[SpamCop-List] Re: Yahoo Groups?

[Mr. Smith]

"Mike Richter" <mrichter at cpl.net> wrote in message 
news:d4rddj$l4i$1 at news.spamcop.net...
> Mr. Smith wrote:
>> Lately I have been receiving emails asking me to confirm my subscription 
>> to one of several Yahoo Groups. They are different each time -- Chinland, 
>> missionveng. The emails are indeed from Yahoo, not some sort of fake 
>> Yahoo site or phishing attempt. Someone/something is trying to sign up to 
>> these groups using my email. I am just curious if this is some new 
>> spamming technique, and if so, how it works?
>
> The owner or a moderator of a Yahoo! group may extend invitations to 
> prospective members. Yahoo! sends out an e-mail such as you are seeing 
> inviting the candidate to join. IMHO, that doesn't qualify as "bulk" or 
> "commercial" in itself. What the group would be doing is another matter.
>
> In any event, Yahoo! is behaving righteously. The would-be group owner may 
> not be.
>
> Mike


I agree it probably has nothing to do with Yahoo. But what is strange is 
these are each a very narrow-interest group with which I have no connection 
whatsoever (expatriates from a particular province in India, etc). I can't 
imagine a group-owner trying to randomly recruit members, and these are two 
quite different groups (the other is something to do with Burma).

I did get a third notice from Yahoo groups saying that my request to 
"unsubscribe" had been rejected because it did not come from my own email 
address. A copy of the unsubscribe request was included and the IP address 
traced back to a Shaw cable modem in Canada. This is my only clue as to the 
origins of these requests (everything else comes directly from Yahoo with no 
other clues). So someone is screwing around, I am just curious as to the 
motive, and if it is some new Spam twist? If no one else has seen this, 
probably not.