Response to: "thing have really gotten out of hand. 16 from the same sender everyday over and over again and again... really burns my ass!" from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"I've said this before, if you are going to sell or rent my email, anyway, you better tell me in bold text before I sign up ... and not buried in some item #27 on a long terms of service page."

Yeah, I think some folks who send out the bulk mail need to be absolutely sure before they hit the send button that they have cleaned the list to scan and remove the dupes.

Also, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who codes my emails so that I know when an email has been whored out to 3rd parties.

I've said this before, if you are going to sell or rent my email, anyway, you better tell me in bold text before I sign up ... and not buried in some item #27 on a long terms of service page.

I don't mind, however, if I am signing up for a free service and they email me from time to time (say a couple times a week). I understand that free services on the web are not really free to operate and must be supported somehow.

I enjoy receiving things like the automatic notifications from the boards to thread replies and the action plan reminders from ANS. It helps me keep up with what's happening

Also, some sites like ANS are very large and there are lots to do and brief emails which point out things I might be missing are, well, webmaster resourceful.

Too many uptight rules on spam on messageboards these days? from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"And if it is something that benefits webmasters (giveaways certainly count) I can't see how anybody can label it spam."

Twinkley (and the rest of the group) - Do you think that there are too many uptight rules on spam these days on some boards?

Frankly, it has sort of driven me away from posting as much as I used to. However, it is all good here at ANS, feel free to link up your show! Kaiser has told me on many occasions that he believes the boards are for promotion.

Yes, there are cases where it is tacky like when the webmaster cut and pastes or cross posts identical posts on many different boards and/or doesn't even bother to register for this board.

The anon function was made available for those who wanted to quick comment on things, but was not intended for cut and run spam LOL.

Good thing there are some boards out there, and ANS is one such place, where promotion and networking on the boards is still encouraged

You regularly hang in the ANS chatroom and you post here about other things and correspond/help webmasters with many of the products and services you have to tell folks about. And if it is something that benefits webmasters (giveaways certainly count) I can't see how anybody can label it spam.

It's the folks who only come around when they want to promote something and then never return when folks ask questions (see posts below on the guy with the new "technology") that tend to get on people's nerves, I think. That is clearly a take and never give arrangement.

Still, we are all here to SELL something and I don't think it's a crime to let people know what we are selling. Do you agree? Disagree?

Let's face it, some folks are doing a great job out here with promotion (like you Twinkley) so keep up the good work.

Are spam/opportunity boards worth it? from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"As with anything else you have to test out what you are doing and see how it comes out for your specific campaign."

Actually, I've started studying this recently and we've made some 50+ posts to 20+ different spam/opportunity boards over the last 4 weeks or so. To date the number of clickthrus received: 66.

Honestly, this was a bit better than I expected, because I was with the common belief that nobody reads spam/opportunity boards. Obviously some do.

Although as Rowdy wisely suggests: was the time taken to make those 50+ posts (all made manually, btw) worth the resulting 66 clicks?

There was one positive side effect from these postings so far. One of the moderators at this one adult webmaster spam board moved one of our posts to the main board (where it received significantly more clickthru activity -- I didn't count those clicks into the 66, btw) and asked webmasters to check out our site. That's encouraging

I'm grouping the results from the various spam boards so that we can make our posts at the ones that return the best performance. There is little point in posting on a regular basis to a spam board that returns no results.

As with anything else you have to test out what you are doing and see how it comes out for your specific campaign.

IMO signatures, and taglines at boards like this one (and at the ruby level clickable thumbs) are much more effective than standalone posts at spam boards. Even better is getting involved at a particular board and then weaving in your link at an appropriate time.

Whatever the case, spam/opportunity boards are additional "free" exposure, so they shouldn't be completely discounted.

In response to Rapid Advertiser software from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"So folks are going to get a popup system message on their computer while they are surfing/working/playing which is not even clickable and then they are supposed to just go to someone's website from that?"

At first I was just going to remove this post because I thought it was just another bulk spammer thing but I checked it out first and when I read this:

"At this time you cannot add a clickable link to your message. The message appears as a system message, and can contain plain text only. As soon as we find a solution to include a link we will update our software accordingly."

Er, what good is this? lol So folks are going to get a popup system message on their computer while they are surfing/working/playing which is not even clickable and then they are supposed to just go to someone's website from that?

So, you expect them to just cut and paste the system message into their browser or something?

(no, I was not a sucker who bothered to download the demo and see how it really worked lol).

And how about this:

"If you are connected to the Internet through a router the message will not be delivered to your computer. You need to have direct connection to the Internet for the message to get through"

I think these two items pretty much lost me on this "new" concept of marketing lol. Well that and the fact that it was only for Windows 2000 / XP.

tsk tsk

Crossposting complaints about a sponsor not paying from www.ynotmasters.com

"those who hit multiple boards with the same Paul Revere type moans usually aren't victims but victimizers"

dude, a word of advice, even though you won't take it: those who hit multiple boards with the same Paul Revere type moans usually aren't victims but victimizers.

Whether it's "legal" or not in your country, it's something that nobody: ISP, host, sponsor, webmaster really want to be asociated with.

It's oddly ironic how you've admitted you spammed, complain you were terminated for spam, then essentially demonstrate your spamming ways with your complaints crossposting to multiple webmaster boards, and now complain that some of those crossposted spams are being removed!

What's next, will we all get spam email lamenting the loss of your "16k over 8 months that you didn't realize was missing"

Somebody get a shovel, er, no make that a bulldozer.

Advertising stealth practices of auto submitters from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"You can ramble on and spin on about how the "new technology" can't be detected but the truth is that it can and will be the minute a bunch of submissions come across which look too similar or your "new technology" fucks up"

>> Lots of TGP do not accept submitions posted from software od scripts. We are using new technology so the submition is totally identical to human one and looks like you just submitted it by your hands. >>

Aye the rub is that it *isn't* from a human and if a webmaster wants a *human* to read their rules and submit manually, then your software is only going to get that webmaster banned.

You can ramble on and spin on about how the "new technology" can't be detected but the truth is that it can and will be the minute a bunch of submissions come across which look too similar or your "new technology" fucks up.

Big help software like this is, when this happens. All that hard webmaster work goes down the tube because it's like the webmaster gave the tgp owner the middle finger with his/her rules.

When are you folks that make software like this going to learn that if scripts are written to block auto submissions then by utilyzing counter-measure "new technology" and *BYPASSING* that security that you are showing absolutely no regard for the webmaster who runs the website or the rules they have about not receiving these types of submissions?

Why not focus your auto submission program marketing on how your program FOLLOWS and RESPECTS rules of a webmasters site instead of boasting about how you can break through their submission process, rules be damned.

Auto submitters aren't evil, but marketing them the way in the paragraph above is just 100% plain wrong.

Let me guess, does your new technology come spyware-infested too?

Cya later spammer

How and where to complain about fraud and spam from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"Posting and telling webmasters about spammers goes a long way to foiling them"

TSR - Saw you posted this same thing at another webmaster board. I'd recommend forwarding that offending mail to abuse at completeweb.net as well as submitting to spamcop.net if you haven't already done so.

Here's a good list of places to complain about fraud and scams perpetrated through email on the web:
http://www.elsop.com/wrc/complain.htm

Posting and telling webmasters about spammers goes a long way to foiling them.

However, and as with anything else, and before making a huge deal about a certain piece of spam, make sure you didn't sign up for a list and just forgot that you did so. Or that you didn't enroll at a website who has TOS and/or privacy policy which clearly indicates that they distribute your email address to third parties. By using their (often it's "free" service you have already agreed to this practice!

Some websites will change their privacy policies too, so I'd recommend using the waybackmachine (archive.org) to help you with ferreting out these types of shifty practices.

In other words, when you signed up they didn't whore out email addys but somewhere after that point they changed their policy. eBay, Yahoo, and other big sites like this seem to like to reset your personal settings whenever they conveniently update their privacy policies. And when they reset the settings mysteriously you are always selected to have your information shared with third parties!

Good luck in the fight against spam. It truly begins with taking action and not simply hitting "delete" as many of us have (unfortunately) been programmed to do.

Response to duplicate casino spam post from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"You must be able to contribute something besides the ever cliched: "come join my affiliate program"?"

Patounet1 - your first post barely sneaked by, but your basically dupe 2nd posting didn't. It's pushing it at practically any webmaster messageboard when you start out on a spam note.

How about telling webmasters how to market online casinos? Maybe write an article and submit to Adult Buzz, AN, KliXXX regarding this topic? What about the legalities of operating an online casino?

You must be able to contribute something besides the ever cliched: "come join my affiliate program"?

Why should I sign up for your program? The $200 chip deal is higher than I've ever seen any other online casino offer (which draws suspicion along with curiosity), so what's the catch? Are you making the customer gamble $2000 before they can cash out the $200?

I hope you read this and reply with some good, useful information webmasters can use to market to this competitive and controversial market rather than just more spam.

That's what I believe these boards are for: primarily exchanging information and the occasional announcement that's important/useful to webmasters.

Not the converse: primarily announcements and occasionally some useful information, capiche?

Spammer trying to sell harvested email list of 700,000 *verified* webmaster email addresses from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"And of course, Joe Spammer will never come back and provide proof that those are 700,000 or 200,000 or 20,000 or even *2000* webmaster OPT-IN email addresses"

2500 for a harvested email list? Yeah, that's a winning idea!

Here's a quote from the Washington State RCW:

"...Damages to the recipient of a commercial electronic mail message sent in violation of this chapter are five hundred dollars, or actual damages, whichever is greater..."

Here's the complete RCW for Washington regarding spam email:
http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/states/wa/19-190-rcw.shtml

Joe Spammer can't tell Clueless Buyer how many of those 700,000 or 200,000 "verified" webmaster emails belong to Washington state residents. Doh!

And of course, Joe Spammer will never come back and provide proof that those are 700,000 or 200,000 or 20,000 or even *2000* webmaster OPT-IN email addresses.

Well, maybe when hell freezes over.

In response to promotion about new email harvesting program from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"It's products like this that are bogging down servers, creating new spam email laws, getting people's sites blackholed, and ultimately effecting legitimate email list serving"

Dude, get with the program here, email harvesting software only helps to facillitate spamming of people. The vast majority of which do not want to read spam!

>> But they are providing exact targeted emails and they are telling they are using some special technology to get exact targeted emails. >>

It's products like this that are bogging down servers, creating new spam email laws, getting people's sites blackholed, and ultimately effecting legitimate email list serving.

I put this question to the group: is there any webmaster reading this right now who wants to have their own email address(es) harvested?

Please speak up if you do

In response to post regarding whether a double opt-in mail list of 30k webmasters is worth 2k content from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"Spam is a serious thing and you don't want to be thinking you are mailing a receptive party and find hostile webmasters instead"

I'd check the site and see if there are any terms and conditions or privacy page which clearly spells out that they sell/rent/trade/lease those double opt-in lists.

If the site doesn't spell this out then many of those webmasters will not be looking for any mailings from you -- and some of them will probably be quite hostile when you mail them. Spam is a serious thing and you don't want to be thinking you are mailing a receptive party and find hostile webmasters instead.

However, if the site clearly *does* point out that they do sell/rent/trade/lease their email list with third parties in their TOS or privacy policy, then 30k double opt-in webmasters is well worth 2k content, and probably more. Especially if it is a list that is used to receiving frequent mailings with webmaster-related offerings.

In response to spam article by Connor Young from boards.theadultwebmaster.com

"14 freaking days? Does anybody else smell something funny when they read stuff like this? What are they doing, running their inter-office memos by horse and buggy?"

Connor - nice work on this article: http://www.theadultwebmaster.com/articles/spam_story.phtml

I'd like to add a few additional comments to your article and reflect on a recent situation that is somewhat related to the article and spam in general:

JUST PUNCH UP DELETE - while this technique seems sound, I think that it is better to determine who is spamming you and take action against them (as you mention later in the article), especially if it is habitual enough or clearly a harvested email attack. spamcop.net is a good place to start. The following page lists current violations so you can see if you are part of some "list":
http://spamcop.net/w3m?action=inprogress&type=www

I'd also recommend snagging a proggy which lets you only view sender, recipient and subject line (and act upon those fields) instead of including the body. This way you never get sucked into actually reading the body of a spam email (you know that most of us do and that's the problem) and can delete without ever retrieving to your inbox. Not to mention that this adds impenentrable email virus protection because virus aren't/can't be sent in the subject and to/from fields.

FILTER THAT EMAIL - how to effectively use filters can be a challenge, but there are some articles out there on how to do this. Here is one I wrote awhile back:
http://www.adultbuzz.com/012302/page7.phtml

You can find other articles, tutorials, etc doing a quick google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=using+email+filters

PEER PRESSURE - I'm with you Connor, enough with burying our heads in the sand to be PC, it's long past time to virtually kick some of these spammers asses!

I have a quick non-fiction story.

I signed up for a major mainstream site recently. When signing up I made very sure to UNcheck the boxes to send me newsletter "offers" and mail and yet the other day I started receiving mail from them anyway.

So I went into my preferences and not only were all the "receive offers" boxes checked, so was telephone solicitation and snail mail solicitation too! To add insult to injury, they put in there (small print, of course) that it takes *14* days for preference changes to take place.

14 freaking days? Does anybody else smell something funny when they read stuff like this? What are they doing, running their inter-office memos by horse and buggy?

In this day and age, if it takes more than 14 *minutes* to be removed from any "list" than it's time to start firing people.

Sounds to me like my name/address/phone got whored out to a bunch of third parties WITHOUT my consent. Again, this is a major mainstream site!

Shame on any website -- mainstream, adult, whatever -- who ignores preferences on new registrations. Why have them there to begin with, when you can just state: all new registrations get added to X list and Y list and Z list.

We all know why, they'd get dramatically fewer registrations!

How spam affects all people on the web from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"Hello? Am I the only one who doesn't believe many of the 'unsubscribe' options for lists I never signed up for in the first place are *really* just more sophistocated opt-in subscribes?"

Spam affects every one of us at some level. If more people take a proactive stance when they are spammed instead of hitting delete or just ignoring it, then the net would have a lot less spam.

Recently, I was added to a "list" to be solicited for advertising that I didn't ask to be added to. Privately, I contacted the owner of the website and said, "why was I added to this 'list'?" and the response I received was, "if you don't want to be on the 'list' then you should just send back the unsubscribe letter."

Hello? Am I the only one who doesn't believe many of the 'unsubscribe' options for lists I never signed up for in the first place are *really* just more sophistocated opt-in subscribes?

And arbitrarily starting "lists" with email addys pulled from here and there is a bad, bad idea and something that shouldn't be anybody's practice on the web.

Now with that said (and it's my last gripe about it, I promise) and if necessary, I don't mind taking out the garbage once in awhile

Anonymous webmaster referral code post on webmaster resource board from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"Or if working like the rest of us isn't your gig, and since I noticed your email was from France, here's something you might understand better: parle vous "fuck you""

hotpix - I want to congratulate you on having such a great grasp of the terms and conditions of your sponsor. Let me quote for you:

"NO SPAM POLICY: We have a ZERO tolerance for SPAM. If you are caught spamming to our program or site, you automatically are terminated from the program, and any money owed, will not be paid."

Since you couldn't bother to register for this community and contribute anything useful besides spam, I took the liberty to:

1) remove your post
2) forward your post (with your affiliate code so they could easily identify you) to the the sponsor (who, btw, posted 17 posts below your moronic spam and I'm sure will be disappointed by your stupidity) and my guess is you'll find any monies you've earned vaporize per these T&C.

So get a clue and register for this board and then come back and get involved.

Or if working like the rest of us isn't your gig, and since I noticed your email was from France, here's something you might understand better: parle vous "fuck you"

ahhh, feel better now.

in response to post about just ignoring spam and hitting delete versus voicing one's concern publically or trying to *do* something about it from pornresource.com

"Until then, the WWW stands for the Wild Wild West. And lest we remember that in those days horse and boot thiefs often met their fate on Boot Hill"

I don't draw any correlation between the measure of one's intelligence simply because he/she would choose to voice their irritation over spam versus ignoring spam and simply hitting delete. Yes, getting "worked up" about something might seem unhealthy and unproductive, but it is a fact that keeping one's emotions inside is corrosive and unhealthy.

It takes very little intelligence to purchase/acquire an email harvesting program and then turn around and use it to spam the hell out of a bunch of people looking for legitimate email.

It also takes very little intelligence to walk into the local bank and demand all the money. But are either of these actions logical? One will end up with many irritated web netizens, the other will land one in jail or on the lamb ...

The conscious choice to vent about illogical and/or illegal actions (spam is illegal in the state of Washington, btw) does provide people at the very least a healing outlet. I have no problem with that except when one vents and gives the spammer even more attention, which might have been part of your point, yes?

I wouldn't say nor especially link the spammer's url or domain, nor draw attention to the spammers product. That publicity often helps the spammer more than hurts them. Identify the company and details about whom they are and print their email so other harvesters can pick them up and spam the shit out of them. Touche`.

However, human emotions aside, here is the real problem with spam: spam consumes bandwith. Consumes resources!

So if there was none or considerably less spam would that mean cheaper bandwith?

Yes!

I will grant you that this "cost" to us only equates to a ridiculous fraction of one penny for every spam you receive, rest assured you are paying for it. So am I. So is everyone reading this.

I don't have a problem with hitting delete, except when in my mind a cash register is ringing every time I do so.

And if we simply take the action of setting up filters and just dealing with it hoping it will go away, it will take longer to go away.

In fact it will eventually increase the burden on our websites and the net in general (it already is to a lesser degree). If nothing changes, then eventually it won't be about "spam" itself but about the side effects of spam on the web that everyone speaks out about and against (they already are, actually).

Here's more interesting info on spam for anybody reading this who might wonder what they can do about spam (filtering, advanced prevention, dealing with abuse, etc):
http://email.about.com/cs/spamgeneral/

The whole problem with the perception of the internet, I think, is that there is a huge misnomer that free is really *free*. The net is no more free than the wattage your computer is using right now. Though it doesn't take a 34 cent stamp to send spam, if it did, I guarantee that there would be a whole helluva lot less of it for us to deal with ;)

And no, I'm not one of those extremists suggesting there should be a virtual stamp fee for email, lol (though there must be some happy medium)

Someday hopefully when surfers start realizing that everything costs something on the web, then the net will get beyond it's current stage.

Until then, the WWW stands for the Wild Wild West. And lest we remember that in those days horse and boot thiefs often met their fate on Boot Hill.

Have a nice weekend and let's hope the spambox is low for all of us ;)