# Need a little help with email campaign



## Elie May (Apr 24, 2008)

Hi there,
I posted this on Cragislist, but I thought maybe someone from here might be interested too:
http://houston.craigslist.org/cpg/974352650.html.

Send me an email if your interested.

Priority consideration given to my homesteading today friends 

Thanks,
Kathy


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## lharvey (Jul 1, 2003)

Your link to Craig's list is wrong.

Going into the spamming business are you?



> E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk.[1][2][3][4][5] "UCE" refers specifically to unsolicited commercial e-mail.
> 
> E-mail spam has steadily, even exponentially grown since the early 1990s to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users. Laws against spam have been sporadically implemented, with some being opt-out and others requiring opt in e-mail. The total volume of spam (over 100 billion emails per day as of April 2008[update]) has leveled off slightly in recent years, and is no longer growing exponentially. The amount received by most e-mail users has decreased, mostly because of better filtering. About 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers. Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send about 80% of spam. Since the cost of the spam is borne mostly by the recipient[6], it is effectively postage due advertising.
> 
> E-mail addresses are collected from chatrooms, websites, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users' address books, and are sold to other spammers. Much of spam is sent to invalid e-mail addresses. ISPs have attempted to recover the cost of spam through lawsuits against spammers, although they have been mostly unsuccessful in collecting damages despite winning in court.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Elie May said:


> Hi there,
> I posted this on Cragislist, but I thought maybe someone from here might be interested too:
> http://houston.craigslist.org/cpg/974352650.html.


As Lee said, your url was munged (Mashed Until No Good), but your intent was nevertheless clear to the human eye. Here's the proper link.

http://houston.craigslist.org/cpg/974352650.html

While there is a difference between unsolicited email and spam, if you send any volume at all of unsolicited email you will likely find yourself under scrutiny by spamcop.net. They wield a lot of power with ISPs & network operators.

The difference between spam and unsolicited email is that spam involves network abuse, while unsolicited email does not. What you need to know is that the difference is entirely subjective, and spamcop has become so powerful that their snap judgment will be considered the final word on the issue.

Be careful. You probably won't be prosecuted, but it doesn't take much to be shut down by your ISP or web host. One email from spamcop will send a yellow streak up their backs. Spamcop has been successful in bringing even the largest ISPs & network providers to their knees in the past, and your ISP & web host know it.

Just so you know, I'm not fan of spamcop or their tactics. I support what they're trying to do, but I can't support the bully they've become. Their day will come, and they'll get sued back to the stone age. They'll deserve it too. But in the meantime they're a force you don't want to go up against.


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## lharvey (Jul 1, 2003)

I have a ZERO ( 0 ) tolerance for spammers who reside on my servers and use my network. The last thing I need to do is try to do battle with spamcop. I don't have the time for that.

I agree with Nevada, they tend, are, heavy handed but what are us mere mortals to do.

I monitor the servers all the time. 

Just this past month I shut a guy down cold. He was warned in October and he continued to send out thousands of e-mails. Naturally he threatened to sue me and naturally he was told to read the service contract. He got one chance to change his ways. He opted to get terminated.

Any unsolicited e-mail is spam in my book. It generates extra server loads, more expense and the most complaints from customers.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

lharvey said:


> I agree with Nevada, they tend, are, heavy handed but what are us mere mortals to do.


It's the way they operate -- with threats. If you don't comply with spamcop's demands they'll put you out of business. They don't do it with legal action, they do it by threatening the entire Internet community.

Here's how it works (I know that you know Lee, this is for others' benefit):

When spamcop gets a complaint and judges the complaint to be spam, they demand that the network provider act against the subscriber (normally they demand that the subscriber be banned). If the network provider refuses to comply, or spamcop finds evidence that the network provider didn't comply, spamcop will ask other network providers to refuse email from that provider. If you can imagine the effect of having a provider like Earthlink have all of its subscribers' email refused, you'll see how powerful that threat can be.

So how do they know that other network providers won't just accept Earthlink email anymore? Because of it's learned that a network provider refuses to respect the boycott then they will be also be put on the boycott list.

To give you an idea of how powerful this boycott system is, at one time UUNet was the largest dialup connectivity network provider in the country, and spamcop was able to bring them to their knees to comply. During that few days, spamcop virtually froze email from ISPs all over the country. The ISPs using UUNet for connectivity put enormous pressure on UUnet, so UUNet had to fully comply with spamcop's demands.

Spamcop's tactics are as ugly as they get, but they are effective. :viking:

When I hosted email for my dialup subs, I had anti-spam software installed on the server. It only allowed a certain number of email messages to be sent in a given period of time, and it also limited the number of recipients to any one email message. If I didn't have that software in place I would have had spammers open an account at 2:00 am and spam me out of business before I got up the next morning.

Hosting is a lot more sane than dialup as far as spam goes. The relationship a hosting subscriber has with a web host is different than the relationship a dialup subscriber has with an ISP. Web hosts are in a lot better position to be accommodating to legitimate bulk emailers than a dialup provider can be.

I did still have issues with legitimate bulk emailers though. Very often churches, schools, and businesses need to send large volumes of legitimate solicited email. Software exceptions can be made to accommodate those subscribers on an individual basis, but I usually recommended using bulk email management software through a hosting account whenever possible.


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## Elie May (Apr 24, 2008)

good greif, feel free to delete my post. Just thought a fellow homesteader might like a little mail money for a little work during the winter.

My intentions were not malicious at all.

Sorry to cause a stink


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## Mike in Ohio (Oct 29, 2002)

Nevada (and others),

It is not just spamcop. This is actually an area where I have a fair bit of expertise. I participate in groups such as MAAWG (Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group), APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group), ISOI (Internet Security and Operations Intelligence) and others.

Spamcop used to be a lot more aggressive than they currently are. It was founded by Julian Haight but he subsequently sold SpamCop to Ironport (now owned by Cisco). Just a bit of history for reference.

These days, most receivers (ISPs) use proprietary or 3rd party software that uses various heuristics to evaluate incoming email. If is appears to be spammy or generates complaints over a certain threshold, various outcomes ensue. One outcome may be throttling or blocking of mail from a particular IP Address or possibly the entire range used by a sending domain.

The days of simply relying on RBLs (Realtime Block Lists) are long gone.

You might think the methods of the anti-abuse community are heavy handed, but you should realize that something like 55% of all emails to MTAs 
(Mail Transport Agents) involve abusive email. http://www.maawg.org/about/MAAWG_2008-Q2_Metrics_Report9.pdf

The absolute number one driver of sending hosts/domains being blocked these days is complaints from recipient endusers.

Mike


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Elie May said:


> good greif, feel free to delete my post. Just thought a fellow homesteader might like a little mail money for a little work during the winter.
> 
> My intentions were not malicious at all.
> 
> Sorry to cause a stink


Please, don't feel that way. I wasn't intending to come down on you like a ton of bricks. I went into detail because I wanted you to take this seriously. I know that you don't intend to be malicious in any way, and I don't know exactly what you intend to do. It's just that network operators are under a great deal of pressure right now, so I wanted you to know why things are the way they are. Fair enough?


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