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Posted on 04.06.07 by Admin @ 9:32 pm
Spam will continue spreading as far as it makes profit. If nobody buys from spammers or acts upon their scams, spam will end. This is the obvious and easiest way to fight spam. You can ignore and delete spam emails you receive. But you can also take vengeance on the spammer by complaining to the spammer’s Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP will block their connection and maybe impose a fine (depending on the ISP’s acceptable usage policy). Spammers beware of such complaints and try to disguise their messages. That’s why finding the right ISP is not always easy. Let’s look inside a spam message. Every email message includes two parts, the body and the header. The body is the actual message text and attachments. The header is a kind of the envelope of the message. The header shows the address of the message sender, the address of the message recipient, the message subject and other information. Email programs usually display these header fields: From: shows the sender’s name and email address. The From: field usually contains the sender’s email address. This lets you know who sent the message and allows you easily reply. Spammers, of course, don’t want you to reply and don’t want you to know who they are. Therefore, they put forged email addresses into the From: lines of their emails. So the From: field won’t help you if you want to determine where the spam email comes from. Tip! With G-Lock SpamCombat you can easily preview not only the message text but also all the fields of the message header . You can choose the preview format by yourself. You can view the message as HTML, decoded message, or message source.There are also several Received: fields in the header of every message. Email programs don’t usually display the Received: lines but the Received: lines can be very helpful in tracing the spam origin. Just like a postal letter goes through a number of post offices before it’s delivered to the recipient, an email message is processed by several mail servers. Each mail server adds a line to the message header – a Received: line – which contains - the server name and IP address of the machine the server received the message from and Each Received: line is inserted at the top of the message header. If we want to reproduce the message’s path from sender to recipient, we start from the topmost Received: line and walk down until the last one, which is where the email originated. Just like the From: field the Received: lines may contain forged information to fool those who would want to trace the spammer. Because every mail server inserts the Received: line at the top of the header, we start the analysis from the top. The Received: lines forged by spammers usually look like normal Received: fields. We can hardly tell whether the Received: line is forged or not at first sight. We should analyze all the Received: lines chain to find out a forged Received: field. As we mentioned above, every mail server registers not only its name but also the IP address of the machine it got the message from. We simply need to look what name a server puts and what the next server in the chain says. If the servers don’t match, the earlier Received: line is forged. The origin of the email is what the server immediately after the forged Received: line says about where it received the message from. Let’s see how determining of the spam email origin works in real life. Here is the header of a spam message we’ve recently received: ************************************************** Reply-To: umceqhzjmndfy At first, look at the forged From: field. The email address in the From: and Reply-To: lines doesn’t exist. So, the spammer took care about directing bounced messages and all the indignant replies people may send to a non-existing email account. Secondly, the Subject: line. It contains the variations of the “Meds” and “Viagra” words that are known to be met in spam messages. Plus, the subject contains a range of random characters. It’s obvious that the subject line is skillfully tailored to fool anti-spam filters. Lastly, let’s analyze the Received: lines. We start from the oldest one - Received: from 164.145.240.209 by 60.17.139.96; Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:53:35 -0500. There are two IP addresses in it: 60.17.139.96 says it received the message from 164.145.240.209. We check if the next (and last in this case) mail server in the chain confirms the state of the first Received: line. In the second Received: field we have: Received: from unknown (HELO 60.17.139.96) (221.200.13.158) by mail1.myserver.xx with SMTP; 7 Nov 2006 10:54:16 -0000. mail1.myserver.xx is our server and we can trust it. It received the message from an “unknown” host, which says it has the IP address 60.17.139.96. Yes, this confirms what the previous Received: line says. Now let’s find out where our mail server got the message from. For this purpose, we look at the IP address in brackets before the server name mail1.myserver.xx. It is 221.200.13.15. This is the IP address the connection was established from, and it is not 60.17.139.96. The spam message originates from 221.200.13.15. It’s important to note that it’s not necessarily that the spammer is sitting at the computer 221.200.13.15 and sending spam over the world. It may happen the computer’s owner doesn’t even suspect of being sending spam. The computer may be hijacked by a Trojan, which is spreading spam without the machine’s owner knowing it. We hope this information will help you identify the spammer’s ISP and report them about spam so they can take proper measures. About The Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:55 am
Is Your Website Blacklisted? A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of people or companies who have met with the disapproval of others. In the online world a blacklist refers to those people who have been marked as responsible for generating spam in a very big way. Blacklists are also known as blocklists. Blacklists are used to combat spam in a very specific way. When spam is reported to one of the relevant spam fighting organizations the IP address the spam originated from is added to a banned or blacklisted IP addresslist. An IP address is the unique location of you or your website on the Internet - think of it as your “home address” online. To put it simply every www.domain.com Internet address has a matching IP address. Any email coming from your website domain also has a corresponding IP address. If your IP address is present on a blacklist then you’re potentially wasting your time sending email to customers. Why are you wasting your time? Modern spam blockers come with the most common blacklists installed and/or allow you to import updated blacklists into your spam blocker. This allows to you block a huge amount of spam but you may also, potentially, block legitimate email. Blacklists are not foolproof. There are two types of IP address: Dynamic - changes every time you connect to the Internet. Most commonly used for dialup Internet access. Spammers love these because they’re very hard to track and 100% disposable. Fixed/Static - All websites, most large companies and some individuals use fixed IP addresses. This can cause huge problems if they’re reported for pamming. When an IP address (dynamic or fixed ) is reported for sending spam it’s added to a blacklist. There are three different types of blacklists: Temporary An IP address placed on a temporary blacklist will have email coming from that IP address blocked for several hours. After a few hours the offending IP address is removed from the blacklist. Permanent When an IP address is added to a permanent blacklist any email server configured to block email from this list will never receive email from that range of IP addresses again. Comprehensive This is the most damaging of blacklists. Not only does it block a single IP address it also blocks the IP addresses next to it. For example if the IP address 192.156.66.67 was added to a comprehensive blacklist then all IP addresses close to 192.156.66.67 will also be blocked. This can be a huge problem for those website owners using virtual hosting because if your host has ever appeared on a blacklist then you’re also on the same blacklist, by default, because of the shared hosting from the same IP range. It’s important for all website owners to check whether or not they’re on a blacklist. You’ll need your IP address (available from your webhost) and you can check your blacklist status at: www.mail-abuse.org/cgi-bin/lookup Blacklists are a necessary evil due to the volume of spam being sent each day but are not an exact science. Take a few moments from your day and ensure that your website or email address is not being blocked. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:54 am
Methods to Fight Spam!!! by Wendy Fighting Spam.. Industry experts estimate that three out of every five e-mail messages that are sent today are spam. This is not only a nuisance; it is costing us all time and money which could be better spent on productive ventures. Bizwala is committed to fighting spam & blocks a great deal without customer intervention. Our systems are updated daily and we are always working to improve our spam filtering. Though we may never be able to block it all, we can offer some suggestions to combat spam effectively. Q: How can I prevent spam from reaching my e-mail account? A: People who send spam compile their mailing lists in many ways. Methods to compile such lists include: Sending spam to e-mail addresses that are most commonly used. A common tactic consists of building lists of targeted addresses that use frequently used words such as “webmaster” or “info” (for example, “webmaster@mydomainname” or “info@mydomainname”). Obtaining e-mail addresses that are automatically “harvested” from web sites by specialized software. Compiling lists of e-mail addresses that are either chosen or generate at random (for example, ” joe1@mydomainname”, “joe2@mydomainname” or “joe3@mydomainname”. This method is becoming increasingly frequent. Because spammers often send spam to undefined e-mail aliases such as aabbcc@domain.com, ccddee@domain.com, mfrds@domain.com, you can combat the receipt of spam effectively by not using a catch-all address . (The catch-all is an alias that is used to recieve mail sent to undefined addresses/aliases .) Q: What is spoofing and how can I fight it? A: “Spoofing” occurs when a spammer uses some version of your domain name in the “From” address field. Spammers use spoofing to try to hide their identities and to pass blame for spam to innocent Internet users. The large amount of spam messages — many of which are sent to invalid address — result in a significant amount of “bounced” e-mail (that is, mail that returned as being undeliverable). Unfortunately, bounced mail is sent back to the address found in the “From” line of the spammed message. Typically, the “From” line is also an undefined e-mail address not found in your mail settings. To combat receiving bounced mail messages, you can use the “devnull” alias that we mentioned in the previous question and answer. Q: Even if my account is not generating any spam, can the mail server I use get blocked because of spam? Unfortunately, yes. The main cause for blacklisting your mail server depends on where the spammed e-mail is ultimately received and how the ISP who maintains that location reacts to spam and to spam complaints. Many account holders with Bizwala forward e-mail messages that are sent to there hosting account. For example, a message sent to info@mydomainname could be forwarded to myaccount@aol.com or myaccount@yahoo.com. At other times, clients may be forwarding e-mail messages to accounts that are invalid or otherwise not in use. The processing of the forwarded e-mail message is handled by the mail server that your account uses (specifically, the MTA or Mail Transport Agent). Because a Bizwala mail server is the MTA, it is possible that the mail server could be blacklisted even though you (or any other Bizwala client) is not responsible for sending the spam in the first place. In short, you must be careful about where you forward e-mail, how you report spam, and to whom you report it. Note: Bizwala reserves the right to terminate a client’s services for violations of our Acceptable Use policy. Unacceptable use includes forwarding e-mail messages to addresses that are invalid (not within the client’s control) and/or sending mail with malicious intent. Q: How can I filter spam in my Inbox once I receive it? First, do NOT click any links in the spam or try to reply or unsubscribe to the spammed e-mail message. Often, these links will subscribe you to even more spam lists despite the fact that those links appear to promise that you will be unsubscribed. And, as spammers are always looking for legitimate e-mail addresses to spam, replying to a spam message in any way only tells the spammer that your e-mail address is valid. Second, some e-mail programs have built-in functionality that deals with spam that reaches your Inbox. Outlook 2000 (and newer) is one such a e-mail program. Outlook creates a folder called Junk Mail, where you can move junk e-mail and then review it before deleting. Or, you can have junk e-mail delivered to your Inbox, but color-coded so you can easily identify it. The list of terms that Outlook uses to filter suspected junk e-mail messages is found in a file named Filters.txt. You can also filter messages based on the e-mail addresses of junk and adult content senders, allowing you to move or delete all future messages from a particular sender. You can review the Junk Senders list and add and remove e-mail addresses from it. If you do not use Outlook 2000 or higher, please refer to your mail program’s help files for any information related to spam filtering. Q: Are there any low cost programs out there that I can install to help filter the spam? A: Yes. There are many programs available that use a variety of methods to help e-mail end users filter spam. Effective spam prevention should include client-side software (that is, software that is installed on your local computer). Below are some links that you may want to visit: Cloudmark Safety Bar: http://www.cloudmark.com Realize that there are many products on the market that you can install on help filter spam. However, as we are not affiliated with the vendors or authors of those products, we cannot specify which of those products would work best for your specific situation. We ask that you “do your research” in order to locate which product is best for you. Q: The spam that is reaching me is being sent to defined e-mail accounts. What can I do about it? A: If any of your defined e-mail addresses are receiving too many spam messages, it may be well worth it to you to change your e-mail address. For example, if “info@mydomainname” is the recipient of too much spam, it may be a good idea to delete “info@mydomainname” in favor of “information@mydomainname. We realize that this may be a tough decision, but such an action could be a huge benefit as it would immediately reduce — if not entirely eliminate — the amount of spam that you would be receiving at your e-mail address. Q: How can I prevent my e-mail address from being added to spammer’s mailing lists? A: As mentioned above, spammers use a variety of methods to compile lists. We have created a help document that will give you some useful tips about how to prevent your e-mail addresses from being added to lists. Protect Your Privacy If you plan to enter your information to any Web site, please review the Terms of Service and Privacy Policies of the Web site. If the policies do not clearly indicate what will be done with your information, you should reconsider posting any details to that Web site. Publishing Your E-mail Address on Your Web Site Instead of having a simple “mailto” link on your Web site, such as “Please e-mail me at joe@example.com,” consider using an approved form mail script that allows Web site visitors to fill out a form to send you e-mail. Bizwala offers such a script free of charge. This will help prevent e-mail address harvesting robots and other spammers from capturing your address. email support@bizwala.net if you need assistance in setting up a spam deterrent form mail Member Profiles Try to stay away from creating and posting a member profile, on any Web site, for others to see publicly. Spammers are always reviewing such information for new e-mail addresses. Product Registration Many of us register products online. Many times the product registration form has options pre-selected that enable the company to solicit you by e-mail, even though you may not want it. Be sure to review the options you are selecting and any options that may have been selected for you by default. Posting to a Newsgroup Never post anything to a newsgroup with your real e-mail address. Consider cloaking the address or using a “disposable” e-mail address. Consider creating and using an e-mail address from one of the free e-mail address providers. Do Not Reply to Spam or an Unsubscribe Request Never reply to a piece of spam or request to be unsubscribed. Your reply confirms that your address is working and provides the spammer the opportunity to add your address to their list or sell it to another entity. This actually helps facilitate more spam. Report Spam An effective way to help prevent spam is to report it to the ISP or mail administrator where the spam originated. Such reports help ISPs to identify the user or users who sent the spam. Report the spam, including full headers from the spam, to the ISP abuse department or postmaster e-mail address. Federal law strictly limits the information that online service providers may disclose about their users. However, e-mail messages do contain some information about the sender. E-mail headers contain an Internet Protocol (IP) address that corresponds to the sender’s Internet service provider (ISP). A line in the e-mail message contains an 8 to 12 digit number, separated by periods. For example: “Received: from [123.456.78.91] by . . .” The “123.456.78.91″ represents the ISP’s unique IP address for the sender. Most spam headers have multiple “Received: from” lines. If the e-mail message has not been forged then, in general, the first such line from the bottom is the true origin of the spammed message. After you identify the IP address, you can search to determine which ISP provides this person with Internet access. A Web site that attempts to determine the actual computer with that IP address is located at http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html -Article written by Wendy Jo McLeod Spam solution providers Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:53 am
The Reliability of Spam Filters by David Simon The only way to keep up with the latest about The Reliability Spam Filters is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about The Reliability Spam Filters, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority. Spam filters supposedly stop spam ,ails, phishing mails, which are another type of spam that comes through the mailbox, but pose more of a risk than other types of spam email. Thus, if a phishing email comes to your in inbox and you provide the sender with your information, you have put yourself at a high risk of having your identity stolen. This means that you must avoid these emails at all costs. Internet service providers today claim to place high-security on their services. However, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and other services probably have less security than you might believe especially with their default settings. If you don’t have accurate details regarding The Reliability Spam Filters, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading. The fact is that spam emails and phishing emails especially put the account holder at risk. The phishing mails are worse because they appear to come from account providers, such as banks, internet service providers and businesses. Thus, avoiding these mails at all cost is part of filtering your mail. While AOL has a spam filter integrated into its server, it still does not have the power to stop the perpetrators completely if you fail to do so yourself, you could end up at high-risk of having your identity stolen. If you think you have problems now just sorting through and deleting those emails, just think of how much more trouble you will have if you ever accidently answer one. You will have to contact credit bureaus, cancel credit cards, and withdraw money from your bank accounts. Thus, the ultimate filter for reducing and getting rid of spam or phishing emails is either to not answer them at all or to remit a blank email to the sender. Spam email filters may seem highly reliable, but do not misunderstand that to mean that you now have the freedom to open anything in your inbox without any scrutiny. Always take the time to sort and separate your mail. Is there really any information about The Reliability Spam Filters that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:53 am
Strategies To Fight Email Spam If you are a business owner and you rely on email, spam is going to be a major concern. How you address it can make a big difference in employee efficiency. Email spam has been a nuisance and has gotten even worse over the last several years. Email spam slows down server performance and can eat away at storage. Cleaning all those bad messages out of your inbox is time consuming. The easiest way for viruses to spread is via email. Having a strategy to deal with email spam and viruses threats is essential for any business to survive and be productive. You can limit the negative impact to your business by having policies and guidelines in place. Tips to avoid getting email spam: If you have a company web site, use a contact form that the web site visitor can fill out. Some spam mers use robots that crawl web pages looking for email addresses. Your web site designer should be able to help you with this. When signing up for forums, products and services use a free email or throwaway account like hotmail or Yahoo mail. When signing up for offers be careful what boxes you check although technically not spam you may get a lot of email offers you do not want. Never reply to an email spam message, this just lets them know that your account is active. You may want to use a throwaway email address if you post on newsgroups or forums. These measures may help to reduce spam, but if you have an old email address you may want to change your email address or deploy a spam filter system. There are several choices for anti spam systems you could buy software that runs locally on your PC to filter the spam, but this can be expensive, does not prevent virus infection, and is not a good choice in a networked environment. Managing individual machine spam software is inefficient. If you have limited technical resources you can outsource you email spam filtering to a hosted anti spam and virus solution provider. Spam filter service providers colocate their spam and virus filters in data centers with redundant power and network connections. You will need to change your mail exchanger on your dns servers to point to the service providers spam filters. Your service provider will then scrub your email for spam and viruses. They then forward your email to your mail server minus the spam and viruses. This gives you a few extra layers of protection. In the event of a network outage or server downtime your email is held and is delivered when the network or your server is available minus the virus and spam. Spam filter services also scan for viruses; this adds another layer of defense to the virus software already running on your network. If you have an organization with more than one hundred email boxes investing in your own spam filter appliance is the most cost effective solution if you have the technical expertise to manage the system. A spam appliance sits in front of your email server and blocks spam and viruses. The price of the spam appliance will depend upon your number of users, amount of mail and storage requirements. Fighting spam is no longer be a losing battle if you have a good strategy to deal with the threat. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:52 am
How DO Spammers Get Your Email Address? How DO Spammers Get Your Email Address? As much as I try to stem the seemingly endless flow of spam, the crap just keeps arriving my Inbox. For example, this week I received “New affiliate programs from 2004-02-10 to 2004-02-14 :: Subscription from http://WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net”. I’d never heard of WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net, let alone subscribed to the newsletter. But the address used explained exactly how the spammer reached me. I’ve set up numerous ’special’ addresses for customers, affiliates, subscribers, merchant partners and others. For example, if I join XYZ’s affiliate program, I might set up XYZ@nptinfo.com and give that address to them to contact me. If I suddenly start to receive spam at that address, then I know EXACTLY who the ‘leaky’ culprit is. Here are other ways spammers get your address. Web Pages Spammers use scavenger bots, programs that ‘harvest’ email addresses contained in “mailto:” HTML tags. Those are clickable email links that open your email program with the address already placed in the “To” field. Web Forms Some sites request various details via forms, e.g. guest books & registration forms. Spammers get email addresses from these because the form is publicly available on the web, or because the webmaster sells the list. Paper (Offline) Forms Some companies sell lists of addresses obtained from convention participants or contest entrants. Whois Searches Unless the domain registrant has paid an additional fee to make their registration private, a simple Whois lookup reveals the registrant’s address. Although most registrars have enhanced the security of their WHOIS databases, by requiring a special code be entered before information is displayed, many spammers take the time and trouble to grab addresses this way. From Web Browsers Some sites use various tricks to extract a surfer’s email address from the web browser, sometimes without the surfer noticing it. Chat Rooms This is another major source of email addresses for spammers, especially as this is one of the first public activities newbies join, making it easy for spammers to harvest ‘fresh’ addresses. Sending Test Messages Have you ever sent a message to an invalid address? You get an ‘undeliverable’ or ‘failure’ notice back. Some spammers use this to guess email addresses by sending test messages to a list of made-up or guessed addresses. They know they’ve got good addresses for those that did not result in failure messages. Online Yellow Pages What could be more alluring to a spammer than a directory of names and email addresses filed by category? Chain Letters These are ingenious. I tell five friends, and my friends each tell five of their friends, and so on and so forth. The email addresses all build up in the cc field and are a spammers delight. Buying Lists Spammers buy lists of email addresses usually passed off as those belonging to people who opted-in to to obtain information in a specific category. Let’s put spammers out of business. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Use ‘throw-away’ addresses whenever you’re not sure of the source, and don’t sign up unless there are clear ‘Privacy’ statements on the site. If worse comes to worse, and you’re fighting your way through a mountain of spam, install anti-spam software on your computer. © Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved. Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online”. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://hop.clickbank.net/?nathanoct/webvista2 About the Author Rosalind Gardner is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world. In January 1997, Rosalind Gardner received her first ‘web check’ and hasn’t looked back since. Trading her career as an air traffic controller for full-time netpreneurship in early 2000, her various internet projects now entertain and inform millions of visitors annually. She offers this article with YOU in mind, knowing that if she can earn a good living online, YOU can too. Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:50 am
Are You A Spam Zombie? Over the past few years you’ve all become familiar with the terms spam, spam filter, whitelists, blacklists and a whole myriad of other terminology associated with the problem of spam. You now have to add a new and extremely worrying phrase to that list - spam zombie. With the net closing in around them spammers are looking for new and more inventive ways to send out their junk email. Spam filters and challenge response systems are becoming progressively more intelligent and blocking more spam each day. What was a spammer to do? The spammers took the next step - infiltrating your PC and using it as a spamming tool. When most of you think of the word zombie you’re reminded of old B movies with groaning zombies chasing the terrified actress through a castle, swamp or whatever low cost setting the movie revolved around. Spam zombies are, however, far more real and far more dangerous. A spam zombie is when your computer is taken over by a type of virus called a Trojan. Once this Trojan virus is on your computer it sets up an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) application which allows it to begin sending email directly from your PC to tens of thousands of victims. This all happens invisibly in the background and can be difficult to detect for even the experienced computer user. How do these Trojans get onto your computer? As in most cases they come from porn, warez or similar sites. One of the first spam zombie trojans to appear became available via a link on sites promising viewers free access to a porno webcam. One click later and the Trojan is installed on your computer ready to send out spam. Phatbot and Proxy-Guzu are two of the more common Trojans used for the purpose of turning your computer into a spam zombie. How can you check if your computer has become a spam zombie? Make absolutely certain that both your anti-virus and firewall software have current detection signatures and have been completely patched and updated. Working online without taking these necessary security precautions is simply asking for trouble. Internet Service Providers are under huge pressure to quarantine the IP address of any computer which has been turned into a spam zombie. This is done on the basis that the ISP risks their entire IP range being blacklisted or banned by some spam filtering services or companies. The very least you owe yourself is to run a full virus and spyware scan on your computer today. You might be unpleasantly surprised at what you’ll find lurking there. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:50 am
How to Not Appear Like A Spammer Unless you use the Internet only for surfing and never use your email address you’ve probably received something that is called spam. There are different definitions for spam but I will say that spam is unsolicited email commercial. Many people harvest other people’s email addresses on email and web forums and send them info that they didn’t request. This is very frustrating because you loose your precious time deleting those unwanted messages. In this article I will explain how NOT to appear like a spammer. Opt-in If you have an email newsletter it is very important that you don’t appear like a spammer. If you want to stay long in email publishing business your newsletters have to be based on opt-in method. It means that a subscriber chose to receive your newsletter and that you have their permission to send them your newsletter. It is called Permission Marketing. I would suggest that your list be double opt-in. Now what is double opt-in? Double opt-in means that your subscribers have to confirm their request to join your list. Confirmation is done by replying to the message that you send to everyone who had initiated subscription. Beside replying, people can confirm their request by clicking on a certain link. This ensures that one person can’t subscribe another person against his or her will. Also, never buy so called opt-in lists and also never sell or rent your members base. Welcome message I would suggest you that you ask your new subscribers to save your welcome message. There you can put the necessary info about your list and list management: list description, subscribe/unsubscribe address, digest address, owner’s email address, list rules… This is important because of the following. Many people promote their newsletter for some time, until they get enough subscribers and then publish the first issue. However, it is most likely that someone who had subscribed to your list several months ago forgot that he or she actually requested to be a member of your list. And then, they can accuse you that you are a spammer. If they save a welcome message they can see that they required to be your subscribers. Subject line Subject line is very important in email newsletters. Beside, From field it is the most important thing for someone to decide whether to open your newsletter or not. I would suggest that your subject line consists a title of your article, issue number and date. If your From or To field doesn’t consist your list name than you should put your list name in Subject line, too. Preferably in brackets. If you have your subscriber’s first name in your database you should definitely put their name as the first thing in the Subject line. Then it is more likely that they will open your newsletter. Never use spam techniques like putting Re: at the beginning of your Subject line so that people think that they sent you an email and you are sending them your reply. Nobody is fool. Filtration Many people use email programs with powerful email filter options. Many people set their filters to delete messages with get-rich-quick-schemes, porn and similar content so it is wise that you don’t put that kind of text in your messages if you want that people read it. Also, don’t capitalize your words like FREE, MAKE MONEY, GUARANTEED… I wouldn’t suggest that you use this or similar words in the first place beacuse these words are often used by spammers. If you have an option that in To field be your subscriber’s email address and not, for example your list name, that would be ideal because some mail washer programs automatically flag messages which don’t have a recipient email address as possible SPAM. List management Always provide very clear information regarding list management in your newsletter. Very important thing is that your list management provides very easy way of unsubscribing. For example, some email newsletters have at the very bottom an unique unsubscribe address for every subscriber. It can be something like leave-yourlistname-111327893L@yourlistserver.com This way, your subscribers can unsubscribe only with one click and they don’t have to worry if they sent unsubscription request from address which is in your subscriber list. Good list management is, also, useful because you won’t loose your time explaining to your subscribers how to do something, for example unsubscribe or set receiving messages in digest mode. Also, it is wise that if you use advanced email marketing software like Group Mail to include important information about your subscribers in every issue of your email newsletter. In other words, to personalize your newsletter. For example, you can make a section at the beginning of your email newsletter where you will write several lines so that your subscriber see that he or she really chose to be your subscriber. Many email marketing software have an option to include a code in your issue that will be automatically parsed after sending so the subscriber will see his or her info. Something like this: _____________________ MEMBERS SECTION Your name: !*COMPLETE_NAME*! Member since: !*MEMBER_SINCE*! From IP address: !*IP_ADDRESS*! _____________________ And in your Editor’s Section you can start your writing with: Dear, !*COMPLETE_NAME*!… That’s why personalization is very important. At the end, you can read several spam messages and - do the opposite in your email newsletter. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 12.11.05 by Admin @ 8:41 pm
When Joe Mastruserio of Cincinnati got fed up with “spam” email containing unsavory offers he did not want – like adult entertainment and pyramid schemes – he clicked on the “remove me” or “unsubscribe” links in the text of the email messages. Much to his dismay, those links often led nowhere. So Mastruserio did what more than 200,000 consumers did last year: He complained to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In response to complaints like Mastruserio’s, the FTC investigated and found that the allegations were true. In April, the FTC warned 77 online marketers to discontinue their bogus “unsubscribe” links or face possible legal action. The warnings represent the FTC’s latest effort to crack down on deceptive spam. In the past four years, the FTC has brought more than 30 law enforcement actions against marketers who used spam to promote For many consumers, any kind of spam is annoying and time-consuming. But deceptive spam is especially troublesome because it can cheat consumers out of their money, undermine consumer confidence in online commerce and harm legitimate Internet marketers. There are steps consumers can take to help reduce the amount of spam they get – from keeping their email address more private to reporting spam problems to the FTC. “Con artists have seized on email’s capacity to reach millions of consumers quickly and cheaply,” says Eileen Harrington, Associate Director for the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices. “It’s time to wrest this tool from rip-off artists.” A Study of Spam Not all spam is fraudulent. However, spam is frequently used by scam artists because it is low cost and allows them to hide their identities, says Eric Wenger, an attorney in the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices. “Fighting deception is often an effective way to fight spam,” he says. Spammers obtain email addresses by buying lists from brokers who have “harvested” addresses from Internet newsgroup postings, chat rooms, websites, and online services’ membership directories. The spammers then use special software to send hundreds of thousands – even millions – of email messages with just one click of the mouse. Exactly how much spam they send is unknown. But it is increasing. The FTC receives about 40,000 pieces a day in a special mailbox it set up in 1998. Three years ago, the mailbox received about 4,000 a day. “Spam is a big problem, whether it’s deceptive or not,” Harrington says. “Consumers complain about it, and Internet Service Providers say it burdens them. To many, it’s the bane of cyberspace.” Enforcement Action The FTC also has helped train 1,700 law enforcement agents throughout the U.S. and Canada on investigating deceptive spam and other Internet fraud. As an outgrowth of that training, the FTC is helping create regional “netforces” – groups of local, state and federal agencies that work together to fight deceptive spam and other Internet fraud. One group – the Northwest Netforce, comprised of eight state law enforcement agencies, four Canadian agencies and the FTC – announced in April the results of 63 Internet-related law enforcement actions and the issuing of more than 500 warning letters to spammers for promoting illegal chain letter schemes. In addition, the FTC, along with other U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies, investigated complaints from consumers about spammers who failed to honor their offers to remove consumers’ names from future email solicitations. Consumers indicated that they were unable to follow through on messages that said “click here to unsubscribe” or “reply for removal.” When investigators tested several of the questionable links, they found that the removal hyperlinks often did not function. As a result, the FTC sent warning letters to 77 marketers and will continue to monitor “remove me” offers to ensure that they do what they say they will. Consumer Action * Avoid displaying your email address in public spaces, including newsgroup postings or chat rooms, on websites, or in an online service’s membership directory. * Check a website’s privacy policy before submitting your email address. Make sure the website doesn’t plan to sell your address. If possible, “opt out” of any such plans. * Read and understand website forms before you transmit personal information. If possible, select the “opt-out” choice if the website plans to share your information. * Create two email addresses – one for personal messages and the other for public use, such as in newsgroups or chat rooms. Or, consider a disposable email address service; it creates a separate email address that forwards your email to your permanent address. If the disposable address begins to receive spam, you can shut if off without affecting the permanent address. * Create a unique email address. Spammers often use “dictionary attacks” to sort through possible name combinations at large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or email services to find valid addresses. So a common name, like “jdoe,” may get more spam than a unique name, like “jd51×02oe.” * Use an email filter. Some email accounts provide a tool to filter out potential spam or channel it to a bulk email folder. You may want to ask whether this option is available when choosing an ISP. * Report the spam to the ISP – yours and the sender’s. Often the email address is “abuse@[your ISP’s name].com” or postmaster@[your ISP’s name].com. The ISP may be able to stop further spam. * Report the problem to the FTC. Send the actual spam item to spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full email header so that your complaint can be followed up. If your complaint has to do with “remove me” or “unsubscribe” offers not working, complete and submit the FTC’s complaint form at www.ftc.gov. For more on spam and how to avoid it, visit www.ftc.gov/spam. Says the FTC’s Harrington, “If each of us takes steps to can unwanted spam, collectively, we can do it.” Filed under: Email Spam and News Comments: None |
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External News Email Spam News News on Email Spam continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. Dealing with the Age of Spam Spam has been around for an age, but most recently the word spam has been a direct relation to unwanted emails on the internet, they have been slowly increasing since the development of the internet and now ... Revival of Spamalot Spam volume has been cut by more than half because Internet providers pulled the plug on McColo Corp., a Web hosting firm that was allegedly helping some of the world's most dastardly junk e-mail gangs. Overstock.com's Latest Gambit: Email Spams to Promote Its Wacky CEO The corporate fraud poster boy Overstock.com, having just reinstated in financial results going back to the time of Copernicus , has invested its scarce cash in a new but typically slimy tactic: email spams. |
