Suggestion for NANOG Meeting

Mon Jan 20 17:57:47 UTC 1997

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Eric D. Madison wrote:
> Should the carrier disconnect
> a customer that continues to send unsolicited emails even after a
> individual or group asks to be taken off their distribution lists.

Using "ask to be taken off their list" as an indicator indicates a naive
understanding of how serious spam servers (for lack of a better term)
operate. 

The spam servers sell lists to hopeful scam artists or ignorant business
people (suckers) for a few hundred dollars.  They also frequently provide
mass mailing software for use with a throw away dialup account from a
major provider.  The suckers usually won't do more than one mailing (or
atleast under the same identity).  The spam server also usually has a
policy of not removing web pages that are indirectly promoted via email.

The primary reason that a well written spam includes a way "to get off the
list" are it gives recipients an action to take, thus reducing complaints. 

You can ask to be removed from the scam artist's lists all you want, but
you will never be removed from the spam server's master list.

For ISPs that don't have any kind of philosophical position against spam,
the reason you want to deal with spammers is to avoid the gigantic amount
of bad press they generate.  It is very easy for them to hit return to
mail (and anger) 1 million people.

Mike.

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