[SpamCop-List] Re: SpamCop auto ignored

[michael lefevre]

"Rex M F Smith" <sumisu> wrote in message
news:Gq1G8oABYke6EwjE
> In article <mailman.981076082.14806.spamcop-list>,
Don
> Bennett <don19> writes
> >Huey writes:
> >>- Above.net has said that they're passing complainer emails along to
> >customers?
> >
> >In any case, how else are they going to challenge their client to
prove
> >opt-in without revealing the address to them?
> >
> Reveal the *list* to above.net?

two problems, first, there's technical issues - if they have a customer
database with millions of addresses, it's going to be a lot of work to
transfer the whole thing over to above.net, and a whole lot more work
for the above abuse person who has to try and sort through the million
addresses for the one address they're looking for...

secondly, there's privacy concerns that way around to - if you, for
example, gave your name and address to a online sales company, wouldn't
you have a problem with them sharing your information with any or all of
their connectivity suppliers?

> If the ISP is white hat I have no
> problem with the ISP having my details; however I have a severe
problem
> with them passing them on to a spammer ... for "verification" or
> anything else ... the *last* thing I want is for the spammer to know
the
> address is actually working ...

but if the spammer really is a spammer (and with above.net, we're almost
certainly talking about a large legitimate company who's managing their
mailing list badly rather than some chickenboner that's harvested
addresses out of a newsgroup), then if they can't come up with
confirmation, they'll get in trouble...

as for confirming the address, if these people find out you're
complaining about them, the last thing they'll want to do is spam you
again...

i don't see what the concern is with spammers knowing addresses are
working... they've already got your address - your average spammer
doesn't care in the slightest if it works or not... some of them are
using lists where more than half of the millions of addresses are bogus,
trying to clean the broken ones is far too much effort... if they do any
"cleaning" at all, it will be to remove the addresses of people that are
complaining...

some time last year i actually set up a clean address and started
sending off messages to remove addresses quoted in spam... i must have
sent off at least 50 messages in response to various spams... in one
case i got an immediate response from the spammer with more information
(saying i'd requested it...), but aside from that nothing, and it hasn't
received any email since... the majority of the messages bounced because
the remove addresses were fake or had already been shut down...

michael