Am I wrong to forward illegal SPAM to the Feds?
 

I am so tired of deleting SPAM I am sending it all to the FTC. I know some of you use SPAM for marketing, if you follow the rules you will not have a problem but none of these say Sexually explicit and none have an opt out. I get 100's a day, worse my children get them too; I am fed up.

[email protected] has thousands from me already.

Anyone else doing this or am I alone in feeling this SPAM is a bad thing for this industry?

Probono:

Hell.. sure appreciate the pain in the ass deleting spam!!! :-)

I never have nor would consider using email spam as a "marketing tool" - it sounds more like the kinda thing used by the less competent in an attempt to earn a living.

Dunno what point there may be to sending complaints. My experience is that the Feds need to be hassled to act on more serious stuff - like clear cut child porn issues.

dun bother me

I reported a CP spam two days ago (spamcop). Don't know if it works or not.

Spammers will no doubt file a Freedom of Information Act request for all senders and original recipients of email forwarded to [email protected], to add to their elite ultraspam lists. ;)

install thunderbird
forget about spam

The Feds are taking legal action against the Sponsors.
FTC Targets Porn Spammers
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2004


The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday it won a court order to shut down illegal advertising for six companies accused of profiting from thousands of X-rated e-mails directing people to their online pornography sites in the government's first legal case involving adult Internet spam.

A federal judge in Las Vegas on Jan. 5 granted the commission's request for a restraining order against the companies, their executives and an affiliate for allegedly violating federal laws governing commercial electronic mail, commonly known as spam. The FTC on Tuesday will seek a permanent injunction shutting down the network's illegal e-mail ads.

It's the first time the agency has taken legal action under a rule that requires a label in the subject line of sexually explicit e-mails. The law also holds others liable for operating Web sites that benefit from fraudulent pornographic spam.

"It's not just the people who push the buttons to send spam" who are liable, said Eileen Harrington, director of the FTC's marketing practices division.

The Nevada companies named in the FTC complaint were Global Net Solutions Inc., Open Space Enterprises Inc., Southlake Group Inc., and WTFRC Inc., which does business as Reflected Networks Inc. Also named in the complaint were Global Net Ventures Ltd., of London and Wedlake Ltd., which the FTC said is reportedly based in Riga, Latvia.

The executives of those companies were named in the complaint along with an individual, Paul Rose. The FTC said Rose sent hundreds of thousands of illegal spam e-mails directing recipients to the sites operated by the companies named in the filing.

Among other alleged violations, the e-mails did not include the required "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" warning in the subject line, falsely promised free membership to the Web sites and prevented recipients from stopping the unwanted e-mails.

Those requirements are part of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, dubbed "Can Spam." Spammers who violate the rule face possible imprisonment and criminal fines of up to $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for an organization.

Tracking down violators can be difficult because spammers often try to escape being directly identified by using forged return addresses or by bouncing their e-mails through unprotected relay computers on the Internet.

Harrington said the agency located the companies and individuals through e-mails consumers sent the FTC's data base in the spring. The defendants, who she said operate as one entity, are barred by the court action from sending out spam but are permitted to operate the web sites involved.

With my different domains, I'm getting close to 400 spams a day. It's fucking ridiculous. I have to empty my inbox every few hours so I don't have a shit load to go through. Checking email in the morning sucks.

No it's not wrong.

But your title demonstrates a common misconception that is a pet peeve of mine, lol.
That is: *ALL* "SPAM" is illegal. Not all email marketing is illegal (and therefore is not "spam" either). So you're either reporting all "Spam", or reporting all "illegal email marketing", lol. </peeve>

;)

Nope, I did not miss the fact, in fact I said illegal SPAM. The rules say sexually explict email must say sexually explict in the subject line and have an opt out option in the body. I rarely see those and would not consider sending them to the FTC. Illegal SPAM does not have that subject. The reason, of course is that SPAM filters will screen out anything that says Sexually explict in the subject line.

I dont understand why people are complaining so much about spam, im using gmail and thunderbird, im getting 0 SPAM messages.

Everybody wants to be a hero.

I get a shitload of spam, even with gmail. It is filtered, that is the great part.

Anybody see this program yet??
I think it's going to be really popular

http://www.hendricom.com

"reporting spam is fun and easy"

Goodbye spam as we know it....

a simple spam blocker will cut down on most junk emails you get...

spam doesnt screw with your pc (apart from disk space) - fight spyware!

well, the industry was built on spam, but it's effectiveness is dropping by the day

a good mailer used to be able to do 500-600 joins a day, now those same guys are barely doing 100 (some even less)

I run opt-in newsletters and hate having to compete with spammers...so I hate them because they are my competition and making it harder to get my emails through...

You lie! That doesn't work! Those damn spammers should burn in hell! Hellfire and brimstone for them! They are worse than cancer! What they do deserves me taking extra time out of my day and reporting them! Forget taking the dogs for a walk. Forget making money with that time. Forget playing with my kids. I'd rather be an anti and chase spammers with my time because setting up the filters on my email client is too hard for me. It's like rocket science and I'm not that smart. Really I'm not. The clock on my VCR is still blinking 12:00 and has been for the last 15 years. I'll never be able to set my email filters.

Oh, and pressing delete is waaaaay too hard. I don't know what's spam and what isn't. I have to read the entire email before I know whether it's from a friend or not. That might be my aunt Claire sending me a great deal on Vioxx or my uncle Larry giving me a heads up on the best deal on C1alis. My cousin sells watches for a living so he might send me a link to a cheap R0lex watch dealer.

And I don't want to miss an important attachment so I download everything. Especially in emails that have "I love you" in the subject line. That might really be from a loved one and I have no life so I'm starved for attention. I get excited by those messages and I can't wait to read the ecard. It seems like my loved ones and secret admirerers don't know how to add the attachements correctly though because nothing comes up after I download it.

Spammers take out too much time out of my day. I would rather see them in jail than press delete. Die spammers die!

hahah. great post :)

wish i had the patience to do that...

Amen brothah :thumbsup :thumbsup

Seriosly spam and all the scams around it sure will also fuck many potentially members for real paysites :/

Delete key aint hard to use
use spam filter programs
q

hope y ou dont mess up and report someone who has rights to your email address.

saw a large law suit going on about that somewhere....best wishes


hit delete man....christ