Forum Moderators: phranque
People are now asking for government regulation! A few months ago it was taboo to even mention regulation of the internet. Now, it seems people are openly advocating regulating email spam like fax spam.
IMO, people are starting to have the courage to say the obvious, that it will take government legislation to control spam. Sure, spammers got the public to believe, "You can't regulate the internet, dude." But back then, people believed Pets.com was worth over $100 a share.
Agreed. However, WHOSE government? We cannot even control online Casinos based in other countries.
If we totally outlawed UCE/spam in this country, there are thousands of hosts in lots of countries that will be very happy to take the business.
Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of UCE/spam. I hate spam, it makes my opt-in business more difficult.
Sometimes sending out 15k or so DOUBLE OPT-in emails looks like spam. I've been caught in the crossfire by spamcop - assuming we were spamming, because ONE recipient FORGOT they asked for the mail. I wish there was an easy solution, but US government regulation will just make it harder to find.
An American ruling body is out of the question. So is any other geographical, political entity :) theres just too much friction involved in politics, and when it involves the power and capabilitiy of the net, allies or no allies - the net is for the world. Sigh..politics, if only we could just build an idealistic net :)
Whose fault is it for spamming
1. The Webmaster
The webmaster wants to get the most visitors and the most sales. They spam the SE's to rank high.
2. The Search Engine
The technology and software used by SE's is flawed, and webmasters have to spam it to get seen... OR ... Quite simply, its not capable of handling the SPAM delivered by certain webmasters...should i say outside the norm ;)
3. The Visitor
The average visitor is ignorant (dont hold me to that). They dont go through the correct channels for what they are REALLY looking for (ie noticing the diff between a SERP and an ad). Because they are ignorant, the SE and webmaster compensate (or take advantage of this)
bit of a mess aint it :) I too agree, people are getting annoyed about people using "unethical" (spam) techniques. And our perception of spam is all different. Thats probably why most people with heated opinions about it make sure its well documented.
I think the onus is on SE's. Its getting to the point where people need to know what is acceptable for a search engine and what isnt. Google (and other SE's) COULD tell us what we shouldnt have on a website and therefore what wouldnt be accepted. They dont have to tell us how to crack the system ;) (i suppose there is a difference yes?)
But then again, when has business ever had ethics? Also, if the governments get involved, the politics gets involved. Then other countries get involved.....
Too much ignorance with spam in general, and the topic is swept under the carpets. The only people I hear about talking spam is SE's and webmasters....does the general visitor ever enquire? Has a government ever discussed the matter?
Lots of questions, not many answers from my point of view :( however, I feel I dont get the brunt of spam as much as some of you other people may....
a@host
aa@host
ab@host
etc till it gets to sdifhdsuhsdfh89sfd97df8dfs9fd9df90sdf@host
I'm all up for sueing a company who sends me spam couz someone in their dept thought it was a smart idea. About the others out of the country - i went with all the other admins and blocked .cn, and other overseas country from my mail server.
The time wasted by efforts to control spam costs us all.
Im using MailWasher now. Use a few extra filters and the inbuilt public spam list databases it has cut down massively on our spams over the past 3 days. Our actual useful to spam quotient actually is now in the positive by a long way.
I think a few major sueing cases and we may find it decreasing... (eternal optimist)
Then afterwards, I'd like the last 'one' of the 20 lashes :)
Im using MailWasher now. Use a few extra filters and the inbuilt public spam list databases it has cut down massively on our spams over the past 3 days. Our actual useful to spam quotient actually is now in the positive by a long way.
I bless the day I fuond this program!!!
take a look at cauce.org (or if youre in europe, look at euro.cauce.org). they have been fighting the war against spam for a long time now, and they are pushing politions worldwide to eradicate spam.
the euro.cauce.org site has plenty of information about the recent EU debate on spam - a proposal to ban spam was narrowly defeated by just a few votes - i read somewhere that the UK government instructed their MEPs to vote against the proposal, claiming that to ban spam would be harmful to british industry.
if politions do vote to ban spam in the US, europe and other places, then sure, we'll still get spam from the eastern block, asia, africa and so on, but we'll cure the vast majority of it straight away - that can only be good.
there are a huge number of things to be taken into consideration when writing the legislation - what definition of spam to use, proving that someone did or did not sign up to a mailing list, stopping companies relocating servers in countries not covered by the legislation and so on. when proposals to ban spam are brought before the politians, most of these things will already have been considered and entered into the proposals.
the ball is rolling, it's been rolling for some time now. all it needs is more people to help push it along. if you haven't joined CAUCE, please do so.
