they are everywhere, they are just not used as much......yet).

    I personally wouldn't worry too much about the private notifications, although it could probably be done (I think there is a way to make an RSS feed which requires a password, or at least place it on the site such that it requires the users password).

    I think about feeds more in terms of how they can replace the marketing function of email. The major issue is a move from push to pull - and a lot of marketers aren't willing to give up that "control".
    I honestly think you cannot replace one with the other. RSS feeds are for information whilst newsletters are for news. They can actually work quite well together. Newletters aggregate all the news over time whilst a RSS feed will give browsers quick updates to updates made on a site.
    Last edited by duncan drennan; 09-May-08 at 04:27 PM.

  8. #27
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    A case of horses for courses. But it's still fun looking at innovative use of technology and pushing the boundaries.

  9. #28
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    A cool feature with feedburner is that you can actually email an RSS feed. In other words, the latest articles are emailed through.

  10. #29
    Diamond Member wynn's Avatar
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    Surely spam has an address to reply to?
    So if one of the bofs here designs a program we can download and we send all the spam we recieve so we build up a huge resevoir of spam.
    Then when we recieve spam we simply add the address of the spammer and all the spam in the resevoir loops through to him, he will be inundated by a tsunami of spam sent by everybody that downloads the program, this will kill his inbox.
    He will very quickly find out who sent the avalanch and remove your address from his list.
    Fight fire with fire!


  11. #30
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wynn View Post
    Surely spam has an address to reply to?
    Unfortunately not. Phising or even sending spam from a non-existing address is rather easy. You could do it yourself with Outlook settings - no problem.

    What cannot be concealed is the trail of IP addresses the message has passed through. But the real source can be camouflaged by stuffing in some false entries before you send the email out. Something like Outlook wont do that for you, but there is software readily available that can. I'm not sure if there is software that readily analyzes this data and can ignore the red herrings.

    Even once you have tracked the source by IP, you will need the co-operation of the ISP or server manager that generated the email to trace the identity of the spammer. And you might still not be done. The source might only be identifiable by something like a gmail account.

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