Charlie Summers wrote:
> At 9:12 PM -0500 3/6/03, JC Dill is rumored to have typed:
>
>>A "disposable domain" is TRACEABLE, so we can nail the spammer, and with
>>the increase in anti-spam laws, the cost gets higher as time goes on.
>
> You _are_ kidding, right? I mean, c'mon...how many spammer domains have
> you done a whois on that have _any_ legitimate in them? Or haven't you
> actually _looked_ at any whois records lately? The good-old-days of actually
> requiring legit contact information is LONG gone.
This is venturing off from the topic of this list (managing mailing
lists) into the topic of fighting spam. I suggest further anti-spam
discussion move to an appropriate forum like spam-l. However, I'd like
to address the specific topic of spam and managing lists.
The biggest problem with fighting spam is that most spammers send from
an address that can not be clearly identified as belonging to them, and
then they can claim that the sender is doing a Joe Job and that the
spamvertized site/company/service wasn't the bad person who sent the spam.
With the case of a spammer *confirming to a mailing list* and
subsequently spamming, the possibility that the email address that sent
the spam isn't the email address of the person who confirmed drops to
almost zero (allowing for rare cases of email interception). You HAVE
the spammer, it's the person who gets email at that mail address, who
confirmed the subscription request to the list.
Because of the confirmation loop, the address isn't a bogus address, it
is a REAL address that is hosted somewhere. If it's not a freemail
account - if it's an email account with a supposedly "disposable domain
name" - then behind it somewhere, someone is paying the bills (for the
domain name, but more importantly for the *hosting* of the domain name).
FOLLOW THE MONEY. You can sue the host, and force the host to either
accept responsibility for sending the spam, or pass the buck and
disclose who is behind the account.
This isn't a perfect system, but it's a workable one.
In the specific case of spam sent to mailing lists: If you want to be
able to sue someone who intentionally subscribes to and then spams your
list, add a clause to your mailing list welcome message (or better yet,
to the confirmation request), which clearly states that if they send
spam to your list, they are agreeing to pay you for the damages this
costs to your list and to your reputation. Put a $ figure on it. Now
you have the equivelant of a EULA, they have agreed to this "license" as
part of subscribing to your list. So even if they aren't in a
jurrisdiction that has anti-spam laws, they have AGREED to your terms
when subscribing to your list, and you have a valid case for a lawsuit.
Is this failsafe? Will it always win if this happens and you track down
the spammer and sue? No. But IMHO it's better than nothing.
jc
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