Wednesday, February 9, 2000

Direct Marketing Association -- 9:14 pm CST, Update by The Master

Just a friendly warning to all of you out there embroiled in the spam wars. The Direct Marketing Association's "Opt-Out" program is nothing more than a spam-vacuum. If you put your name on their opt-out list, your guarenteed to suck down a LOT more spam.

This surprises me not at all. Right now, I'm battling with popsite.com to get their spam-machine shutdown. Seems most people out there enjoy running open mail servers. Grrrr. Thank you Jerry Pournelle for the friendly warning:

It is now pretty clear to me that the best way to get lots of Spam is to send mail to the Direct Mail Association asking to "opt out" of all of their publisher lists. You will then start getting A LOT OF Spam with, at the bottom, "opt out" instructions. In other words, this supposedly reputable place has, by intent or inadvertence, given your name to spammers. This is an organization that deserves little consideration or respect or courtesy and is on very shaky ethical grounds to begin with. Their "opt out" service generates more of what you wanted to opt out of (I sent them instructions from an account I never use, and which never before got Spam; now I get a LOT there, most with the words "opt out" in it. I think the diagnosis is positive here.)

A.T. Hun comments: I always assumed this was the case. All in favor of dipping spammers in Gravy Train and feeding them to rabid daschunds, raise your hand.

J.t.Qbe comments: Well, duh. If you're dumb enough to believe that you'll actually be removed from a list by sending email to a spammer, you're probably dumb enough to buy what they're hawking. My personal favorites are the spams which say (in effect) "To be removed from our mailing list, click the Delete button." I prefer to click the Spamcop link in my bookmarks.

News for 02/09/2000

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