KRBD 105.9 Ketchikan“Junk e-mail is known in the trade by the derisive term of "spam." Based upon the content of many of these e-mails, I'd be insulted if I were an employee of Hormel, the creator of the real Spam.” Sen. Frank Murkowski
| For more on SPAM, check out these sites: spam.abuse.net Paul Vixies's vigilante site contains lots of solid information on spam http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/ Latest GVU survey on SPAM Senator Torricelli of New Jersey has introduced a bill in Congress: S. 875 "Electronic Mailbox Protection Act of 1997" Senator Murkowski of Alaska put forth this legislation: S. 771 "The Unsolicited Commercial EmailChoice Act of 1997" The Federal Trade Commission has set up a special email box to take your spam complaints CNet's Shareware Site The Tucows Site |
ZDNet's Jesse Berst says: "Spam is more than annoying.
Spam is a business problem. Spam costs everybody money.
Spammers routinely overloads ISP servers, which is how 600 GTE
email business customers got knocked offline for a day in
December. Spam, or Internet junk email, has
emerged as one of the Internet's biggest annoyances.
Cyberstats research shows nine out of 10 people
detest spam. The real problem with email blasting is
that it's so cheap compared to direct snail-mailing. So
determined, thick-skinned companies have little
incentive not to give it a shot (especially when roughly
11% of the messages get read!). "
According to the most recent GVU survey, here's what people do when they
receive spam:
There is precedent for protecting the public.
In 1991, Congress passed the Automated Telephone Consumer
Protection Act that contained a provision which banned
unsolicited fax transmissions.
Did you know the free market regulates how often you receive a dinner-time
call from a telemarketer or find a sweepstakes entry in your
regular mailbox??
Because time and money are necessary to place
phone calls and send mail through our postal system there are definite
increasing costs for each new contact. However, it costs virtually
the same to send four e-mails as it does four million.
TIP: One company has regained control of their e-mail by filtering
e-mails not addressed to them personally into
a special mailbox that named "Hold for Review". The most important
e-mails you receive is usually addressed directly to you or to
an e-mail address on your Web site. By transferring the
ones that are not personally addressed you can filter out
much of the spam. A hearing on Internet junk e-mail will be held by the Senate
Commerce Committee's Telecommunications Subcommittee. The
hearing is set for Wednesday, June 17. The CybrrCat will be there and bring you back a report!
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Here are some things you can do to stop spam:
- Boycott spammers. Do not buy their products.
- Install the latest spam filters. Go to any freeware or shareware site (see URLs on the left) and query for spam filter.
- Email the government with your complaints. Put the FTC address in your email client address book and whenever you receive spam, simply forward it to the FTC.
- Protect your email address when you post it. Put in some obvious "take out" such as 'NOSPAM', e.g. me@home.NOSPAM.com; humans will recognize what's going on and delete the NOSPAM part. Automated "spambots" may not be able to recognize your trick, so their emails to that address will go astray.
- Sign up for a free browser-based e-mail account and use that address when filling out questionnaires and forms. This way, in time, the vast majority of your spam will be routed to the secondary account while your real mail will continue to come to your business address.
- Never respond to spam. Most spam email comes with an invitation to "remove" yourself from the list. Don't believe it! The replies usually bounce. What's more, the spammer can use your reply to confirm that your address is active.
Thanks for tuning in! If you have any questions or issues you'd like the CybrrCat to address on the air, just send email !
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