[WEB4LIB] Re: FW: RE: Preferred public email accounts

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

Something new under the sun on the spam issue:
I received a spam today with the highly suspicious-sounding subject line of
"check this out..." (oddly, there was no virus attached) for an alleged
'human growth hormone' product. AT the bottom of the ad, in very tiny font,
was this statement:

"The following statement is provided to be in compliance with commercial
email laws.  If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please click
UNSUBSCRIBE ME.  This message is in full compliance with U.S. Federal
requirements for commercial email under bill S.1618 Title lll, Section 301,
Paragraph (a)(2)(C) passed by the 105th U.S. Congress and is not considered
SPAM since it includes a remove mechanism.  This message is not intended for
residents in the states of CA, NC, NV, RI, TN, VA & WA.  Screening of
addresses has been done to the best of our technical ability"

A search in Lexis did, indeed, find this text in the specified place of the
specified bill:

      "(2) COVERED INFORMATION.-THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION SHALL APPEAR AT
    THE BEGINNING OF THE BODY OF AN UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC
    MAIL MESSAGE UNDER PARAGRAPH (1):
          (A) THE NAME, PHYSICAL ADDRESS, ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS, AND
        TELEPHONE NUMBER OF THE PERSON WHO INITIATES TRANSMISSION OF THE
        MESSAGE. 
          (B) THE NAME, PHYSICAL ADDRESS, ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS, AND
        TELEPHONE NUMBER OF THE PERSON WHO CREATED THE CONTENT OF THE
        MESSAGE, IF DIFFERENT FROM THE INFORMATION UNDER SUBPARAGRAPH
        (A). 
          (C) A STATEMENT THAT FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS OF UNSOLICITED
        COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL TO THE RECIPIENT BY THE PERSON WHO
        INITIATES TRANSMISSION OF THE MESSAGE MAY BE STOPPED AT NO COST
        TO THE RECIPIENT BY SENDING A REPLY TO THE ORIGINATING ELECTRONIC
        MAIL ADDRESS WITH THE WORD "REMOVE" IN THE SUBJECT LINE."

Interestingly, Henry Schmidt (the name on the emai), does not comply with
2.a or 2.b.
Although I have successfully prevented new spam in accounts by clicking the
"unsubscribe" links, the link in this spam opens an email addressed to
duckpro at hotmail.com with "remove" in the subject line. I did decide to send
it. 
--Nancy

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Thomas Dowling [mailto:tdowling at ohiolink.edu]
>>Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 1:21 PM
>>
>>...The general rule of thumb is never to use those "Click
>>here to unsubscribe" links. Most spam services actually use those
>>responses to verify that your address is valid and put it onto higher
>>priority spam lists.


I was asked off-list:
>Thomas, do you have real evidence of this? As far as I can tell the 'click
>to unsubscribe' has worked in the few instances I have bothered to do so.
>I'd like to know if what you say is true.

Not being a spammer, I can only go by industry news reports. A Ziff-Davis
Tech Update from September 16 included an interview with a mass mailer, who
starts by harvesting addresses from web pages: "...To Brooks, Web sites
are open invitations. 'I'm just responding to their request to have people
contact them'...As a result of this open invitation, your employees could
spend valuable work time sending requests to be removed from such lists.
Brooks says he honors all removal requests, but acknowledges that many
others don't, and that spammers of the worst ilk just consider such
requests proof that there's someone at the other