Real Estate Forums

Bigtoe · 11-03-2007, 09:40 AM

Email may become history considering it's unreliability. Spam blockers are everywhere and some emails have to pass through 4 spam filters before they make it to some-one's inbox.

With free email providers blocking billions of spams to save bandwidth, there are a lot of real emails getting lost in the shuffle.

It will be interesting to see what replaces it.

Jared · 11-03-2007, 09:45 AM

Yeah and I have to re look at this because I discovered last night late that the new spam rules have requirements require the following to not be considered spam.

real phone
real address
opt out

those are required to be put in the emails as they are in email blasts.

~ Jared

ericbramlett · 11-03-2007, 10:17 AM

I don't think there's any way that email will become obsolete - better spam filters will have to be built. Askimet does a magnificent job of blocking spam on WP blogs...there are many email programs that use the same methods, that are effective. IMO, the best filter are the human verification filters like earthlink.net uses.

Jared · 11-03-2007, 03:29 PM

Yesterday in the vBulletin forums I read where some people experience so much spam in their forums that they have to almost moderate each and every post.

Some forums and such are just wide open and its a serious issue in places.

This forum deals with it through a few means that make it difficult but far from impossible.

~ Jared

NealRM · 11-07-2007, 09:29 AM

I don't really see a way that spam can be dealt with solely with filtering. We need to work with our government and have them work with other governments to turn off the taps. It may have to get to the point that email from specific areas will be completly banned.

HomeSurfer.com · 11-07-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jared

SPAM isn't just annoying though it can be damaging if your blog or forum gets SPAM bots nailing it.

When I used to have a pretty big web site, I used to really hate when I "apparently" got spam from myself. I would wonder if all the people out there who were part of the site realized that the spam didn't actually come from me, but from spoofers.

Jared · 11-08-2007, 06:51 AM

Spoofing is an issue all together worse than general SPAM. What gets me is this. I was told by a guy that is a spammer that they can spend $1,500 with a Chinese company that sends out about a million emails a day and by months end they can make 50 - 100 times their investment because some people do actually read and respond to spam.

If SPAM didn't work (as it doesn't with me because I just toss it) then SPAM would simply go away. The fact is its worth a crap load of money and there are enough people in this world that are easily persuaded by such nonsense keeps it around.

The danger with SPAM is it damages credibility with legitimate bulk email like mail blasts and such.

~ Jared

HomeSurfer.com · 11-08-2007, 10:49 AM

Yeah, I miss the days when our email program could just download your email every twenty minutes or so while you worked on your site or doing something else on the computer. I use an upgraded mailwasher program now and it catches most everything, but I still feel compelled to take the time to read all the headers and subject lines before washing out the spam.

It is a tremendous waste of productivity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jared

...I discovered last night late that the new spam rules have requirements require the following to not be considered spam.

real phone
real address
opt out

Darn. You can't even send anonymous spam, anymore.

(I'm joking).

coglethorpe · 11-08-2007, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jared

Yeah and I have to re look at this because I discovered last night late that the new spam rules have requirements require the following to not be considered spam.

real phone
real address
opt out

those are required to be put in the emails as they are in email blasts.

~ Jared

Exactly. The legal defenition of SPAM is specific and there are rules to guide us:

The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers

In short:
- no misleading headers
- no misleading subject lines
- an opt-out method is required
- identified as advertising
- a physical postal address must be included

Read the ftc site for more details on that, but that's what I follow in my emails. Because spammers will hijack sites to send emails, ISPs must limit the amount sent out. My hosting service limits to 100 per email address right now.

Also, a privacy policy is important. Have one and follow it. That's a whole post unto itself.

If the government starts calling any "unsolicited" email SPAM, the economy would be hurt. I don't think it will come to that. The ones who violate the current engaging in clear fraud in their practices. But catching them is another game altogether.

BossWebmaster · 12-05-2007, 01:08 PM

SPAM is illegal my friend, at least the email kind is: www . ftc . gov/spam/

The problem is not legality, it's enforcing the law, the majority of spam is generated in countries that have loose internet laws, or don't have the resources to enforce said laws. I.E.: Russia, Brazil, West European and South American Countries.