Opting Out
The World Privacy Forum has a convenient list and links to the Top Ten Opt Outs. These are the places you go to get your name off the mailing and calling lists that are being gathered to sell to various ne’er-do-wells, like credit card companies, catalog sellers, and various other spam/junk mail merchants like Citi “Corpse” and “AIiiieeG” Insurance.
In civilized countries you have to opt-in, i.e. agree to receive this garbage, but in the US you have to make them stop.
An example, when you send in a credit card bill that contains the mutilated remains of the card with a note saying “first, last, and only money you will ever receive from me”, do you really need to call a special number and then send a letter to a special address to indicate you are closing the account and you don’t ever want to speak to these people again?
17 comments
The biggest mistake people make when they receive unsolicited eMail, even from legitimate companies, is to click on the opt-out link (the ‘don’t send me any more junk’ link). All this does is confirm your address and they add you to the real names list and sell it to companies that will distribute it to everyone who buys their lists.
Best thing to do is get a good SPAM filter and use it.
In the US if you go through the established channels and register with organizations like the Direct Mail people, you can sue, after your first complaint to the Federal Trade Commission.
Dealing with individual companies is a waste of effort, because most of them don’t have the resources to maintain their own lists, and you definitely don’t want to respond to the list owners.
With Amazon and others with whom I actually do business, I locate the opt-out boxes and let them know I’m not interested in hearing from their friends.
I have halved the Spam and almost never receive junk mail, or sales calls.
It takes a while to find the correct people to register with, but it does have an effect.
Currently I’m getting a lot of Russian Spam, not just from Russian mailers, but in Russian, followed closely by Arabic Spam. Who knows why, at least the Chinese and Korean have died down.
One of the reasons I chose Gmail for my permanent & throwaway addresses (I currently have 5) is because they have a very effective anti-SPAM system. I never see SPAM in my main mailboxes, but there could be a hundred or more in the SPAM box in any week. I’ve configured it to keep SPAM for 7 days, just in case a legitimate eMail ends up there, which so far hasn’t happened, then it’s automatically deleted. I also have unlimited eMail addresses from my ISP, and I have two configured. But they are only used for people I know personally. 🙂
I only deal with a dozen a day, and could reduce those with a minimum of filter tweaking in my mail client, but I like to keep up the latest trends in junk mail, and do forward phishing e-mails to the appropriate people.
I helped a college track down a student who was abusing their system by notifying them that phishing requests were originating from their mail server. The student had a Trojan infection and the mail server needed patching, as many of them do.
There have been times when I was almost so annoyed that I felt like pursuing some of these jerks, but I pulled back because that would just dog things down further. The problem is that I don’t want to waste the time for a “surgical strike” when I get angry, I’m looking at carpet bombing, which is really messy for the ‘Net.
It would be nice if a few of the big guys would patch their damn software and bring it up to current standards. The last big patch push cleaned up a lot of systems, but they don’t do it consistently. I guess “Security Patch Release” isn’t specific enough for them. They apparently don’t think that running an ISP is a full-time job.
Do either of you have an opinion of Mailwasher Pro?
http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro/
It will bounce unwanted emails, which should stop at at least some.
andante´s last blog post..
If I was going to use something besides my Pegasus e-mail program’s internal capabilities, Mailwasher would be on my list.
The best feature from me is that it allows me to teach it what I consider spam, rather than relying on a blacklist. This is important because many of the blacklists contain people with whom I correspond. There are reasons they are on the lists, but the reasoning is faulty, based on left over “flame wars” from an earlier era of the ‘Net. The lists don’t see the difference between “READ WITH COMPREHENSION, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT!” and “Do you want to please your partner?”
Mailwasher does not integrate with your e-mail client; it is a separate program. If you do a search on Mailwasher, the guys at “about.com” have some more information on the program [I just checked and they are still there] which should give you a better feel for it.
Hi adante, Mailwasher is a good choice. Spam Assasin too, though it takes a bit of work to configure, it’s not for the feint hearted. 😉
What are you using for eMail? Some email clients have an addon or plugin for SPAM management.
Mozilla Thunderbird is a good, free, eMail client from the home of Firefox. It has basic Anti-SPAM built in, but there are also a number of plugins to extend that. 🙂
Softpedia have a comprehensive list of Anti-SPAM tools either stand-alone (like MailWasher, which isn’t free) or as addons or plugins for eMail clients, even Outlook & Outlook Express (blech!!!)
One thing to watch out for with Anti-SPAM tools, like Anti-Virus tools, they can be a resource hog and slow your system down, if they are setup correctly, they should work OK. 🙂
Before using any Anti-SPAM tools, check the forums for user comments. (Just use Google or whatever your fave search engine is). It can save you a lot of headaches! 😉
The Mozilla Thunderbird Addons site have user comments for all the addons. 🙂
Good luck!
BTW… That’s true Bryan about many of the lists! I was playing with RBL spam lists for my client’s site. Some hosting companies have it as a standard option, for some it’s an extra cost.
OT: I’ve looked at over 100 hosting companies and rejected almost all of them!! It’s insane. One host that really looked great and was very responsive to my questions (over 1 dozen emails in 2 hours back and forth). But then I read their TOS in detail!! They would make m$ proud!! Not only was there NO money back guarantee, they only had a 14-day opt-out, but they only issues a credit, not a refund!! What’s the use of a credit if you don’t like their service?! And then… if you took a 6 or 12 month plan and tried to cancel before the end, they not only kept your money (you have to pay up-front of course), they added a US$200 penalty fee! What a bunch of crooks!
The current three on my shortlist are:
Future Hosting (They currently have a 30% discount for life promotion, and are a large company with 5 datacenteres), and HostNexus, the third is RackForce who has a massive fortress of a datacenter in Canada, and one in the USA.
They all have very good VPS plans. There are a couple other *possibles* also. Just waiting for replies to questions basically. 🙂
Be glad when this is all over with!
And they can all be bought out by someone in a year and go belly up from leveraging.
I wished I lived near a node, so I could just host my own stuff without have deal through someone else. It’s a pain and there is a lot of costs to deal with, and aggravation, but at least you own your problems and don’t have to sit and wait for someone else to figure out that there is a problem.
My original ISP was finally bought out by a cell phone company that shut the ISP business down. They wanted the facility because of the hurricane resistance that was built into the building and the redundant back-up power systems. They gave customers 30 days notice and pulled the plug. It obviously would have taken too long to build a reinforced concrete block house and install some generators and relays.
The ISP did have a location very close to the local telco’s POP, but that was the original POP, and the newest center was in the cheap part of the area well away from the water.
The people who make these decisions don’t seem to do much analysis or planning, which leads to predictable results.
Too bad there’s no one being reasonable in Oz. It’s always better to work locally when possible.
Frankly, I want too much control to trust someone else’s filtering choices.
Agree! And that happens everywhere unfortunately.
Aus is way too expensive! We do have hosting companies with data center’s here, but they are at least 4 times the monthly cost of a US/UK/CA host. Mostly because Telstra charge a huge fee for the gateways and infrastructure. Must be nice to be a monopoly.
I was PMSL a week ago when the Gov finally announced the long awaited proposal with the new Aus information/internet infrastructure project (National Broadband Network). Originally, it was proposed to go through the usual tender process, which would take at least a year, and everyone *knew* that Telstra would get it anyway and we were all disillusioned with the whole thing.
Well, Rudd announced that there would be NO tender, and that in fact the Gov would do JV’s with some partners and build the entire thing over the next 4 to 6 years and the Gov would keep 51% ownership. The CEO of Telstra resigned and their collective heads exploded! They are the best comedy on TV right now! LOL The Gov say the proposal is to run fiber to every home and busines in Aus within 6 years. I dunno if they can do it… it’s massive plan! But I hope so! 🙂 That will basically close out Telstra who have a stranglehold (thanks to Howard) in the comm’s infrastructure.
NBN Delay Sucks, But Rudd Broadband Plan Still Good News
So, maybe in a few years or so, we’ll have competitive hosting too. 🙂
I love it! 😀
I’m surrounded by fiber and can’t get it. I meant literally surrounded, as in my driveway was plowed up to bury it, but the local telco won’t lease it to anyone not part of the base.
The local cable company started replacing their copper with fiber, and then ownership changed and all of the fiber was pulled down.
They want to milk their copper, and there is nothing you can do about it. No one is interested in building out the fiber, because they don’t want to invest in the future. The payouts are too far down the road for management to care.
If private business refuses to step up to the plate, government needs to step in, and if taxpayers are going to pay for it, they should make the profits.
I’m getting really tired of going without, because business doesn’t want to modernize or compete. I believe that capitalism has been destroyed in the US by the corporation – they don’t want to compete.
Hmmm. So… can’t you cut a deal with the base? You know… because you were *one of them* once kinda thing? 😉
Or… like with me, they don’t care if you WERE one of them because you are NOT one of them now! Ehhh.
Thanks, guys. Rather faint-hearted here, I’m afraid. I use Otlook Express and the Mailwasher Free program. I like the way the Pro version will let you preview the first line or so, then bunce it. A friend told me it’s not a complete deterrent, but got rid of a lot of the junk she’d been receiving. Plus you can apparently retrieve anything you bounce or just trash in error. Can’t do either those in the freebie, and I have been known to trash a few, then realize I shouldn’t have.
andante´s last blog post..
Give Thunderbird a try! 🙂 Really.
It will tell you when it thinks an eMail is SPAM (Junk) with a button to tell it that the main is NOT junk. It will add that email sender to what is called a ‘white list’. That a list of sender addresses Thunderbird keeps that you consider safe and non-SPAM. More info on that HERE.
One of the best things anyone can do is never open an unsolicited eMail (from a company or person you don’t know and haven’t asked for anything). DEFINITELY NEVER REPLY TO THEM!! The spammers send out thousands of emails hoping for someone to reply. Then they know they have a real address and you will be spammed to death!
The lines to the base are all intranet, and they most certainly will not approve everyone on base to connect, much less people who aren’t part of the R&D effort.
If I created something that could be dropped from an aircraft and blow up [actually, I once had a laptop that would probably qualify] they would be out here tomorrow.
The state of Florida is paying to run fiber on the Interstate 10 and Interstate 95 right-of-ways, which is really an intelligent move, but they haven’t announced anything about being about to connect to it. For all they’ve said, they may just be running a four fiber line, which would be incredibly stupid. If you are going to the expense of actually laying the fiber, lay a bundle and lease the surplus to pay for the operation.
The local telco has only laid what was ordered, and digs things up again for every order. It would have been cheaper to have laid a bundle, and then charged the same for every additional order, without the annoyance of having my driveway dug up multiple times.
No one in the US looks to the future anymore.
You must have a Telstra franchise then. Sounds like Telsta. Then again… Telstra’s ex-CEO was American… 😉
You can’t expect common sense, intelligence or even good business practices from people making millions a year doing next to nothing or just whatever they can get away with.
This was Sprint, but the local telco is now call Embarq for some weird corporate reason, and they don’t function and better, although their DSL network techs actually know what they are doing. The last time I had a problem the guy overnighted a new modem, even though it wasn’t actually the real problem, but because he knew that the real problem would probably cause the modem I had to meltdown before long, and he didn’t like dealing with old equipment anyway.
Sprint was once the champion of using fiber in the US, but they sure didn’t bother to install it when they bought up local phone networks.
I have never been able to figure out why the various business schools can’t convince their students that preventative maintenance and redundancy saves money over time. It is almost as if things must be a crisis before they are dealt with, rather than managing to avoid crises.
What passes for capitalism these days is totally screwed up.