On Fri, 25 Apr 1997 03:42:28 -0700 Todd Day <today@di.com> said:
>I keep getting *TONS* of misdirected e-mail from bulk lists having a
>return address of lsoft.com. Most recent is VISTOOLS@MSDN.EASE.LSOFT.COM
>(this is a Microsoft software tools mailing list, as best I can tell).
>Despite several requests to get them to stop sending their junk, they
>just keep on sending it.
Actually, VISTOOLS is a brand new list, and there has only ever been one
posting to that list. Whatever you may think about Microsoft and its
products, this is not a basement outfit with nothing to lose from
advertising the latest MLM scam using the 6M free addresses that came
with SUPER-BULK ULTRAMAIL(TM). They are actually very careful about their
public image, and they only send to addresses that they have gathered in
a legitimate way, usually from a web subscription form although the
old-fashioned SUBSCRIBE method is often also available. The problem
though is that they are commonly used by pranksters to play practical
jokes on, for instance, unix programmers :-) People go to the web page
and type the victim's address and presto! Free subscription to VISUAL
BASIC news with guaranteed blood pressure increase! :-) If you accept
that for this type of list and the intended audience, the cookie
mechanism is just not an option, you also have to accept that people will
be playing pranks and there is very little you can do about it.
At any rate, we only do business with legitimate, reputable companies
(and it's not for the lack of spammers calling to use our services, they
have actually gotten good enough at lying that we sometimes came THAT
close to delivering spams on their behalf :-( ). In every large list
there are going to be a number of addresses of people who were added by a
third party and are convinced that they have been spammed, however from
the provider's point of view these are legitimate subscriptions that were
received in the same manner and through the same channels as other
bona-fide subscriptions.
Finally, I am not sure whom you asked to be removed, but in my experience
mail sent to postmaster@microsoft.com does not necessarily result in a
prompt answer. There should have been some kind of mailbox or Reply-To:
address or URL in the newsletter saying how to unsubscribe (this is a
requirement for using our services for one-way lists, although most
customers can post to their lists directly and sometimes we find out that
the signoff instructions were omitted). I am not trying to say that
postmaster@microsoft.com shouldn't also work, I'm just saying that in
practice it doesn't. Complaints sent to postmaster@lsoft.com are passed
on to the customer so that they can update their database. Most of these
big lists are linked one-way from the database to LISTSERV for various
technical or non-technical reasons and L-Soft does not have the authority
to sign people off.
Eric
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