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In computer news this week – July 25, 2007

 

Will we ever can Spam ? or ...

How much spam could a spam can can if a spam can could can spam ....

 

A lot of the spam and junk email you get today has a link in it that supposedly you can click on to get your name removed from their spam list. Of course they don’t say that they have spammed you – usually they insult your intelligence by saying that you had opted-in to receive their emails somehow, although of course you never did.  So it’s a big temptation to click on that link which will supposedly remove your name – but should you do that?

 

One of the biggest antispam organizations in the world is the Spamhaus Project –

http://www.spamhaus.org and if you read the material on their site you can protect yourself both  from spammers and from internet fraud schemes.

 

The Spamhaus has this to say about "Address Remove" lists:

 

Address Remove Lists are operated by spammers. From the moment they claim you "opted-in" all spammers operate using lies and deceit, therefore by nature all spammers are liars and conmen.

 

 For-a-fee Address Remove Lists are operated by conmen. Any system that wants money in exchange for 'removing' your address from spammers' lists, is a scam, you should report it to your State Attorney General's office. These include National Do Not Email.com  UnsubscribeNow.org  Remove.org  GlobalRemoval.com unsubscribenet.com  and  the National Anti Spam Registry.

 

 

Most spammers send out up to 80 million spams every day, to address lists scraped from all over the net, obtained from other spammers, copied from spam CDROMs, etc. They don't know which addresses are real, which are working or not, until you send them back a "remove". Then they know your address works. And that's not all they know:

 

By sending back a 'remove' you are confirming that your ISP doesn't use spam Block Lists or spam filters, you are confirming that you actually read spams and that you follow the spammer's instructions such as "click here to be removed"...... You're the perfect candidate for more spam.

 

 No legitimate marketing firm will ever operate a Remove List or use a Remove List, because no legitimate marketing firm sends Unsolicited Bulk Email in the first place.

 

 There are well over 600 million email users on the Internet who detest spam. A 'remove list' database that could hold that volume of addresses would take each spammer days to 'wash' their lists against it - and at the end each spammer's list would be almost empty. Can you imagine spammers doing this?

 

 No spammer would ever use a "global remove list" because all spammers believe that people who remove themselves from other spammers lists would not have removed themselves from theirs, since all spammers believe the junk they send is different from the junk other spammers send.

 

 

So If you don't want your email address to end up on yet more spammers' lists , don't confirm to the spammer that your address is real and working.

 

NEVER remove yourself from any list you didn't ask to be put on in the first place

 

 

And the next time you’re tempted to click on that “remove me” link in a spam, remember to grin and bear it, unless of course ... you really like the taste of spam ...

 

 

For Raw Bytes

This is Frank Delaney

(C) 2007 MTA Micro Technology Associates

http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html

PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522

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