Why are you in my inbox?

Who are you? Wait -- now I remember you. Long ago, I was visiting some far away city, biding my time in some mall or airport or something, some place where the only option for wi-fi was via your company, so I paid you for a day's worth of Internet access or whatever. Now, t…

What changed?

How come my list of third-party opt-ins from two years ago is now having problems, the question goes. What changed? I'm still doing everything right. I'm getting that question a lot lately, and a colleague suggested that I post my answer here, to share it with readers.…

Score one for the Good Guys

The Composite Blocking List, a very popular anti-spam blacklist, reports that the Rustock botnet seems to have been disabled . Spam levels have plummeted as a result. Likely not forever, but it's still nice to see the bad guys struggling. Security journalist Brian Krebs cov…

On the Legality of Spam Filtering

But my email fully complies with CAN-SPAM, the argument goes. How can ISPs be allowed to block my mail? I comply! Here's how. Read section 8C of the CAN-SPAM law . It says: NO EFFECT ON POLICIES OF PROVIDERS OF INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE-- Nothing in this Act shall be cons…

No false-starts, do-overs, or mulligans for Email

Guest post by Neil Schwartzman . Reposted from the Word to the Wise blog with the permission of the author and publisher.   Josh Baer, former VP of Datran Media and current CEO of OtherInBox.com has been floating an idea at the DMA’s Email Experience Council and a few other…

Spamhaus and URL Shortening Services

On March 5th, Spamhaus announced a change to its DBL (Domain Block List). They're now breaking out a separate category of listings specific to spamvertized URL redirectors that appear in spam. Meaning, if URL redirectors like bit.ly show up in a lot of spam, they're li…

Comcast’s Impressive System for Notifying Infected Users

Return Path's J.D. Falk reports on Comcast's efforts to let customers know when their home computers are infected: Pushing infectees into walled garden, redirecting them to a page warning them that their network connection is infected. J.D. Writes: "As one of the w…

China cleans up spam problem

Techworld reports: "Once the largest source of the world's spam, China has been gradually fading off the list of the world's top spam-producers. Right now Cisco Systems' IronPort group ranks it at number 18 in terms of spam-producing countries. That's a big…