Spamhaus provides a spammer blacklist which is widely used in anti-spam filters by ISPs and webmail companies, including hotmail.com. Spamhaus is non-profit organization set up by Steve Linford in 1998 whose mission is to track the worst of organized spam operators. It provides anti-spam intelligence to internet services, Law Enforcement Agencies, and government anti-spam legislation. The organization is staffed by the world's foremost anti-spam specialists who provide best their endevours to assist in anti-spam.

In an astonishingly misguided ruling, e360 Insight LLC a Chicago bulk-emailer won damages against spamhaus for being included in the Spamhaus blacklist. Spamhaus disagree on the facts of the case and on the jurisdiction, but did not appear at the US district court of Illinois; non-profit organizations of limited means cannot defend against disputes in all worldwide jurisdictions.

The bulk mailer won the $11.7m compensation, and Spamhaus was found to be in contempt of court after it failed to pay or remove the company's name from its blacklist.

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Technorati Tags: anti+spam

Posted by Paul Elosegui at 11:19 PM | Permalink: Bulk Mailer Wins Ridiculous Case Against Anti-Spam Organization

We need government funding and technology, not just legislation. So states Eran Reshef, the CEO of an email security firm which has been forced out of business by continual Denial of Service attacks on its company servers.

The company was well funded having recently raised $5m in equity. According Eran Reshef

"This is something that's really got to be left to governments to decide. To fight the spammers you really need to spend $100m."

"It's a dirty little secret that there is no real way to totally prevent denial-of-service attacks - if the attacker is prepared to put enough money in, then they can beat you every time."

A worrying turn with the ever increasing volumes of spam arriving at company servers.

Technorati Tags: can-spam , spam

Posted by Paul Elosegui at 8:32 PM | Permalink: Only Governments Can Tackle Spammers

A subject of discussion among the early adopters. The debate is increasingly heated. The conservative faction insists the problems of spam and unnecessary email can be reduced through common sense; Ready for the rebirth of email? - Information World Review. The enthusiasts insist email is dead and the future is RSS, though it may be still be hard to use for some.

Rather than speculate, a brief look around the market shows adoption rates increasing among large companies. 63% of big companies plan to syndicate content via RSS by the end of 2006, according to JupiterResearch. If that comes true, it would be a huge increase. Currently only 29% do.

A big adopter of RSS feeds is none other the eBay. I often subscribe to the daily email notification of the newly listed items that match what I am after. Now I have the option of subscribing to the an RSS feed instead. The reasons I like it:

• I can check on the new items posted at my leasure, in real time
• I dont have to delete anything once viewed, the RSS feed automatically refreshed itself
• I dont have to manage any inbox folders or clean up
• I dont have any problems with spam filters blocking emails, images, carriage returns or links in the text
• I dont loose notifications in all the spam in the junk folder
• I can view the feed from anywhere with ease
• I can stop the feed immediately
• I dont give out my email address and personal details

A good breakdown of the pros-cons of email vs RSS can be found in Email v RSS, let us move on.... The biggest drawback of RSS used to be the difficulty in handling RSSreaders . The issue is no longer.

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Posted by Paul Salber at 12:33 AM | Permalink: The Choice Between Email and RSS ?

Spammer's habit of faking the sender address on their mailings with innocent email addresses, joe-jobbing spam is causing heavy server loads on company networks. The huge bounce or reply traffic for spam email is going back to innocent bystander networks and PCs.

Bounced spam messages hammer corporate networks | The Register

More than 50 per cent of the largest US corporations have experienced mail service outages or delays because of bounced spam messages targeting their networks, according to a study by gateway security firm Ironport Systems.

Spammers commonly forge the sender's email address so that some poor innocent - rather than a spammer - has to cope with the load of bounced messages sent to invalid email addresses. According to Ironport's study, these bounced messages make up 11 per cent of all all "hostile mail", other categories of which include spam, viruses, and phishing emails.

Spammers have been known to harass anti-spam campaigners by using their email addresses for the spam broadcasts. The anti-spam campaigners receive volume of bounce or complaint email. The practice has been ongoing for 5 years now, in spite of the CAN-SPAM legislation.

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Posted by Paul Salber at 11:55 PM | Permalink: Bounced SPAM Messages is Costing Businesses $5b

The Email mailing lists are becoming less effective in reaching clients. A review of fundamentals of email marketing is good way of maintaining results.

Email Marketing Lists Open Rates Continue to Slide during 2006

Doubleclick's latest report on email marketing showed open rates fell for the fifth consecutive quarter. The volumes of spam show no sign of dropping in spite of the CPAN-SPAM act of 2003. The Q2 2005 EMEA Email Trend Report revealed that the average open rate was 32 percent, down from 40 percent in Q2 2004.

The reasons for the drop in open rates are partly technical with the default blocking images on emails on behalf of ISPs and email service providers. Largely, subscribers have become more selective in what emails they open. For email mailing lists to be successful, the subscriber must include you in his safe safe senders list that has become default in email applications like Outlook.

Email Marketing Principles

The subscriber is in increasingly in control of what he views. Spam filters provided by email applications like Outlook make email filtering the default. Interrupting him with unsolicited emails through rented mail lists has virtually zero results nowadays. Client acquisition is better through other channels, like seach engine marketing and affiliate marketing. You must offer the subscriber incentives in exchange for his permission and colaboration in including him him in a mailing list.

Seth Godin's Permission Marketing principles offer a basis to construct good email marketing campaigns. Incentives and a win-win situation must be designed with every mailing to your email list. Much like the process of dating someone, you must

• offer the prospect an incentive to volunteer and opt-in to the mailing list,
• profile the subscriber as much as possible in every one of his visits,
• remember what he said in subsequent communications and taylor what you say according to what he needs,
• use incentives in all dialogues, and continue to collect data. The idea is to increase the level of permission as you know more about the prospect and you taylor your offers and responses accordingly
• over time, leverage the permission to identify the prospects explicity needs and eventually towards closure
• it is now the law that the customer can decline further emails from you, effectively ending the relationship. This is the obligatory opt-out clause in all emails

You can no longer legally force an unwanted interaction on a mailing list

Stay Legal in your Mailings

• Opt-out mailing lists, where "senstive personal data" is not involved is still legal in most countries. Here the subscriber has not been explicitly asked permission to be sent an email. These email mailing lists provide poor results, as increasingly people expect to receive email for which they have agreed to, or opt-in.
• When buying email lists, care should be take to ask the email list broker how those on the list were asked to whether they whished to opt-in or opt-out.
• Take care of the domain and servers from which your mailing list is sent as email deliverability is nowadays dependent on using a non black-listed server

Now more than ever email marketing must be a transparent and credible conversation with the subscriber.

Technorati Tags: emailmarketing

Posted by Paul Salber at 9:03 PM | Permalink: Email Marketing Fundamentals