Don't Monkey around with the Internet! Stop spam email NOW!!

"Spam, it's not just for lunch anymore!"

The use of Internet email services for private advertising is on the increase. The popularity and novelty of the Internet, like the glamor of the Old West, is attracting hucksters, hustlers and entrepreneurs of all sorts with the prospect of fast and easy money.

Like their counterparts in the Old West, these Internet newcomers understand very little about the real nature of the environment they seek to exploit. Like fishermen equipped only with sticks of dynamite, they accumulate ever larger lists of email addresses with which to flood the email services with advertising for products and services which few, if any people want. In the process of scattering these ill-conceived floods of digital garbage, they routinely appropriate domain names, mail relays, user identities and other resources which are not theirs, leaving a wake of angry users and angrier system admins behind them.

Think spam is a good way to advertise? Think again!

Please read this article by Linda Formichelli. You can get cheated or sued for using spam, and at very least you will find, as many others have, that advertising using unsolicited commercial email (UCE) is far from cost effective. The only people making money from spam are the people selling spamming software and email address lists. They don't care about their reputations!

NEWS...

Washington, DC (January 10, 2000) - Consumer advocates and opponents of unsolicited commercial e-mail (a.k.a. "spam") called upon Internet users around the world to reject the "Electronic Mail Preference Service (e-MPS)," scheduled for launch today by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

"Any company that looks to the DMA's e-mail policies for guidance and relies upon the e-MPS for cover can look forward to being labeled a spammer, shunned by the world's Internet service providers, and maybe even sued," said Scott Hazen Mueller, Chairman of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE). Read more.

A number of bills are currently making their way through the US Congress and House of Representatives which would help in the fight to control spam. For more information on pending legislation, see CAUCE's Pending Legislation page.

SPAM CAN BE STOPPED!

You'll find information, links and advice here on how you can do your part to stamp out spam email.

Please note that the Spam Patrol website is only an information resource. FMP Computer Services has no legal authority whatsoever with regard to controlling spam on the Internet at large. Please do not send us your spam or request help in tracking spam or prosecuting spammers. The information contained on this site and those like it should enable you to do this on your own.

Suggestions and comments are welcome, especially from people with experience in dealing with spam email. Please contact <spam_patrol@fmp.com>