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I'm sure that they won't want the worst of the worst to come in using
this manner, but I do see most bulk-mail services paying for
protection. Places like Roving.com/Constant Contact, which have issues
with some of their customers spamming and frequently being blacklisted,
will no doubt pay the fee just like they pay for protection from
BondedSender. This means that such places can continue to offer a
service that can't guarantee that they aren't being used to spam and at
least get through to the biggest providers that sign on to the system
in exchange for money. I can also see places like astrology.com who
are member based, but operate a spamming service for third-parties to
their subscribers (which is widely considered to be spam when one
source sends you off-topic advertising). Places like this could then
pay for protection, and then places like The University of Phoenix
Online, Omaha Steaks, etc. will flock to these places in order to get
their spam through instead of using spam services that can't claim the
penetration. It just seems like a sell-out of their customer base, as well as extortion of legitimate providers that can get caught in the far less than perfect traps (kind of like digging a pothole in front of your tire store). I really hate it when customers (end-users) are taken advantage of in this way. Matt Robert E. Spivack wrote: I'm not sure about that - I think a lot of the hardcore spammers (and I mean that both figuratively and literally) will be reticent to pay anything, even fractional cents, to send their spam.Their margins assume virtually free cost of sending millions of spam and even factional pennies add up. More importantly, paying in this program means they have to leave an audit trail (their payment) which can help in tracking down illegal or abusive spammers. I don't think the worst offenders will participate. As much as my first impression is against this for the reasons quoted (seems to be blackmail forcing legitimate mailers to pay money) it does seem to be aimed at deep pocket, legitimate mailers such as eBay, Car companies, and other big brands that are getting a lot of their mail blocked. The problem is since no one can agree exactly on what is spam or ham, the abuse potential is huge. They could just start marking everything spam to raise their income and penalize anyone that does business by sending out legitimate emails (purchase receipts, customer opt-in newsletters, etc.) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of John T (Lists) Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 10:17 PM To: Declude.JunkMail@declude.com Subject: RE: [Declude.JunkMail] Extortion Matt, I agree with you. It would mean nothing to a major spammer to spend 1/4 cent per message to have it guaranteed delivered. For 100K messages, that would be $250 which would actually improve the spammers' chances for more responses since the recipients would then trust the sender. John T eServices For You "Seek, and ye shall find!"-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:Declude.JunkMail- [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 9:29 PM To: Declude.JunkMail@declude.com Subject: Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Extortion Considering that AOL and Yahoo both have issues with blocking legitimate E-mail, and Yahoo is just about the most exploited service provider on the planet, responsible for a great number of phishing and Nigerian scams, I find it quite hypocritical for them to in the business of charging companies for the right to spam their customers. This is really what this is all about. The BondedSender program is much the same. They charge companies with spam problems a fee for protection, but they market the service to users like us as a way to validate the legitimacy of what they bond. If anything, a bonded IP is more likely to spam than one that is not bonded. Once when I reported the spam service Virtumundo to BondedSender for spamming, their response was to keep them bonded only for the IP address that they used to send to HotMail accounts. What do you think that was all about? IronPort also of course owns SpamCop and sells boxes that some spammers use for bulk-mailing. I get the impression that this is just Yahoo and AOL trying to profit from two groups of bulk-mailers, 1) ones that feel it necessary to protect their campaigns from being blacklisted by these services because Yahoo and AOL are difficult or even impossible for them to deal with when users repeatedly report legitimate E-mail for being spam, and 2) spammers, yep, AOL and Yahoo now want to get in on the BondedSender model and profit from spamming. Matt Dave Doherty wrote:I'd like to charge senders a penny per email. Wouldn't you? That is the old post office model. I just don't think that goodmail has the right model. -d ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <Declude.JunkMail@declude.com> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 10:33 PM Subject: [Declude.JunkMail] Extortion |
- RE: [Declude.JunkMail] Extortion Robert E. Spivack
- Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Extortion Matt
