Spam Question

Webmaster Discussion
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#1

A couple of weeks ago I got one of the CNN spams that’s been going around. The problem is that it was the first one I got, and it arrived shortly after I had visited CNN, so I reasonably thought it was from CNN. Stupidly I clicked the unsubscribe link and now I’m getting so much pharmacy spam that I could easily supply the whole world with as many drugs as they needed.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to shutdown the e-mail address I use for all of my affiliate stuff.

My question is a general one about how spam lists work. Does a e-mail address every get removed from spam lists? If I delete this e-mail address will it eventually get removed from spam lists because it’s a non-working address? Or they just don’t give a shit and keep sending it anyway?

And when an e-mail address goes dead or is dead, what happens to the e-mail the spammer has sent? Does it bounce back to them? Or are they so cloak and dagger that it has no where to bounce back to?

I’m just wondering if I shut the address down for a few months, if I’ll be able to resurrect it down the road after it’s off the spam lists. Or is my thinking too wishful?

Michael

#2

Re: Spam Question

i expect it depends on the spammer. i had an email i shut down for 2 years that was still getting the same spams when i resurrected it.

why not try mail washer? it really does take care of over 1600 spam emails for me a day so i can keep my email addresses.

#3

Re: Spam Question

basschick, I just took a quick look at mail washer and it seems pretty good because it doesn’t actually download your mail and then junk it. I have a question, which you may or may not be able to answer.

If you bounce or delete the e-mail using mail washer, do you know if it would count towards the ISP’s bandwidth limit on your account? I guess the question is: does an email counts towards a customer’s limit as soon as it hits the server, or only when the customer downloads it through their e-mail client?

Thanks
Michael

#4

Re: Spam Question

sorry - i wouldn’t know. even at up to 2000 emails per day, my email is such a small fraction of my bandwidth that there’s no way to be sure.

#5

Re: Spam Question

if the email is hosted on your server, then you’re getting charged for the bandwidth when the email arrives at your server, and then again when it goes from your server to your local email client on your machine.

But, as Patti said, even with image-rich spam, the bandwidth is negligable.

As for the address eventually getting dropped, I would somewhat doubt it. Since the spammers aren’t paying for bandwidth, they have no reason to clean their lists, and I could also imagine in their mind that if they keep spamming, eventually the address will become active again, or the domain will get sold and become active, or whatever.

what’s REALLY shady is that some of our affiliates are apparently spamming. I’ve noticed that whenever we use a different email address to contact affiliates, even if it’s one we’ve never used for any purpose, we start getting a ton of spam to that address. It’s too much trouble to narrow it down, especially since we have great spam filtering, but it is really annoying.

Using a good spam filtering service is a lifesaver.

#6

Re: Spam Question

Thanks to the tips, Chip.

In the case of Mail Washer, do you think it’s better just to delete the spam or bounce it. Does bouncing it cause the spammer any grief, or does it just bounce into nowhere land?

And I here you on the affiliate proble, but it’s not just affiliates. I’ve had the same thing with sponsors. After I signed up with a half dozen penis enlargement products programs, I noticed an increase in spam. It’s a piss off!

Michael

#7

Re: Spam Question

well, i didn’t stop getting spam after my email box had been off for 2 years, so it doesn’t seem that bouncing helps all that much.

#8

Re: Spam Question

Oh I wasn’t referring the notion of getting my email off their list, but rather just clogging up their networks the way they clog up mine.

Michael

#9

Re: Spam Question

nah - you’d need to send a lot more than you’re going to to do that. besides, half of them don’t even go back to the real sender.