spammed by Advertising.com

[rcjordan]

mydomain.com:

Hello, my name is XXX XXXX, I represent Advertising.com. You have a very interesting site. I am interested in learning more about your site and what services you offer, in order to explore any possibilities of working together. I would like to speak about purchasing advertising space on your site. We have many revenue generating programs at Advertising.com, I will be happy to discuss how they can benefit you. Please get back to me if this interests you, I would be happy to discuss the many revenue generating programs we have at Advertising.com.

Look forward to hearing from you. Have a great day.

_________________

XXX XXXX
Advertising.com
Media Buyer

All well and good, but I question this phrase:

I would like to speak about purchasing advertising space on your site.

I smell a 'bait and switch' in this email.

[Brett_Tabke]

I get similar to that once a day. Senac is the current bane. I am more careful than ever of anyone making inquiries about advertising. The current trick is to say they are real serious about advertising on your site and want your traffic numbers. The other one, is to send you a 'hey great site dude' letter just to get your email address.

[rcjordan]

here's what I sent them, let's cut to the chase, eh?

>I would like to speak about purchasing advertising space on your site.

XXX, be VERY specific here. What is the 'buy' you are proposing for Advertising.com? Or, are you speaking of a brokered buy for your banner clients?

[rcjordan]

...and their reply

I am speaking about your unsold inventory. We are a network, so we have a
network of advertisers anywhere from 75-150 at any given time. We are totally non-exclusive and pre-emptible so you may take us down if you get a better deal.

Pretty much what I expected, but I thought it would make an interesting thread for those just now seeking out banner brokers.

[shri]

hi rc, thanks for the welcome message in Foo.

Ok, wanna bet that valueclick is about so start spamming? :)

216.246.96.2 - - [20/Sep/2000:11:35:16 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 49768 "http://www.alexaresearch.com/clientdir/web_reports/output_comp.cfm?startAt=3000&qtype=list&level=site&panel=glo&month1=r_072000&month2=r_082000&sid=1041" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)"
[logs]$ rhost 216.246.96.2
robocop.valueclick.com

:)

[rcjordan]

yup, I bet you'll be hearing from them soon. I wonder if they're harvesting email from site, or cross-indexing to whois?