# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  I Hate Spam .co.za - first F.U. Award to dealaday.co.za

## daveob

dealaday.co.za was the last straw that got stuck in my boxers and irritated the cr*p out of me !!

Local companies harvesting e-mail addresses from web sites and buying spam lists, then trying to tell you that a friend added your address to their list, just to sell you junk, just isn't on in my book !!

So I reacted in the best way I know - a new site - www.ihatespam.co.za

Please feel free to send your contributions - lets give them free publicity - but the kind that they don't want.

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## daveob

and here's another 2 spammers :

Abelusi Training Network
Dynamic Seminars

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## Debbiedle

I have a real problem with this approach!  We have a huge mailing list.  It has been collated and collected over years of subscriptions and telesales and cold calling and contacting etc etc.  Each and every person has agreed to be mailed and yet from ONE week to the NEXT they cannot remember that they have given permission!!  

It happens at least twice a week that a client emails or phones irate because he/she did NOT give permission for our mails only to turn away red faced when we prove that they did.

In the interim - a site or ISP that simply lists/blocks names without further investigation can do a lot of damage.

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## Dave A

I have to agree with Debbie entirely (that must be a first  :Stick Out Tongue:  ) and would like to stress this part



> In the interim - a site or ISP that simply lists/blocks names without further investigation can do a lot of damage.


Spam Assassin _et al_ really should be checking the content of the email for an unsubscribe option for starters.

I've also just got my first email from deal a day and have unsubscribed from their mailing list. I could not be bothered asking where they got my email address from.

I'll let you know if they keep coming, because then they definitely are spammers and deserve the treatment.

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## daveob

Hi Debbie

I hear your point of view.

 .... BUT ....

when I have an e-mail address on my web site ( example : international@mydomainname.co.za ) and it is never used, except being checked for incoming mail, is never used to send outgoing mail, is never quoted in any other communication, and no friends or associates know of this address, and I start getting a barrage of e-mails to this, and many other e-mail addresses ( some which don't even exist, so they arrive in my 'catch all' mailbox ) and the same thing happens for every one of 12 domains that I run starting on exactly the same day, then nobody can tell me that the addresses were not either harvested from the web, or an e-mail address list was purchased - either way, I sure as heck did not subscribe to this junk.

So, if a company wants to use these methods, then blatently lie by trying to tell me that "a friend of mine" subscribed me to their list, then SCREW THEM !!

It's about time that companies start to seriously consider the methods that they use to build their mailing lists. The amount of spam mail that is transmitted on the net each day is far in excess of the legit mails.

But I do hear your point about someone who 'forgot' that they subscribed - so how about the following : when we receive a complaint, we'll e-mail the company concerned, and give then 48 hours to come up with the proof before they are listed. I think that sounds fair.

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## daveob

> I've also just got my first email from deal a day and have unsubscribed from their mailing list.


Hi Dave

But this is what gets to me - the fact that you, me or any number of others, have to physically go and unsubscribe from this junk.

It smacks of the old practices of " You've automatically been awarded free xxx cover to the value of R xxx. If you don't want this great benefit for you and your family, just send us 1024 forms ( in triplicate ) and we'll cancel it immediately. But don't worry, just relax and enjoy the xxx and we'll debit your edgars / xxx account each month -- remember those times - well, that type of practice is now illegal, so I don't see why I should have to go unsubscribe every one of my multiple domains e-mail addresses from this.

I see now that I may end up standing by myself on this fight, but fight I will. 

so ...
we shall fight on the seas and oceans, 
we shall fight with growing confidence 
and growing strength in the air, 
we shall defend our Island, 
whatever the cost may be, 
we shall fight on the beaches, 
we shall fight on the landing grounds, 
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, 
we shall fight in the hills; 
we shall never surrender.
.
.

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## duncan drennan

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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## Dave A

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - quite thought provoking given some of what I'm working on at the moment. Thanks, Duncan.



> when I have an e-mail address on my web site and it is never used, except being checked for incoming mail, is never used to send outgoing mail, is never quoted in any other communication, and no friends or associates know of this address, and I start getting a barrage of e-mails to this, and many other e-mail addresses ( some which don't even exist, so they arrive in my 'catch all' mailbox ) and the same thing happens for every one of 12 domains that I run starting on exactly the same day, then nobody can tell me that the addresses were not either harvested from the web, or an e-mail address list was purchased - either way, I sure as heck did not subscribe to this junk.


Collecting emails from a website is legitimate, best I know. Harvesting them using a bot crawler is illegal in a few countries, though - and also is a breach of many websites' conditions of use.

Dave (ob), I don't think you stand alone at all. To clarify that, I think the issue has two parts - where the email has been harvested and where the recipient has subscribed.

Where the email has been harvested, I support your point - the first contact email *should* be an invitation to subscribe (opt-in markting) rather than require the person to unsubscribe (opt-out).

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## Chatmaster

I feel very divided on this issue. Dynamic seminars are one of those that are also spamming me, but I am actually interested in what they offer, I just wish I could get them to use my correct email address instead of the one from my website that has a auto responder that constantly comes back with a error mail. Vincent also asked me to remove his email address from the Pillars of business website due to spam. Email harvesting is a real issue and really annoying.

However people do forget that they subscribe to email lists. My current database of businesses in Gauteng alone received several spam complaints, fortunately I do capture IP addresses when they subscribe, but MWeb and some other service providers do not always seem to care and simply block you upon receiving these complaints.

But if I receive another vairga (deliberately miss spelled) email I will definitely crack.

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## IanF

I have seen some websites change the email address to Ian at myco dot co dot za. This may work but won't this put off people from contacting you as they have to do more work?  :Confused:

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## Vincent

I hate spam just as much as the next guy, but I'd like to comment on two of the sites.

I have been to a Dynamic seminars presentation and found Brian Jude's quiet interesting. Maybe someone should contact him  and explain to him what is happening, although I agree he shouldn't be spamming.  I think he may be member of our chamber of Commerce,  if he is I will speak to him.  Previously he never used to spam, you had to register for a newsletter  and then you'd get all the seminars he presented. He has more than enough people turning up to his seminars. (+/- 50 @R550/delegate) With regards to Afrihost, speak to *Norri* who is a member on this forum and I believe he knows the CEO of that company. He may help.

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## daveob

Hi Vincent

You're welcome to mention to those that you know about the site. 

Fact is, that I made numerous attempts to contact all site owners before listing them on ihatespam.co.za

I hear that you're partially standing up for Brian Jude's character, but the fact is that if he contracts some marketing company to advertise for him, he should do sufficient homework on the source of their mailing list. As in law, ignorance is no excuse.

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## Chatmaster

I read Dr. Brain Jude's book on customer service about 6 years ago. He is by far one of the best business author's in SA. It is a pity that he must be associated with spam.  :Frown:

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## eiledon

Another one is Certech who are a newsletter company - they somehow got my address and seems like they sell my address in a batch that goes to all their new clients, and now and then Ill get a newsletter by one of their new clients I did not subscribe to (and would never ?!?!) advertising junk that is of no relevance to me... some of it is even offensive!
People in SA need to learn to respect peoples privacy and consider how people will react reading the junk they distribute, and the association that is made with the brand behind it.
Btw this is my first post!  :Embarrassment:

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## Seagyn Davis

> I have seen some websites change the email address to Ian at myco dot co dot za. This may work but won't this put off people from contacting you as they have to do more work?


It is very irritating on a customer side to have to correctly change the email address to the correct version, however this is the easiest way besides using javascript which a lot of the silly Spam Bots have figured out. I have a funny feeling that the bots now capture the (at)'s and 'dot's etc




> Dynamic seminars are one of those that are also spamming me, but I am actually interested in what they offer


Unfortunately why spam will always exist. :Boxing:  just had to! 

I manage an international web server, actually 2 now, and we get bombarded with calls about spam every day. Not only does it get irritating, each and every filter we turn on puts strain on the server, so the ISP's and end consumers are effected.

We have a policy to terminate any domain that sends bulk unsolicited mails.

Also from my side, having to constantly better my newsletter designs to get through over zealous firewalls is the pain in the behind so I am totally against any form of SPAM and if I get any I add it to a few international black listing companies.

It will be a long battle which will only end when mail senders are now geographically placed. Which by the looks of things, may not be in the not so distant future.




> Where the email has been harvested, I support your point - the first contact email should be an invitation to subscribe (opt-in markting) rather than require the person to unsubscribe (opt-out).


Thats a nice touch to anyone who wants to harvest email addresses.

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Dave A (08-May-08)

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## Dave A

> It will be a long battle which will only end when mail senders are now geographically placed.


Any chance you can expand on that because I see the potential for unintended consequences? 

I'm already seeing that "demerits" are being placed by some spam scoring systems if the email originates from a foreign country. This creates a problem for perfectly legitimate domain server based email sending when the server is overseas.

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## Seagyn Davis

I don't mean that it is a current working solution. It will just be handy to trace the origination of the the sender. The only thing is if people send through proxy's but in my mind its the only way to get to the spammers, especially the viagra ones.

There are plenty of negative scores that are in some way a bit irritating for us. One way is that if you send off a dynamic IP then I think 2 points get added to your SPAM score. That along with using a large SMTP server like smtp.saix.net, html, links and images all effect how bad/high you spam score is.

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## Dave A

> The only thing is if people send through proxy's but in my mind its the only way to get to the spammers, especially the viagra ones.


When it comes to spammers, it seems it is the non-transparent proxies that you can get into anonymously that are the problem. An IP trace takes you to the open proxy and no further.

I'm not so sure about being too heavy on dynamic IPs. Vodacom uses dynamic IP addressing, but ultimately they can still trace back to originating client if need be, particularly when it comes to emails.

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## duncan drennan

RSS is the "solution" to spam. It always gets through, and the person knows that they chose to receive it.

Think about using RSS instead of email when sending out newsletters etc. It will save you a lot of pain trying to make sure that they get to the right people.

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## Dave A

Le's look at thought for a moment as it relates to TFSA, Duncan. 

There is an RSS feed, but it pumps threads. Would you suggest a seperate RSS feed just for *newsletters* on this site?

Then there is the issue of private notifications - PM notifications and the like. An RSS solution seems tricky there.

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## daveob

OK. Following the comments and ideas gained from this thread, I've done the latest addition to www.ihatespam.co.za as follows :

1. got the junk e-mail from mmsjobs.co.za ( to multiple e-mail addresses )

2. it was not requested, not opt-in, therefore qualifies as spam.

3. e-mailed mmsjobs.co.za and asked for explanation / reason for the spam.

4. received the reply :
_we have purchased databases with emails in order to make ourselves seen by the public, we are a legitimate business and you have the right to unsubscribe there is a link at the base of the page_

5. added them to www.ihatespam.co.za

Any objections now ?

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## duncan drennan

Sorry that was quite a short comment. I'll try to explain a little better.

If we just look in terms of this site. Firstly, the newsletter. Let's say there was a separate feed for the newsletters (however that happened to be generated). Anyone who wanted to receive the newsletter subscribes to the feed. In this way you never have to worry about the newsletter getting through firewalls, spam filters, and Mweb - the user fetches it with their feed reader (a so-called "pull" technology, vs an email "push").

Users can easily unsubscribe (they just remove it from their feed reader), and just as easily subscribe.

The down side is that you can't automatically add a user (as with a mailing list), and (currently) feed readers are not as widely used as email clients (although they are everywhere, they are just not used as much......*yet*).

I personally wouldn't worry too much about the private notifications, although it could probably be done (I think there is a way to make an RSS feed which requires a password, or at least place it on the site such that it requires the users password).

I think about feeds more in terms of how they can replace the marketing function of email. The major issue is a move from push to pull - and a lot of marketers aren't willing to give up that "control".

(BTW if you don't know what a "feed" or "RSS" means, then watch this video)

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IanF (08-May-08)

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## Seagyn Davis

If you have never opted in I don't have an objection but you could have registered with a website which says that we reserve the right to share your email with partners. Now that company you just 'blacklisted could have thought what they were doing is ok even though it is not.

They have to learn the hard way and people really do learn very well when it is the hard way  :Rant1: 

RSS feeds are nice if you know how to use them as a reader. So many people still do not understand what it is, never mind how to import a feed into a reader.

If you do emailing the right way you should be fine and generally people do not mind if they get the option to legitimately opt-out and know why they were getting it in the first place. A good way as a sender of bulk emails is to say how you are getting this mail (to remind the reader) and to say if you wish to to receive it click here. Makes them know that you care what they want.

Those are my personal feelings

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## daveob

> you could have registered with a website which says that we reserve the right to share your email with partners.


This is always a possibility. 

However, I am the only user of all e-mail addresses for my specific domain, and have never used addresses which appear on my web site, like admin@.., accounts@.., info@.., etc. I always use 1 specific address ( dave@.. ) for all correspondence and replies. Just shows the probability of the addresses having been harvested.




> Now that company you just 'blacklisted could have thought what they were doing is ok even though it is not.


Well, then they are a bunch of suckers !! I'm pretty sure that the list they bought wouldn't have come cheap, so they didn't research the origin of the list/s, didn't question the definition of SPAM, etc.

Or, they knew exactly what they were doing and are, like webmail ( a seperate thread ) prepared for a little flak - you always get 1 or 2 % unhappy customers, but the sales / orders generated make it worth it.

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## Seagyn Davis

> Well, then they are a bunch of suckers !! I'm pretty sure that the list they bought wouldn't have come cheap, so they didn't research the origin of the list/s, didn't question the definition of SPAM, etc.
> 
> Or, they knew exactly what they were doing and are, like webmail ( a seperate thread ) prepared for a little flak - you always get 1 or 2 % unhappy customers, but the sales / orders generated make it worth it.


Either way, they will learn the hard way.  :Whistling:

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## Seagyn Davis

> Sorry that was quite a short comment. I'll try to explain a little better.
> 
> If we just look in terms of this site. Firstly, the newsletter. Let's say there was a separate feed for the newsletters (however that happened to be generated). Anyone who wanted to receive the newsletter subscribes to the feed. In this way you never have to worry about the newsletter getting through firewalls, spam filters, and Mweb - the user fetches it with their feed reader (a so-called "pull" technology, vs an email "push").
> 
> Users can easily unsubscribe (they just remove it from their feed reader), and just as easily subscribe.
> 
> The down side is that you can't automatically add a user (as with a mailing list), and (currently) feed readers are not as widely used as email clients (although they are everywhere, they are just not used as much......*yet*).
> 
> I personally wouldn't worry too much about the private notifications, although it could probably be done (I think there is a way to make an RSS feed which requires a password, or at least place it on the site such that it requires the users password).
> ...


I honestly think you cannot replace one with the other. RSS feeds are for information whilst newsletters are for news. They can actually work quite well together. Newletters aggregate all the news over time whilst a RSS feed will give browsers quick updates to updates made on a site.

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## Dave A

A case of horses for courses. But it's still fun looking at innovative use of technology and pushing the boundaries.

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## Seagyn Davis

A cool feature with feedburner is that you can actually email an RSS feed. In other words, the latest articles are emailed through.

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## wynn

Surely spam has an address to reply to?
So if one of the bofs here designs a program we can download and we send all the spam we recieve so we build up a huge resevoir of spam.
Then when we recieve spam we simply add the address of the spammer and all the spam in the resevoir loops through to him, he will be inundated by a tsunami of spam sent by everybody that downloads the program, this will kill his inbox.
He will very quickly find out who sent the avalanch and remove your address from his list.
Fight fire with fire!

 :Wink:

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## Dave A

> Surely spam has an address to reply to?


Unfortunately not. Phising or even sending spam from a non-existing address is rather easy. You could do it yourself with Outlook settings - no problem.

What cannot be concealed is the trail of IP addresses the message has passed through. But the real source can be camouflaged by stuffing in some false entries before you send the email out. Something like Outlook wont do that for you, but there is software readily available that can. I'm not sure if there is software that readily analyzes this data and can ignore the red herrings.

Even once you have tracked the source by IP, you will need the co-operation of the ISP or server manager that generated the email to trace the identity of the spammer. And you might still not be done. The source might only be identifiable by something like a gmail account.

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## Karenwhe

I just saw now this thread, I may be a bit late but here it goes anyway.

I have to agree with most I am also divided on this issue. I hate spam and have many websites with people subscribed to them, just like Debbie.

But here are examples which I have a problem with in this context:

1. I get emails from people to remove them from the list, saying the can't remove themselves for whatever reason. When I check.... THEY ARE NOT ON THE LIST(or any of them).

They didn't even bother to look that the email arrived in their inbox sent by someone who IS subscribed.

Because we send a lot of educations materials... and people forward the content, this happens more often than you think. As a site owner I am sick of people asking to UNSUBSCRIBE when they are NOT on any list. But that is the way stuff works and I understand that this is part of being in the internet business. Now I have to worry about someone listing me, when they were not on any list in the first place.

I can't possibly now open a site that lists people with short subscription memory or one that educates people how to check where they go emails from before they list a site as spammers... can I now?

2. I had a physical call from someone saying they got spam, I checked if they are subscribed. They said that they bought a product a long time ago and MAYBE subscribed but they can't remember... NOW WHAT?

Yes, there are spammers. My partner at one point got 20 emails a DAY from Certech and the unsubscribe did not work. He had to physically call them.

This doesn't make anyone happy. But I have two more issues with site functions:

3. We have Recommend Articles function - this means people can recommend content to others and send that link..... what if the other person thinks this is not a good article... or whatever..... NOW WHAT?

4. We do have Recommend a Friend and Invite a Friend functions (and ppl have to be members to even have access to this function.... NOW WHAT?

I do hate garbage in my inbox but spam is not that straight forward when you take it out of viagra context and pills and stuff like that.

That of course does not mean that I like spam. As far as the exmaple with the job company. I have also received their email. But only ones. And it didn't bother me. Certech on the other hand does bother me as their unsubscribe function did not work and I got email more than one. They seem to have stopped (with my email address anyway) in the last 2 months or so.

Anyway, that is my two cents.

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## Ryan S

Cool idea. I havnt read all 3 pages so I dont know if someone has said this already lol. but you can run your normal e-mail account through g-mail You add a address to your gmail account and set it at your defualt and when you e-mail someone it has your normal address, doesnt say g-mail anywhere but g-mail blocks spam like magic. I went down by about 150 -e-mails a day when I started

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