Category Archives: Spam

A study in contrasts: handling stolen email lists

I try to make a habit of giving out “tagged” email addresses to web sites when I sign up for accounts / mailing lists / whatever. For example, when creating an account at widgets.com, instead of just signing up as “jik@kamens.us”, I might sign up as “jik+widgets@kamens.us”. It ends up in the same mailbox regardless,… Read More »

Something is going right in the fight against spam

Zombie botnet connection attempts to my mail server have gone down by 51% in the past four and a half months. I’ve posted more about this on my spam page, but a picture is worth a thousand words: It looks like the good guys are successfully shutting down some big botnets!

Yad Sarah: Good work, bad fundraising

I periodically post about organizations which can’t handle one of these two simple requests: (1) don’t spam me; (2) don’t send me junk mail. If an organization is incapable of implementing effective policies and procedures to accommodate these two straightforward requests from donors, they are probably also incapable of implementing effective, efficient policies and procedures… Read More »

Sears violates CAN-SPAM act

Today, I received a commercial email message from Sears Home Services, a.k.a., Sears Holdings Corporation.  They got my email address when I made a service appointment through their Web site, which I subsequently canceled when it became clear that they were going to charge me more than a local repair man. The email message contained… Read More »

Lighthouse International: Yet another 2+ years of mailings after the first removal request

I just sent the following email message to Mark G. Ackermann, the President and CEO of Lighthouse International: Dear Mr. Ackermann, I am taking the unusual step of writing to you because my efforts to get this issue resolved “through channels” for over two years have failed. In a nutshell, I have asked Lighthouse International… Read More »