Run Your Own Online Store!
Click here to find out about our hot deals for fully managed ecommerce hosting plans!

Dollar for dollar, feature for feature, we offer the best ROI value on the web!
Click here to read testimonials from happy customers!

Check out our online demos by clicking  the thumbnails below:
    Demo Store
   

    Demo Admin
   

  Liked it?  
  Sign-up Now!
  
  Need more info?
  Contact us...

The fight against SPAM: Triumph of the obnoxious?

If you use the Internet, by now you have most certainly been exposed to SPAM.
While nobody will ever complain to watch the irresistibly funny bit by the Monty Python about the diner serving SPAM in all meals, (including the famous SPAM, SPAM & SPAM), it's another (not funny) story when your productivity (or moral sense) is hurt on a daily basis by the deluge of stupid, self-serving, sleazy, salacious and sordid material poured into your e-mail boxes.

Well, if you thought that deleting e-mails without looking at them was bad enough, you've got more coming! Spammers now use direct access to your computer's necessary ports to pop-up message boxes at any time, distracting you from your work. Worse even, you just cannot 'not look' at those since you must dismiss the message boxes manually!

The new spamming method uses access to NetBios port (137) in all Windows-based computers to disseminate their marketing material. For those that do not need the Messenger services, it was so far possible to just disable it and be rid of the advertising trash, but now, port 135 (file/print services) has been seen used by those despicable organizations to force onto us their pathetic commercial messages.

Common sense tells us that such a wrong usage of a communication channel will anger the recipient and therefore cannot be good for business. Unfortunately, this style of advertising relies on two principles that defy common sense:
- If you try often enough and with enough people, you will get some level of success. Just ask any shameless barfly.
- The number of tries is free since Internet users pay for the traffic (and by the way, ISPs usually do not or cannot bill traffic occurring on service ports).

//digital things strongly condemns such practices and will never develop software or other technical devices enabling such marketing practices. It is not often we advertise software for free but in this case, we will make an exception in the name of public interest and suggest you consider purchasing CoffeeCup Direct Ad Blocker if you are victim of such advertising.

As an e-commerce software and services provider, //digital things also provides bulk-email capabilities to its customers. So, are we guilty to provide a vehicle for spammers? The answer to that question is a resounding 'NO'. We have from the start advocated respect of customer privacy and built our software to follow current laws (and when they don't exist, our sense of moral fairness) when walking the fine line between the need of our customers to advertise and the right of Internet users to be left alone.

The current anti-spam laws are not always clear but here is an attempt at defining 'Fair Advertising' guidelines:
- Do not use indiscriminate direct e-mail to gain new customers.
- Use web or conventional advertising or web placement to attract new customers.
- Send marketing e-mails only to existing customers explicitly willing to receive them.
- Always provide an 'opt-out' capability and make sure it works.
- Make sure the e-mail subject contains a meaningful string usable by filters (example: Advertisement: Winter sale!).
- Do not re-sell or distribute your customer information. Once you do that, there is no limit as to how it can be abused.

Quite a few of our customers have at the same time been able to drive more business to their web sites and keep their customers happy (and returning) simply by following the guidelines above, so we believe we are on the right track.

Fighting obnoxious, unsolicited advertising is everyone's job and you can do your part to make sure it is kept in check. Here are a few suggestions:
- Never respond to unsolicited e-mail. This just validates your e-mail address.
- When they tell you that you requested information, don't believe them.
- Never call the phone numbers advertised in unsolicited e-mails, even seemingly toll-free, you could be nailed with undisputable charges from overseas companies.
- Even when the e-mail comes from a company you are a customer of, it is your right to tell them to stop.

Some US states are taking great interest in fighting SPAM, one of them is California. The California AG office has a web page dedicated to such advertising abuse: Click Here to visit the page.
Unfortunately, US states' jurisdictions do not extend past their borders.

Although we wish to congratulate the state of California in taking action, we do not feel creating new laws and regulations alone will be enough to resolve this problem. Instead we believe that a total boycott and systematic action on all spammers will eventually eradicate this scourge. But we all have to do our part, in our own time and at our own own expense.

The Internet is a big neighborhood, let's all clean it up together.

Previous articles in 'Our World' chronicle:
- Euro-style: The ECC single currency.

home   about us   products/services   news   clients   partners   contact

  copyright © 2008 digital things llc - all rights reserved..