Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 09 Aug 2005, Justin Mason said: BTW, before we go too far down this rabbit-hole, everyone please note that actually, the SpamAssassin project *does* have its own definition of spam: that being Unsolicited Bulk Email. There was a wonderful old post on news.admin.net-abuse.misc (message-id [EMAIL PROTECTED]) that put this point very well, albeit in a Usenet context: What is spam? Spam is the same thing lots and lots of times. [...] We do not care what is in a spam. We do not care if it is in the right place or the wrong place. If we cared, that would be bad. If we did not like a post, we could say it is bad, so it is spam. Or we could say it is in the wrong place, so it is spam. That would be worse than spam. So we say a thing is spam if it is the same thing lots and lots of times. These days, there's an exception for legitimate, double-opt-in mailing lists, but that's all, I think. Individuals sending customized one-off emails are generally not spam in my eyes, annoying or not --- but this is somewhat subjective, as it's sometimes hard to tell if a message is individually customized from the recipient's POV, and I hear that some 419 scammers actually send their scams by typing them in one-by-one at net cafes and the like. -- `Tor employs several thousand editors who they keep in dank subterranean editing facilities not unlike Moria' -- James Nicoll
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, E. Falk wrote: Rob McEwen wrote: Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? I'm really curious as to how we would defined solicited e-mail. solicited == requested, pretty easy if you ask me. -- Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Bowie Bailey wrote: Personally, I have a very simple definition of spam: If I didn't ask for it and it comes from someone I don't know, it's spam. That's not a workable definition. If someone I don't know checks out my website and emails me asking me to do some work for them, I don't consider it spam, for example (one-to-one communication, in this case; for me to consider it spam, it has to be unsolicited AND bulk). There has to be at least one other component to the definition. -- Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Mike Wiebeld wrote: I don't think you understand the situation. How is the recipient supposed to know whether it is actually a hand crafted email sent just to him or a spam run of 10,000? There are tools like Razor and DCC that help determine that. -- Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Steven J. Sobol [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Bowie Bailey wrote: Personally, I have a very simple definition of spam: If I didn't ask for it and it comes from someone I don't know, it's spam. That's not a workable definition. If someone I don't know checks out my website and emails me asking me to do some work for them, I don't consider it spam, for example (one-to-one communication, in this case; for me to consider it spam, it has to be unsolicited AND bulk). There has to be at least one other component to the definition. Like I said, that's my personal definition. I am not in the position of selling anything, so that situation doesn't apply to me. Obviously, that's not a workable definition for most businesses. Spam definitions have to be modified to fit the account. My spam definition above would probably work quite well for most home users. Business addresses (sales, info, support, etc) and technical addresses (webmaster, postmaster, etc) would need different definitions. It comes down to two questions: What emails do I not want to see in my inbox? How can I recognize and block them? Bowie
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Aug 9, 2005, at 9:05 PM, Justin Mason wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 John Rudd writes: After reading through this thread, I decided to formally define my own definition of spam (since others are basically trying to do that, etc.). BTW, before we go too far down this rabbit-hole, everyone please note that actually, the SpamAssassin project *does* have its own definition of spam: that being Unsolicited Bulk Email. http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Spam We could have a very long discussion about this again, but please, let's not. it's already been done ;) Yes, and, as I hinted at, while that definition is useful for defining a scope for a project, it is hardly accurate ... and it misses the point entirely.
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Aug 9, 2005, at 8:06 PM, Rob McEwen wrote: John Rudd mentioned: (For all of you people who like to send a undisclosed recipients message to all of your friends: yes, I'm calling you spammers, and I am unapologetic about it. If you don't like it, don't send me email.) message for John Rudd, Actually it is extremely more rude, inappropriate, amateurish, and unprofessional to reveal everyone's e-mail addresses to ALL the recipients. It's not often that I tell someone that they're flat out wrong ... usually I just say that I don't agree. But, that's not the case here. You're flat out wrong. For example, if my friend sends me a joke e-mail and he sends this to all of his other friends, I do NOT want my e-mail address so easily accessible by the others because my circle of friends may not be the exact same as his. If the sender doesn't take the time to know what each of the recipients wants, and to accommodate what each recipient wants, the sender is the one being rude and inappropriate. If one recipient doesn't want their address publicized, then send them a separate mailing (and/or coerce your mail software into splitting up the message into multiple instances, one for each recipient). If I'm one of your recipients, and there isn't an address in the to or cc headers that represents me, then you're being rude to me. Period. That is not up for debate. If you know me, then you know that that's how I feel, and you're being rude if you don't address that. If you don't know me, then you shouldn't assume, and you should just send me a separate instance, otherwise you're being rude by pushing your preference upon the recipient. (and, yes, the burden here is upon the sender, not the recipient, because the sender can't force the recipient to listen/read, therefore if the sender DOES want the recipient to listen/read, they must accommodate the recipient's sense of rude/polite and inappropraite/appropriate) (and, really, you want to know what rude is? Rude is making it so that I can't tell how I got this message, so that I know who to contact to get off of that distribution list, because the sender may not even know who I am if one of the places they sent email to was a mailing list ... and yes, that HAS happened to me) As for professional ... I don't know of any professional organization, in my 20 years on the internet, that considers it professional behavior to obfuscate the recipient list in a business message. That's for play and cutesy things like family news letters. It is NOT good business etiquette. In any organization I've been in, you would be laughed out of the company for suggesting otherwise. If you don't want to list everyone's address, then get them to join a formal mailing list (or get their permission for you to put them on one), and have the mailing list send them the message. Do NOT do something cheesy and amateurish like undisclosed-recipients:;.
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Greg Allen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] But I must say, some people on the list appear to be giving their own personal opinion as if they are only referring to their own email inbox, without regard to users on their system. Maybe they are not really administrators of multi-user systems, I don't know. If they are administrating large systems I would have to wonder what secret lists they had developed. But if you do manage multiple users accounts, you have to provide industry standard anti-spam protection without blocking on your own definition of spam. Now if you are only talking your own email box, you can define every email except emails from your mom as spam, not much of anyone would give a hoot what you block in your own inbox. The responses you get depend on the questions you ask. If you ask Is this spam?, you will generally get personal opinions. These opinions may be quite different from the policies implemented by the corporate mail servers. I my case, I have a very strict personal view of spam. However, most of my email clients are salesmen, so I have to be careful of what criteria I use for spam. In fact, my server does not block spam at all for most accounts. It simply tags it and then the individual users can decide for themselves what to do with the tagged emails. There is also the limitation of what spam blockers can do. A one-shot hand-typed email with a real From address and no obfuscation would probably not be caught by SA unless it is full of sales buzzwords and other spam-sign. Bowie
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Aug 10, 2005, at 5:02 AM, JamesDR wrote: Loren Wilton wrote: My $.02 here... Why doesn't he put together a nice presentation package and mail it to them? I think I know the real reason -- it costs money. It could be argued that sending an email costs money, but hardly the cost of putting together a decent presentation on a few sheets of flashy/nice paper and mailing it to prospective customers. This is a higher cost to the sender Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment: what if his business is website design? What would YOU think of getting a snail mail from someone claiming to be a genius website whiz? What *I* would think (if I even opened junk paper mail, which I don't) is this guy claims to be a web whiz and he doesn't even know about email? I'm going to give this guy my business? I don't *think* so! And into the roundfile it would go. Loren True, he didn't specify what was being advertised, so it could be anything. For arguments sake, I was thinking along the lines of something that provided a product / service outside that of hosting/web design. Tho the issue still remains, if his prospective clients didn't ask to be sent info, by UCE's terms, it's spam. And, personally, if I got a snail mail from a web designer, and it opened with In order to avoid sending you spam, I'm sending you a one-time snail-mail flyer, I would actually respect that level of consideration and 'out of the box' thinking. I would be MORE likely to go look up their portfolio and consider their services, than if they had spammed me. The idea that I should be less interested in them just because they didn't email me seems to be ... rather limited thinking. For one, if they're a decent graphic designer, their flyer will be laid out as well as their web pages. If they're not a decent enough graphic designer to do a decent flyer layout, why do I want them working on my web page?
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: John Rudd [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Aug 10, 2005, at 5:02 AM, JamesDR wrote:
Loren Wilton wrote:
My $.02 here...
Why doesn't he put together a nice presentation package and mail it
to
them? I think I know the real reason -- it costs money. It could be
argued that sending an email costs money, but hardly the cost of
putting
together a decent presentation on a few sheets of flashy/nice paper
and
mailing it to prospective customers. This is a higher cost to the
sender
Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment: what if his business
is
website design? What would YOU think of getting a snail mail from
someone
claiming to be a genius website whiz? What *I* would think (if I even
opened junk paper mail, which I don't) is this guy claims to be a
web whiz
and he doesn't even know about email? I'm going to give this guy my
business? I don't *think* so!
And into the roundfile it would go.
Loren
True, he didn't specify what was being advertised, so it could be
anything. For arguments sake, I was thinking along the lines of
something that provided a product / service outside that of
hosting/web design. Tho the issue still remains, if his prospective
clients didn't ask to be sent info, by UCE's terms, it's spam.
And, personally, if I got a snail mail from a web designer, and it
opened with In order to avoid sending you spam, I'm sending you a
one-time snail-mail flyer, I would actually respect that level of
consideration and 'out of the box' thinking. I would be MORE likely to
go look up their portfolio and consider their services, than if they
had spammed me.
The idea that I should be less interested in them just because they
didn't email me seems to be ... rather limited thinking.
For one, if they're a decent graphic designer, their flyer will be laid
out as well as their web pages. If they're not a decent enough graphic
designer to do a decent flyer layout, why do I want them working on my
web page?
Nobody reads the credits anymore. They walk out of movies when the
credits roll. And they don't bother to see who designed the really
nice web sites they just visited. Ah well. That is likely as not
how I'd find a web designer if I had need of one.
{^_-}
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: When is Bulk Bulk? http://www.spamlaws.com -- Matthew.van.Eerde (at) hbinc.com 805.964.4554 x902 Hispanic Business Inc./HireDiversity.com Software Engineer
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: When is Bulk Bulk? The reason I ask is because I have a client who sends unsolicited e-mails to prospective clients. But he does this manually by visiting relevant web sites and then one-at-a-time, he personally e-mails these prospective clients. I don't consider this spam because it is not bulk and my client can actually tell you who he e-mailed that day and why. Your opinion may differ, but since you are asking... I think you need to consider how your definition of 'spam' matches up with the rest of the world. You seem to define spam in terms of bulk. Most aren't so limited. I personally define spam as either UCE or UBE. Either one. UCE - unsolicited commercial email UBE - unsolicited bulk email Therefore, to me, and many others, it doesn't matter how few messages there are, or how individual the message is. If it's unsolicited email of a commercial nature, it's spam. Period. However, most spam laws don't outright prohibit UCE. They prohibit forgeries, and have various opt-out requirements. However, such laws vary from state-to-state, and you better check to make sure UCE is allowed in the state your user is sending mail to. Most decent ISP terms of service prohibit both UBE and UCE. You should too. i.e.: http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp Contains: transmit unsolicited bulk or commercial messages or spam. This includes, but is not limited to, unsolicited advertising, promotional materials or other solicitation material, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, chain mail, informational announcements, charity requests, and petitions for signatures; Please note that it's an OR here, not an AND. All unsolicited commercial messages are spam in comcast's eyes. And: http://site.aol.com/copyright/rules.html Prohibits spamming as: constitutes unauthorized or unsolicited advertising, junk or bulk e-mail (also known as Spamming), chain letters, any other form of unauthorized solicitation, or any form of lottery or gambling; Again, unsolicited advertising is defined as spam.
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob McEwen wrote:
When is Bulk Bulk?
http://www.spamlaws.com
jdow: Regardless of legal definitions I capture it as spam and
treat it as spam. If such a letter gets through it's address gets
added to my blacklist. I do not see the Internet as an advertising
medium with me forced to sit and read it or worse to business with
those who cold email me. I treat cold telephone calls the same
way. I treat junk email the same way. If they are lucky it goes
into the bin directly. If they are not lucky they get permanently
blacklisted and I refuse to do business with them. (Cold callers
also get words about crawling through the telephone and ripping
their throats out. That seems to have a funny effect on some of
the cold callers - from India I suspect. I figure I might as well
get some amusement when they've interrupted my concentration.)
{^_^}
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Matt Kettler wrote: Therefore, to me, and many others, it doesn't matter how few messages there are, or how individual the message is. If it's unsolicited email of a commercial nature, it's spam. Period. BTW - Matt, would an e-mail asking for link exchanges between web sites be considered commercial. What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails? Also, regarding any major ISPs definitions of spam being any unsolicited message, I wonder how many actually enforce that? And, of the ones which do enforce it, I wonder many of these also block mail where one of their users simply forgot he subscribed to something or was just too lazy to unsubscribe and simply reported the non spam as spam. I've heard some horror stories where AOL blocked double-opt-in newsletters because of misguide complains from customers complaining about mail that they had actually opted into. Also, [EMAIL PROTECTED] referred me to the spam laws: http://www.spamlaws.com Ironically, in these two replies to my original message so far, (from Matt and Matthew) (1) one cites U.S. laws which are a VERY loose definition of spam (2) The other has a much stricter definition of spam. In fact, SpamHaus's splits the difference between these two extreme definitions. http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? Just an observation, if the only kind of unsolicited e-mail we ever received were personally typed solicitations and all other spam were eliminated, then there would have never been a need for SpamAssassin and 99.% of all spam would be gone. --Rob McEwen
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Clarification of my last message: When I asked What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails?, please don't misunderstand me. I'm NOT saying that all political or non-profit are not spam... I was only responding to another's definition of spam as being unsolicited email of a commercial nature ...I was trying to point out that it is sometimes harder to define and/or rely upon commercial than it is to define and/or rely upon bulk as a criteria for being considered spam. --Rob McEwen PowerView Systems
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: Matt Kettler wrote: Therefore, to me, and many others, it doesn't matter how few messages there are, or how individual the message is. If it's unsolicited email of a commercial nature, it's spam. Period. BTW - Matt, would an e-mail asking for link exchanges between web sites be considered commercial. What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails? Also, regarding any major ISPs definitions of spam being any unsolicited message, I wonder how many actually enforce that? And, of the ones which do enforce it, I wonder many of these also block mail where one of their users simply forgot he subscribed to something or was just too lazy to unsubscribe and simply reported the non spam as spam. I've heard some horror stories where AOL blocked double-opt-in newsletters because of misguide complains from customers complaining about mail that they had actually opted into. Hi, Just my two cents but if something shows up in one of my domain management email addresses that is not from our registrar or from ARIN, it gets added to my rbl and my badmailfrom list, especially web link exchange requests. I'm what you might consider a mid-sized to large ISP and I really don't need a thousand link requests a day to webmaster or dns just because we host that domain. Same goes for political and non-profit UCE's. My personal address I'm a bit more lenient on but I add hundreds of IP's a day to our RBL. Regards, Rick
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
I got an email to my postmaster account one time, at a job I was working,
from a guy in the Philipines who buys and sells domains. Just so happened
a VP at the company loved the domain name and was thrilled to buy it for
something like $150 cheap. I don't mind cold emails as much as cold calls
on my cell phone...now that is an entirely different story for me. :-)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob McEwen wrote:
When is Bulk Bulk?
http://www.spamlaws.com
jdow: Regardless of legal definitions I capture it as spam and
treat it as spam. If such a letter gets through it's address gets
added to my blacklist. I do not see the Internet as an advertising
medium with me forced to sit and read it or worse to business with
those who cold email me. I treat cold telephone calls the same
way. I treat junk email the same way. If they are lucky it goes
into the bin directly. If they are not lucky they get permanently
blacklisted and I refuse to do business with them. (Cold callers
also get words about crawling through the telephone and ripping
their throats out. That seems to have a funny effect on some of
the cold callers - from India I suspect. I figure I might as well
get some amusement when they've interrupted my concentration.)
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? I'm really curious as to how we would defined solicited e-mail. As far as bulk e-mail goes, it's fairly easy. Do I solicit the jokes my friends e-mail me? What about the chain letter that warns me about the teddy bear virus? Or the endless petitions? Or the message that asks me if I want to go catch a movie on Friday night? Personally, I worry far more about Bulk than I do about the Unsolicited. I get plenty of e-mail that is unsolicited and unwanted - often from my users. :) If it's unwanted but it is personal (or at least a forward) and I can speak directly to the person who is responsible, then it's not Spam to me. It may not be welcome, but it's not Spam. I'd even be pretty lenient on the definition of bulk, so as not to include those irritating souls who forward everything they receive to their entire address books. Of course, the only official definition of spam comes from Hormel and is not particularly useful to us. Back to your original question, Rob - Given the attitudes today towards e-mail, I'd suggest that anyone using personal unsolicited e-mails for business purposes should rethink their business plan. I wouldn't block them for it, but there are enough people who would. Evan
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Rob McEwen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Matt Kettler wrote: Therefore, to me, and many others, it doesn't matter how few messages there are, or how individual the message is. If it's unsolicited email of a commercial nature, it's spam. Period. BTW - Matt, would an e-mail asking for link exchanges between web sites be considered commercial. What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails? Also, regarding any major ISPs definitions of spam being any unsolicited message, I wonder how many actually enforce that? And, of the ones which do enforce it, I wonder many of these also block mail where one of their users simply forgot he subscribed to something or was just too lazy to unsubscribe and simply reported the non spam as spam. I've heard some horror stories where AOL blocked double-opt-in newsletters because of misguide complains from customers complaining about mail that they had actually opted into. Also, [EMAIL PROTECTED] referred me to the spam laws: http://www.spamlaws.com Ironically, in these two replies to my original message so far, (from Matt and Matthew) (1) one cites U.S. laws which are a VERY loose definition of spam (2) The other has a much stricter definition of spam. In fact, SpamHaus's splits the difference between these two extreme definitions. http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? Just an observation, if the only kind of unsolicited e-mail we ever received were personally typed solicitations and all other spam were eliminated, then there would have never been a need for SpamAssassin and 99.% of all spam would be gone. Personally, I have a very simple definition of spam: If I didn't ask for it and it comes from someone I don't know, it's spam. Email, like the telephone, is a personal communication tool. It should not be used for mass marketing (commercial, political, or otherwise). If you want my business, use billboards, television, radio, yellow pages, web search engines, etc. I don't even mind junk postal mail. But don't call me and don't email me (and please don't leave your litter on my car windshield :) ). If the only kind of unsolicited e-mail we ever received were personally typed solicitations and all other spam were eliminated, then I may not need SpamAssassin, but I would still delete the spam without opening it. Bowie
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
OBSERVATION: Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? If not, the perhaps some people's irritation about getting called at dinner-time for the 10th time by the same phone company be influencing their opinions here?
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
E. Falk wrote: Rob McEwen wrote: Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? Hmm, how about Hi, I see you have a link on your web page to my site at XYZ. I'm moving to ABC, and would appreciate it if you would update your link. Thank you. Assume that the target does, indeed, have a link to the old location of the site in question (and that it wasn't inserted by a link spammer), and that the site really is moving to the new URL provided. Unsolicited. Potentially bulk. But is it spam? -- Kelson Vibber SpeedGate Communications www.speed.net
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 12:59PM: OBSERVATION: Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? Of course we treat them the same. They all go through SpamAssassin. If the recipient thinks it is spam, it gets added and reported to SpamCop. Are you proposing some method of determining whether an email is Business-to-Consumer or Business-To-Business and treating them differently in SpamAssassin? How would you be able to do that and why would you want to? * This e-mail, including attachments, may contain information that is privileged, proprietary, non-public, confidential, trademarked, copyrighted or exempt from disclosure and is intended to be conveyed only to the designated recipients(s). If you are not an intended recipient, please delete this e-mail, including attachments, and do not disseminate, distribute or copy this communication, by e-mail or otherwise. The unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this e-mail, including attachments, is prohibited and may be unlawful. We reserve the right to monitor and review the content of all messages sent to or from this e-mail address.
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Rob McEwen wrote: If not, the perhaps some people's irritation about getting called at dinner-time for the 10th time by the same phone company be influencing their opinions here? More like being woken up at 4am for a sales pitch for sears vacuum claners from a call center in bangalore. -Dan
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Kelson wrote: E. Falk wrote: Rob McEwen wrote: Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? Hmm, how about Hi, I see you have a link on your web page to my site at XYZ. I'm moving to ABC, and would appreciate it if you would update your link. Thank you. Assume that the target does, indeed, have a link to the old location of the site in question (and that it wasn't inserted by a link spammer), and that the site really is moving to the new URL provided. Unsolicited. Potentially bulk. But is it spam? Hi, Not spam by my definition as there is an existing relationship there. I linked to them. If I buy something at MM meat shops and give them my email address and they email me, that's not spam either by my definition. If they don't have an unsubscribe address or they ignore unsubscribe requests, then it's spam. If you email me at dns at axess.com or dns at aei.ca with anything but Domain related activities, it's spam. If you email me at info at axess.com or aei.ca, it may or may not be spam. Depends on if you are trying to sell me a mortgage or not :) Regards, Rick
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: OBSERVATION: Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? If not, the perhaps some people's irritation about getting called at dinner-time for the 10th time by the same phone company be influencing their opinions here? My $.02 here... Why doesn't he put together a nice presentation package and mail it to them? I think I know the real reason -- it costs money. It could be argued that sending an email costs money, but hardly the cost of putting together a decent presentation on a few sheets of flashy/nice paper and mailing it to prospective customers. This is a higher cost to the sender opposed to email which the higher cost goes to the recipient (logs, administrator(s) salary, storage, backup etc...) The only business advertisements I respond to is ones that I directly asked for (either on-line or by phone) or via mail. It's easy to call, it's easy to e-mail. Sending a nice presentation via snail mail isn't (and to me it shows class and determination to gain my business.) -- Thanks, James
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
James said: My $.02 here... Why doesn't he put together a nice presentation package and mail it to them? I think I know the real reason -- it costs money. It could be argued that sending an email costs money, but hardly the cost of putting together a decent presentation on a few sheets of flashy/nice paper and mailing it to prospective customers. This is a higher cost to the sender opposed to email which the higher cost goes to the recipient (logs, administrator(s) salary, storage, backup etc...) The only business advertisements I respond to is ones that I directly asked for (either on-line or by phone) or via mail. It's easy to call, it's easy to e-mail. Sending a nice presentation via snail mail isn't (and to me it shows class and determination to gain my business.) Good points. But, **to some extent**, these SAME points can be used to elevate a hand-typed and thoughtful unsolicited e-mail to be somehow above or more respective than bulk spam. --Rob McEwen
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen wrote: Matt Kettler wrote: Therefore, to me, and many others, it doesn't matter how few messages there are, or how individual the message is. If it's unsolicited email of a commercial nature, it's spam. Period. BTW - Matt, would an e-mail asking for link exchanges between web sites be considered commercial. What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails? Personally, I consider all of the above to be spam. At the very least, they're all unwelcome. That said, I never put up email addresses on a website without a explanation of what it's to be used for. I always use something like: If you experience technical problems with this website, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send resume's to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send support requests for this product to productxyz@ Often for my own personal pages I also add things like: This address is not to be used for advertising. It is only to be used for questions regarding.. Since I've already explicitly stated what the address is to be used for any other use is intentionally violating an existing request for opt-out. In cases where I've explicitly excluded any form of advertising, it's even clearer. Therefore, if *I* got any of the above, the email is spam because there can be one of two situations: 1) If you read the website, you know your mail doesn't fit the declared purpose of the address, and you're spamming due to intentional violation of the recipient's preferences. 2) If you didn't read the website, you're scraping and sending out mass junk, and you're spamming under anyone's definition because it's UBE. In fact, SpamHaus's splits the difference between these two extreme definitions. http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? I don't believe the spamhaus definition is as weak as you think because your hand-typed note is also likely to spam under spamhaus's definition if it is in any way templated: - An electronic message is spam IF: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent. - Unless the content of the request for link-exchange is highly specific to my website, the request fits (1) and (2). Most link-exchange requests I've seen for EVI are plain form letters with only EVI's name and our general market mentioned. They'd equally apply to EVI as any other electronics company. While I'd generally consider a highly customized hand typed message to be spam, I'm at least sympathetic to those who are willing to grant these an exception. All that said, I think spamhaus does need a third case. All email is automatically spam if the user has already explicitly revoked permission for it to be sent.
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Mike Wiebeld wrote: Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 12:59PM: OBSERVATION: Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? Of course we treat them the same. They all go through SpamAssassin. If the recipient thinks it is spam, it gets added and reported to SpamCop. Are these the same recipients who find it easier to report an item as spam than unsubscribe from the list they had to confirm three times that they wanted to be on? :) The problem is compounded with my users because when a person leaves the company their e-mail address (along with any subscriptions they've picked up over the years) gets forwarded on to their replacement. I get a lot of legitimate lists reported as spam that way.
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Mike Wiebeld said: Of course we treat them the same. They all go through SpamAssassin. If the recipient thinks it is spam, it gets added and reported to SpamCop. Are you proposing some method of determining whether an email is Business-to-Consumer or Business-To-Business and treating them differently in SpamAssassin? How would you be able to do that and why would you want to? Of course I don't propose any sort of rules changes. Generally, someone's bad behavior will speak for itself in that the more egregious their spamming, the more URI RBL blacklists they will appear on. Also, use of spammer's obfuscation techniques or sending mail from a spam gang's server also speaks for itself. But I do hate the idea of someone sending out 10 unsolicited but hand-typed e-mails being treated the same as a spammer sending out 10,000 unsolicited and impersonal e-mails per day... but somehow I think that this is already taken care of in spite of what some of the more aggressive mail administrators have said today. Rob McEwen
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Are these the same recipients who find it easier to report an item as spam than unsubscribe from the list they had to confirm three times that they wanted to be on? :) The problem is compounded with my users because when a person leaves the company their e-mail address (along with any subscriptions they've picked up over the years) gets forwarded on to their replacement. I get a lot of legitimate lists reported as spam that way. We handle it the people leaving the same way. For the replacements, if it is a list they want to be on, they should unsubscribe the old address and subscribe their own address. Other than that, they drop it in the spam folder and I look over it and unsubscribe the stuff that looks legitimate. Because I see so much of the junk, I've become fairly adept at recognizing those lists. * This e-mail, including attachments, may contain information that is privileged, proprietary, non-public, confidential, trademarked, copyrighted or exempt from disclosure and is intended to be conveyed only to the designated recipients(s). If you are not an intended recipient, please delete this e-mail, including attachments, and do not disseminate, distribute or copy this communication, by e-mail or otherwise. The unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this e-mail, including attachments, is prohibited and may be unlawful. We reserve the right to monitor and review the content of all messages sent to or from this e-mail address.
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 01:36PM: Of course I don't propose any sort of rules changes. Generally, someone's bad behavior will speak for itself in that the more egregious their spamming, the more URI RBL blacklists they will appear on. Also, use of spammer's obfuscation techniques or sending mail from a spam gang's server also speaks for itself. But I do hate the idea of someone sending out 10 unsolicited but hand-typed e-mails being treated the same as a spammer sending out 10,000 unsolicited and impersonal e-mails per day... but somehow I think that this is already taken care of in spite of what some of the more aggressive mail administrators have said today. I don't think you understand the situation. How is the recipient supposed to know whether it is actually a hand crafted email sent just to him or a spam run of 10,000? Because there is no way for the recipient to know, we do treat them the same. If the recipient believes it is spam by his definition, then it goes into the spam folder. Then it is sent to the Bayes system and SpamCop. The only difference you might see would be the number of complaints SpamCop would receive and whether it hit any spam trap addresses. But both types are treated exactly the same and reported exactly the same by the recipient. There is no way you can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000. * This e-mail, including attachments, may contain information that is privileged, proprietary, non-public, confidential, trademarked, copyrighted or exempt from disclosure and is intended to be conveyed only to the designated recipients(s). If you are not an intended recipient, please delete this e-mail, including attachments, and do not disseminate, distribute or copy this communication, by e-mail or otherwise. The unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this e-mail, including attachments, is prohibited and may be unlawful. We reserve the right to monitor and review the content of all messages sent to or from this e-mail address.
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
There is no way you can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000. If it wasn't personalized or very personalized, then that would be true. However, there are a number of statements and questions that are specific to your business and could not possibly have been computer generated that could potentially be in such a hand typed e-mail... to a point where it would be obvious that the message were hand-typed and impossible for it to be computer generated. Sure, I know that a few spammers have gotten pretty good at trying to make their spam look hand-typed and personalized... but they will never get anywhere near a true hand-typed e-mail that is very personalized and specific to the recipient... and THAT is the kind of unsolicited e-mail I've asked about today. --Rob McEwen
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
-Original Message- From: Mike Wiebeld [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 4:49 PM To: users@spamassassin.apache.org Subject: RE: When is Bulk Bulk Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 01:36PM: Of course I don't propose any sort of rules changes. Generally, someone's bad behavior will speak for itself in that the more egregious their spamming, the more URI RBL blacklists they will appear on. Also, use of spammer's obfuscation techniques or sending mail from a spam gang's server also speaks for itself. But I do hate the idea of someone sending out 10 unsolicited but hand-typed e-mails being treated the same as a spammer sending out 10,000 unsolicited and impersonal e-mails per day... but somehow I think that this is already taken care of in spite of what some of the more aggressive mail administrators have said today. I don't think you understand the situation. How is the recipient supposed to know whether it is actually a hand crafted email sent just to him or a spam run of 10,000? Because there is no way for the recipient to know, we do treat them the same. If the recipient believes it is spam by his definition, then it goes into the spam folder. Then it is sent to the Bayes system and SpamCop. The only difference you might see would be the number of complaints SpamCop would receive and whether it hit any spam trap addresses. But both types are treated exactly the same and reported exactly the same by the recipient. There is no way you can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000. You put enough bad spam reports in spamcop and you are pretty much ignored by spamcop, you become the 'spam report' spammer. And, if you report to legit RBL services too many bad reports, same thing. Most admins won't use RBLs, URIs, or anything else that have too many false positives. (that is one of the reasons SA is so popular, low false positives) If they do, they spend all their time fighting with their own users who are not getting emails they want. Do that stuff too much and you will get fired or lose your customers.
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that
ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note?
jdow: Unsolicited commercial email from a source with which I have
never done business is spam. It does not matter if it is Mother
Theresa risen from the dead to appeal for funds for starving babies
in Nigeria, it is still spam. It is spam if Hillary Clinton's minions
send me vote for me email. It is spam if Shrub's minions send me
vote for me email. It is spam if ANY politician or charity or TV
station or business with which I have not done business or whom I
have subsequent to doing business with told them not to send me mail
does so. And UCE is spamperiod
If a local business spams me I am likely to walk in and make it
personal very loudly, too. (I've done it at least once.)
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Clarification of my last message:
When I asked What about unsolicited political or non-profit e-mails?,
please don't misunderstand me. I'm NOT saying that all political or
non-profit are not spam... I was only responding to another's definition
of
spam as being unsolicited email of a commercial nature
...I was trying to point out that it is sometimes harder to define and/or
rely upon commercial than it is to define and/or rely upon bulk as a
criteria for being considered spam.
--Rob McEwen
And Rob, as stated in my immediately prior rock carving, non-profit,
political, survey company, or business as a source makes not one whit
of difference. (The FTC do not call list has it wrong this way. And I
have refused to vote for politicians who call, interrupt me on MY time,
and have the temerity to ask for my vote.)
We live in a time of sound bites and limited ability to communicate.
People call it being interrupt driven. I call it shallow thinking.
When you think in sound bites you never get into critical thinking mode.
That makes it easier to sell you a bill of brown steaming material such
as emanates from the South end of a North facing fertile male bovine
as gospel truth.
Can you cut deep code while you are interrupted every 10 minutes by a
telephone call or an office visitor? What is the quality of that code?
There is a reason the ritual for approaching a real coder in her office
is so rigid. It ain't safe. The old joke goes, Shove a box of doughnuts
through the door. Then holding a chair up for shield push the door open
wider and enter if she is eating. Be done before the doughnuts run out.
Broken concentration leads to broken code, broken critical thinking,
broken contemplative thinking. It leads to shallowness in every day life.
As an old gray hair I note there is WAY more shallowness these days than
I remember from my earlier days. People who were in thought related
jobs were seldom interrupted a fraction as often as they are now.
No, the source does not matter with regards to it being spam of any kind,
email, telephone, snail mail, tracts left hanging on the door knob,
vacuuous proselytizers at the door, whatever. It's spam, Sam.
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: E. Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob McEwen wrote:
Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe
that
ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note?
I'm really curious as to how we would defined solicited e-mail. As far
as bulk e-mail goes, it's fairly easy. Do I solicit the jokes my
friends e-mail me? What about the chain letter that warns me about the
teddy bear virus? Or the endless petitions? Or the message that asks me
if I want to go catch a movie on Friday night?
With friends that's social email such as lubricates and feeds a
relationship. If I sign up for messages from someone I've done
business with that is email I want. (Conversely if I say no email
and I receive something it had best be close to end of the Earth
important to me.)
Personally, I worry far more about Bulk than I do about the Unsolicited.
I get plenty of e-mail that is unsolicited and unwanted - often from my
users. :) If it's unwanted but it is personal (or at least a forward)
and I can speak directly to the person who is responsible, then it's not
Spam to me. It may not be welcome, but it's not Spam. I'd even be pretty
lenient on the definition of bulk, so as not to include those
irritating souls who forward everything they receive to their entire
address books.
Bulk schmulk - a line has to be drawn somewhere. I find it easier to
draw the line at the boundary between zero and one than to quibble
about whether it should be 1, 10, 100, 111, 333, 666, 1000, 1e9, or
Avogadro's number. I'm lazy in that regard. And I prefer to waste my
time my way. (Like commenting on this nonsense. {^_-})
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OBSERVATION:
Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and
unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same?
jdow: Unsolicited business to business comes in two flavors. Someone
wants to sell me his superwhizbang electricified pencil sharpener or
someone wants to purchase something from me that I have published for
sale. The former gets the brunt of my sense of humor if I bother to
do anything other than assign their address to /dev/null. The latter
get my considered attention.
If not, the perhaps some people's irritation about getting called at
dinner-time for the 10th time by the same phone company be influencing their
opinions here?
jdow: Even at work there were times I had to fight HARD to be civil
and suggest the person contact me some other time. What worked best was
if someone was already visiting Fred over there or Greg on the corner
he'd look in and see if I was interested. 10 seconds if interruption is
not the same as a blaring ring on a phone and 10 minutes or even 1
minute of hard sell.
Am I likely to think you are wasting my time? Ask that question and
act accordingly. Take your product biases or candidate biases and put
them aside. Then ask the question dispassionately.
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Kelson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
E. Falk wrote:
Rob McEwen wrote:
Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe
that
ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note?
Hmm, how about Hi, I see you have a link on your web page to my site at
XYZ. I'm moving to ABC, and would appreciate it if you would update
your link. Thank you.
Assume that the target does, indeed, have a link to the old location of
the site in question (and that it wasn't inserted by a link spammer),
and that the site really is moving to the new URL provided.
Unsolicited. Potentially bulk. But is it spam?
Not spam. It's somebody with whom you have a significant prior
relationship. Hi, I noticed you browsed my website by using clever
reverse lookups and skullduggery. I think you'd be interested in my
baby kimodo dragon feeder. That's spam.
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Mike Wiebeld [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 12:59PM:
OBSERVATION:
Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and
unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the
same?
Of course we treat them the same. They all go through SpamAssassin. If the
recipient thinks it is spam, it gets added and reported to SpamCop.
Are you proposing some method of determining whether an email is
Business-to-Consumer or Business-To-Business and treating them differently
in SpamAssassin? How would you be able to do that and why would you want to?
jdow: Use different rules and spam databases for work and home. The
email contents you WANT will be different.
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Greg Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: Mike Wiebeld [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I don't think you understand the situation. How is the recipient
supposed to know whether it is actually a hand crafted email sent
just to him or a spam run of 10,000?
Because there is no way for the recipient to know, we do treat
them the same. If the recipient believes it is spam by his
definition, then it goes into the spam folder. Then it is sent to
the Bayes system and SpamCop.
The only difference you might see would be the number of
complaints SpamCop would receive and whether it hit any spam trap
addresses. But both types are treated exactly the same and
reported exactly the same by the recipient. There is no way you
can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000.
You put enough bad spam reports in spamcop and you are pretty much ignored
by spamcop, you become the 'spam report' spammer. And, if you report to
legit RBL services too many bad reports, same thing.
Most admins won't use RBLs, URIs, or anything else that have too many
false
positives. (that is one of the reasons SA is so popular, low false
positives) If they do, they spend all their time fighting with their own
users who are not getting emails they want. Do that stuff too much and you
will get fired or lose your customers.
I *VERY* seldom report spam to BLs. I figure what I consider to be spam
may be quite different from what somebody else considers spam. I find I
am a little more conservative in that notion than others because I find
that by the time I am ready to spam report it some other folks already
have. I may be extreme and intolerant of email spam. But I do not try to
foist my extreme position on others via anything other than persuasion.
I like BLs that adopt that sort of position as well - as long as they
do not black list whole net blocks for one address' sins.
{^_^}
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
At 14:56 09-08-2005, Rob McEwen wrote: Thanks for the feedback... but it looks like you e-mailed this directly to me without sending it to the spamassassin thread . Please consider re-sending this to the SA list so that other can benefit from your comment... as you probably intended! --Rob McEwen I chose to send you an unsolicited email instead of replying to the thread. :-) I am posting the comment to the SA list as you suggested. -Original Message- From: SM This is indeed a slippery slope. The emails are unsolicited. This one is too as we do not have any business relationship. :-) In business, there are times when we might email someone or even phone that person even if we have no prior relationship with the person. As it is a manual process, we are limited to number of emails we can write or calls we can make in a day. The slippery slope is where to set the threshold without hampering business. As long as the emails are not computer generated, the list is not some list the person purchased and the email is individualized, then we cannot call it bulk. If the template is to add the name of the recipient and the website only, then a lot of people might label it as spam. There may come a day when your client may find that it is easier and faster to use software to grab the information from the website and have some bulk software generate and send the emails. You may wish to bring to the attention of the client that his/her emails might be construed as spam. And you might warn the person that you will be closely monitoring email traffic and you may terminate the account if you receive any complaints. Bulk is bulk when it people start complaining. If you see hundreds of emails going out each day, you are sure to have complaints sooner or later. Regards, -sm
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
jdow wrote: Not spam. It's somebody with whom you have a significant prior relationship. Agreed. I was mainly looking to see if anyone thought it *was* spam, and if so, why... and also to see how people articulated the difference between an out-of-the-blue please update your link and a similarly unexpected please add this link. It seemed clear to me that the former was acceptable and the latter unacceptable, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why, at least within the definition as it's being framed in this discussion. Hi, I noticed you browsed my website by using clever reverse lookups and skullduggery. I think you'd be interested in my baby kimodo dragon feeder. That's spam. Hey, I've gotten that offer! Well, not really... but some of the link requests I've gotten are about as relevant. I think my favorite was the time I posted several photos on my website including one of the Ghirardelli shop in San Diego. Within two days, someone sent me a note about how they'd been to my website about chocolate, and how they really thought I should team up with *their* chocolate website, etc. Actually, I take that back. The one about targeted advertising is my favorite, out of sheer irony. -- Kelson Vibber SpeedGate Communications www.speed.net
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: SM [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is indeed a slippery slope. The emails are unsolicited. This
one is too as we do not have any business relationship. :-) In
business, there are times when we might email someone or even phone
that person even if we have no prior relationship with the
person. As it is a manual process, we are limited to number of
emails we can write or calls we can make in a day. The slippery
slope is where to set the threshold without hampering business.
As long as the emails are not computer generated, the list is not
some list the person purchased and the email is individualized, then
we cannot call it bulk. If the template is to add the name of the
recipient and the website only, then a lot of people might label it
as spam. There may come a day when your client may find that it is
easier and faster to use software to grab the information from the
website and have some bulk software generate and send the emails.
You may wish to bring to the attention of the client that his/her
emails might be construed as spam. And you might warn the person
that you will be closely monitoring email traffic and you may
terminate the account if you receive any complaints.
Bulk is bulk when it people start complaining. If you see hundreds
of emails going out each day, you are sure to have complaints sooner or
later.
Worrying about bulk or not is a distraction. It's not in issue. What
will the recipients think? How are they likely to react? What makes you
think it will get through the email process with NOBODY complaining to
a blacklist or sysadmin?
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: Kelson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
jdow wrote:
Not spam. It's somebody with whom you have a significant prior
relationship.
Agreed. I was mainly looking to see if anyone thought it *was* spam,
and if so, why... and also to see how people articulated the difference
between an out-of-the-blue please update your link and a similarly
unexpected please add this link. It seemed clear to me that the
former was acceptable and the latter unacceptable, but I couldn't quite
put my finger on why, at least within the definition as it's being
framed in this discussion.
And if it's Please use this link rather than mirroring my site
material then it's my (very) bad that I should fix.
{^_-}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
At 18:04 09-08-2005, jdow wrote: Worrying about bulk or not is a distraction. It's not in issue. What will the recipients think? How are they likely to react? What makes you think it will get through the email process with NOBODY complaining to a blacklist or sysadmin? I mentioned complaints. It is up to the admin of the sending domain to determine whether the server may be blacklisted because of such mail. The replies to this thread gives the answer as to what will the recipients think and how they might react. Regards, -sm
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
After reading through this thread, I decided to formally define my own definition of spam (since others are basically trying to do that, etc.). A) It does not matter, one way or the other, if the message is automatically generated or hand generated. If you don't want to wear your fingers down to the bone typing a message to me that I wont even accept or read, then don't type it. If I don't want the message content in the first place, then I have no sympathy for the fingers that typed it. B) It doesn't matter to me if it was 1 message or 1 million. I am as annoyed by the spam's I receive once as I am by the spams I receive over and over again. (though, see G about repetition) C) If the message has a forged sender, and it is not a joke from a known friend of mine, or a legitimate whistle blower type message for a serious issue which needs an anonymous sender to protect them from reprisals for the whistle blowing, it is spam. (for mailing lists which alter the sender information to be the list itself, I do not consider this to be a forgery) (in the case of a whistle blower, the forgery must be to make it anonymous, instead of making it seem like it came from someone else) D) If the message has obscured the recipients from the headers, for any reason or purpose other than to simplify the recipients of a formal mailing list, it is spam. (so, if the actual recipients aren't listed in the To/CC headers, then a mailing list to which that recipient belongs must be in the To/CC headers, and the message must have legitimately been sent to/through that mailing list) (For all of you people who like to send a undisclosed recipients message to all of your friends: yes, I'm calling you spammers, and I am unapologetic about it. If you don't like it, don't send me email.) E) If the message attempts to falsify any sort of prior relationship between myself and the sender, it is spam. F) If I ask you stop sending me messages, and you continue to send me messages through any means other than physical/snail mail from your lawyer to my lawyer, your continued messages are both spam and harassment. G) If you send me the same general message more than 3 times, and I did not request that you repeat the message, it becomes spam regardless of what it may have been in the first place (historical note: this is the closest definition to the original definition of spam on the net, which had more to do with volume and repetition than content). H) For this section, I shall define a new header: X-SpamOrHam (the purpose of this section is to illustrate that it is spam if the messages true purpose and content is in any way obscured and not plainly announced, but I am also announcing that I demand that such purpose/content be announced, and announced in a particular manner that suits me, as follows) If a message fails any of these criteria, or falsifies any of these answers, it is spam (or, in any of these cases, if the initial condition is true, but the header doesn't exist): 0) If the message comes from a business, and it is in any way speaking for a business, or on behalf of the products or services of a business (as opposed to being a friend of mine emailing me from their work account, about non- business matters), even if the sending business is not the same as the business being discussed, and the header field does not match: /.* business.*/i 1) If it is an advertisement, business opportunity, or other attempt to get money from me, and the content of that header field does not match: /.* advertisement.*/i 2) If it is a business announcement from a company for which I have an existing relationship for which I am the customer, and the header field does not match: /.* customer.*/i 3) If it is a business announcement from a company for which I have an existing relationship not covered by #2, and the header does not match: /.* partner.*/i 4) If it is a business announcement from a company for which I have no existing relationship, and the header does not match: /.* unsolicited.*/i 5) If it is a mailing list, which I have performed a double- opt-in (ie. a _REAL_ opt-in, not a fake opt-in), and the header field does not match: /.* confirmed-list.*/i 6) If it is a mailing list, where only a signle opt-in has been performed (ie. a fake-opt-in), and the header field does not match: /.* unconfirmed-list.*/i 7) If it is a mailing list where I have not performed any opt-in at all, and the header field does not match: /.* forced-list.*/i 8) If it is a message whose recipients come from a purchased list, and the header does not match: /.* purchased-recipient-list.*/i 9) If the message is an attempt to give me free stuff, or free money, and you do not personally know me, and the header field does not match:
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
I think that it is about time for at least couple of you to take some time off and go to the beach or see a movie or something... Or, maybe you can go to the gym and paste a picture of your favorite spam king on the punching bag? :) ...back to business... jdow wrote: ...well, a lot of stuff... see earlier posts... ...and... John Rudd mentioned: (For all of you people who like to send a undisclosed recipients message to all of your friends: yes, I'm calling you spammers, and I am unapologetic about it. If you don't like it, don't send me email.) message for John Rudd, Actually it is extremely more rude, inappropriate, amateurish, and unprofessional to reveal everyone's e-mail addresses to ALL the recipients. For example, if my friend sends me a joke e-mail and he sends this to all of his other friends, I do NOT want my e-mail address so easily accessible by the others because my circle of friends may not be the exact same as his. Also, this opens up more addresses to zombie attacks where the addresses are harvested by a zombie or virus right out of a persons' e-mail client program. Also, your header fields idea is ideal, but I expect that a lot of legit mail will not follow those standards for years to come. message for jdow, Can you cut deep code while you are interrupted every 10 minutes by a telephone call or an office visitor? This is exactly why if, given the choice, I'd prefer to be cold-called with a non-bulk personalized unsolicited e-mail rather than being interrupted by a visitor or phone call. The former I can look at a time of my own choosing, the later demands my particular time that moment. Therefore, treating both as being just as evil doesn't help. Also, I know that most people hate spam... even viciously hate spam... but I don't think there is anyone in the world who hates spam as much as you... (except for, maybe, John Rudd.) I applaud both of your tenacity in your fight against spam... but do you really think that the average user is going to be soo offended by the particular message that I originally described on this thread if received only once? --Rob McEwen
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
... E. Falk wrote: Rob McEwen wrote: Does anyone else consider SpamHaus's definition as too weak and believe that ANY unsolicited e-mail is spam, even if a personally hand-typed note? Hmm, how about Hi, I see you have a link on your web page to my site at XYZ. I'm moving to ABC, and would appreciate it if you would update your link. Thank you. Assume that the target does, indeed, have a link to the old location of the site in question (and that it wasn't inserted by a link spammer), and that the site really is moving to the new URL provided. Unsolicited. Potentially bulk. But is it spam? -- Kelson Vibber SpeedGate Communications www.speed.net A carefully constructed case, but it probably would not be spam, because the link itself is evidence of an existing relationship (whether or not the linker had intended to create one). Normally, I count either UCE or UBE as spam - if I don't know you and didn't ask for it, then it is unsolicited and probably easily fits one category or the other (there are also obvious exceptions, like an email attempting to establish a non-commercial relationship); But if I have published a link to your site, I have created a relationship, even if I didn't intend to. There are such things as implied consent, and IANAL, but this probably falls into that situation. Paul Shupak [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
... Rob McEwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 08/09/05 01:36PM: Of course I don't propose any sort of rules changes. Generally, someone's bad behavior will speak for itself in that the more egregious their spamming, the more URI RBL blacklists they will appear on. Also, use of spammer's obfuscation techniques or sending mail from a spam gang's server also speaks for itself. But I do hate the idea of someone sending out 10 unsolicited but hand-typed e-mails being treated the same as a spammer sending out 10,000 unsolicited and impersonal e-mails per day... but somehow I think that this is already taken care of in spite of what some of the more aggressive mail administrators have said today. I don't think you understand the situation. How is the recipient supposed to know whether it is actually a hand crafted email sent just to him or a spam run of 10,000? Because there is no way for the recipient to know, we do treat them the same. If the recipient believes it is spam by his definition, then it goes into the spam folder. Then it is sent to the Bayes system and SpamCop. The only difference you might see would be the number of complaints SpamCop would receive and whether it hit any spam trap addresses. But both types are treated exactly the same and reported exactly the same by the recipient. There is no way you can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000. [snipped] Technically, you are entirely wrong. I can assign a serial number to each message, include in the message a cryptographic key and the serial number, sign the message cryptographically, and then publish (e.g. on a web page) a list of serial numbers and encrypted accounts that the emails were sent to; If the key sent decodes the encrypted account associated with the serial number to the recipients account, then the fact that a single copy of that particular message is virtually assured (depending, of course on the strength of the encryption methods and keys). The length of the total list and the list itself could be signed, which would demonstrate the total number of messages sent. A PITA, certainly not worth the effort, but easy (technically) to do. You can *prove* it was 10 not 10,000 (BTW. I still consider UCE to be spam - so personally I wouldn't care - I would treat it as spam, if it were commercial). Paul Shupak [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 13:37 -0400, Rob McEwen wrote: When is Bulk Bulk? The reason I ask is because I have a client who sends unsolicited e-mails to prospective clients. But he does this manually by visiting relevant web sites and then one-at-a-time, he personally e-mails these prospective clients. I don't consider this spam because it is not bulk and my client can actually tell you who he e-mailed that day and why. Still, this is a very slippery slope... what happens if he e-mails 50 such addresses that he manually spotted using a generic form letter? Would that be spam? I'm thinking yes. ...However, if these e-mails are sent one at a time and individualized to the recipient in a way that could NOT possibly be computer generated (not another I visited your web site and I think its great statements... but meaningful content that only a person with knowledge of the recipient could write)... in that case, I think he is ok, even if most of each letter came from a generic template. Maybe there are no hard simple rules... but I'd sure love some additional advice? Spam is often called UCE - unsolicited commercial e-mail. If it's commercial, and it is unsolicited, and it's e-mail, it's spam. If you are off-loading your advertising costs onto *my* e-mail system, it's a sure-fire way to make sure I never use your product or service. Thomas
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 23:06 -0400, Rob McEwen wrote: I applaud both of your tenacity in your fight against spam... but do you really think that the average user is going to be soo offended by the particular message that I originally described on this thread if received only once? Goddamn right I will. If you send me UCE and through some miracle it somehow manages to get through all the spam blocking tools I have in place, your company or organization is permanently and irrevocably doomed to never get any business from me. You're spending *my* money to advertise to me, and that seriously pisses me off. If I want your product, I will do research. If your product is the best in its class, I will buy it. If your product is spamvertised, your screwed getting me as a client. Thomas
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 John Rudd writes: After reading through this thread, I decided to formally define my own definition of spam (since others are basically trying to do that, etc.). BTW, before we go too far down this rabbit-hole, everyone please note that actually, the SpamAssassin project *does* have its own definition of spam: that being Unsolicited Bulk Email. http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Spam We could have a very long discussion about this again, but please, let's not. it's already been done ;) - --j. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Exmh CVS iD8DBQFC+X0IMJF5cimLx9ARArH3AKCqkZsUWWEKwChTkbQS0faAt6RjXACePbuB GPdbjcJ5I9DbJDb6YfEDD14= =abdc -END PGP SIGNATURE-
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 15:59 -0400, Rob McEwen wrote: OBSERVATION: Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. No matter if it's B2B or B2C. If not, the perhaps some people's irritation about getting called at dinner-time for the 10th time by the same phone company be influencing their opinions here? Nope - I own a small business and I dealt with B2B spam as often as I dealt with B2C. It's all spam, and it all ends with the same results - the spammer loses my biz forever. Thomas
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: BTW, before we go too far down this rabbit-hole, everyone please note that actually, the SpamAssassin project *does* have its own definition of spam: that being Unsolicited Bulk Email. http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Spam We could have a very long discussion about this again, but please, let's not. it's already been done ;) ...which contrasts the position many on this thread have expressed. But it is worth noting that this **official** SA definition of spam is pretty much the same as SpamHaus's definition. Furthermore, on SpamHaus's page, they describe their Unsolicited Bulk Email standard as being the industry standard. (see last paragraph on http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html ) --Rob McEwen
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 16:36 -0400, Rob McEwen wrote: But I do hate the idea of someone sending out 10 unsolicited but hand-typed e-mails being treated the same as a spammer sending out 10,000 unsolicited and impersonal e-mails per day... but somehow I think that this is already taken care of in spite of what some of the more aggressive mail administrators have said today. You miss the point - UCE is UCE is UCE, no matter how nice the guy is who sends it or whether it is hand typed or not. It pushes the cost of the sender's advertising onto the victim. In pretty much any other arena this would be called theft of service and prosecutable. The reason that is not the case with spam is because of people like you who have the attitude that a little spam is OK. No, it's not. UCE is not OK, no matter what. It should be treated as theft of service. I've set up dozens of SpamAssassin servers for clients to the tune of many many thousands of dollars, and I'm a pretty small operation. Do you think they have me set these up because they like me and they want to put money in my pocket? No! It's because it costs them more to deal with spam when it hits their users inboxes than it does to deal with it at the server. Spam has cost my clients TONS of money. It's wrong, no matter how well intentioned it is. If you support a spammer then you are part of the problem. Nothing against you personally Rob - I am sure you're a nice guy. You should not support people who spam. Thomas
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 16:56 -0400, Rob McEwen wrote: There is no way you can prove in your message that it is not a spam run of 10,000. If it wasn't personalized or very personalized, then that would be true. Is it unsolicited? Is it commercial? Is it e-mail? Then it's spam. Don't make me pay for your advertising. Thomas
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Thomas Cameron wrote:
Nope - I own a small business and I dealt with B2B spam as often as I
dealt with B2C. It's all spam, and it all ends with the same results -
the spammer loses my biz forever.
Real reputable companies don't _need_ to spam.
There are legitimate venues for advertising, and spam isnt one of them.
Spam is the deliberate shifting of costs of advertising onto the recipient
('postage due marketing').
If your company needs to stoop to something this unethical, then I don't
care what you're selling -- I simply am not going to listen, and you're
on my blacklist _forever_.
-Dan
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
I believe this is why services such as Yahoo email started calling it bulk instead of spam. I also call it bulk to my users for the same reason. It's much easier to define bulk than it is to define spam. Spam is in the eye of the beholder as you can even see on this list. But I must say, some people on the list appear to be giving their own personal opinion as if they are only referring to their own email inbox, without regard to users on their system. Maybe they are not really administrators of multi-user systems, I don't know. If they are administrating large systems I would have to wonder what secret lists they had developed. But if you do manage multiple users accounts, you have to provide industry standard anti-spam protection without blocking on your own definition of spam. Now if you are only talking your own email box, you can define every email except emails from your mom as spam, not much of anyone would give a hoot what you block in your own inbox. AOL went nazi with their anti-spam several years back. I think they were considering charging to email their users even. That would have proved for sure to AOL you were not spam, because you paid them! LOL Kinda like some RBLs I have seen and would never use (ie, blars crapola). -Original Message- From: Rob McEwen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 12:19 AM To: users@spamassassin.apache.org Subject: RE: When is Bulk Bulk [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: BTW, before we go too far down this rabbit-hole, everyone please note that actually, the SpamAssassin project *does* have its own definition of spam: that being Unsolicited Bulk Email. http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Spam We could have a very long discussion about this again, but please, let's not. it's already been done ;) ...which contrasts the position many on this thread have expressed. But it is worth noting that this **official** SA definition of spam is pretty much the same as SpamHaus's definition. Furthermore, on SpamHaus's page, they describe their Unsolicited Bulk Email standard as being the industry standard. (see last paragraph on http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html ) --Rob McEwen
RE: When is Bulk Bulk
Dan mentioned: If your company needs to stoop to something this unethical Just for the record, this is a sales person for a company that I host and maintain a website for. This is not my company... but they overall a very ethical company and currently fast growing. Also, this was just one of their employees. Frankly, prior to this thread, I'd have not thought of an occasional hand-typed though unsolicited commercial e-mail as not that big of a deal... boy, was I ever wrong!! Still, I do wonder if asking Spam Assassin mail administrators about a marginal case of spam is like asking a fire marshal about lighting fireworks or asking a traffic cop about going over the speed limit by 5 mph? Also, as Greg Allen mentioned in another post on this thread, being too zealous can lead to FPs if you aren't extra careful. In fact, I recently tested one of the most popular and highly rated client-side software programs for spam filtering e-mail in outlook. It too plays the catch every spam game and I found the FP rate to be alarmingly high. --Rob McEwen
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
From: SM [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 18:04 09-08-2005, jdow wrote:
Worrying about bulk or not is a distraction. It's not in issue. What
will the recipients think? How are they likely to react? What makes you
think it will get through the email process with NOBODY complaining to
a blacklist or sysadmin?
I mentioned complaints. It is up to the admin of the sending domain
to determine whether the server may be blacklisted because of such
mail. The replies to this thread gives the answer as to what will
the recipients think and how they might react.
Those are the questions Mr. Businessman will have to answer before
he indulges in an email advertising campaign. The up side may be new
customers The down side is alienated former potential customers. For
a legitimate businessman the downside is important to consider.
{^_^}
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
Could some of us be treating unsolicited Business-to-Consumer and unsolicited Business-To-Business the same? Should they be treated the same? Of course we treat them the same. They all go through SpamAssassin. If the recipient thinks it is spam, it gets added and reported to SpamCop. Are you proposing some method of determining whether an email is Business-to-Consumer or Business-To-Business and treating them differently in SpamAssassin? How would you be able to do that and why would you want to? What about a business web site that has an email address of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isn't it likely that people you have never heard of might send unsolicited emails to that address, requesting information on your products? Do you really think it would be a good idea to add all unsolicited email addresses to that account to your master RBL? Loren
Re: When is Bulk Bulk
My $.02 here... Why doesn't he put together a nice presentation package and mail it to them? I think I know the real reason -- it costs money. It could be argued that sending an email costs money, but hardly the cost of putting together a decent presentation on a few sheets of flashy/nice paper and mailing it to prospective customers. This is a higher cost to the sender Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment: what if his business is website design? What would YOU think of getting a snail mail from someone claiming to be a genius website whiz? What *I* would think (if I even opened junk paper mail, which I don't) is this guy claims to be a web whiz and he doesn't even know about email? I'm going to give this guy my business? I don't *think* so! And into the roundfile it would go. Loren
