[Heccubus]

*dies from over-quoting*

[Chefelf]

Okay, I'm a late-comer to this topic but here's the problem with anit-spyware, anti-adware, anti-spam bills.

THEY'RE ALREADY ILLEGAL!!

It's not lawful to install programs on a computer without the owner's consent, and it's not lawful to send unsolicited emails. The big high volume spammers manage to find legal loopholes to do it. Gator, while it is run by the devil, is also completely legit because it doesn't actually install itself without consent -- even though no one in their right mind would want it on their computer.

So making some big legal deal about it doesn't really make much of a difference, particularly because 98% of the super annoying spam is illegal anyway. Good luck finding the sender.

[Heccubus]

He hasn't destroyed mine. The problem isn't so much that most of this stuff is already illegal (although if the bill passes, Gator would pretty much be out of business simply because of the nature of their program. More than likely they'd have to designate it as something that you download from their site, rather than a little alert asking you to install it), it's that most of the people in congress don't seem to know much about it as is. I mean, think about it, there's nary a person there under the age of 40, so what are the chances that the lot of them actually knew what Spyware even was until now? If the bill passes, it will, more than likely, just allow them to crack down much harder than they could now.
Meanwhile, some kid in Russia was recently charged and tried for spamming cell phones. It was only a $100 and some community service or something, but it's still a step in the right direction.

[barend]

what are they thinking that when i see the viagra add for the 1000000000000000000000000000th time of deleting them, i'll suddenly snap and go: "holy crap i'll buy that!!!"

despite the fact that the hours ispend infront of a computer every week deleting emails will no doubt result in impotence... I just don't get what kind of asshole they take me for...

the choice is market research or over advertising the product, not both it's just too much...

no matter how many times you tell me it's there, i will not check out, let alone pay, a website devoted to women blowing horses!!!!

[SimeSublime]

But then there are accidents. I tried reading Heccubus' site last week, and just got inundated with popup ads, one of which was an install option which I had to manually close as the pop-up killer is no use on them. The problem was, it came up so often that I nearly let it download countless times, not because I wanted to, but simply because I nearly hit the wrong button by accident. As such, I'm sorry to say Heccubus, but I can't visit your site anymore. It's dangerous for my computer.

[Mist]

200 + a day? Do they come with return email addresses? If so, maybe someone with a bit of computer know-how could send them all a return email that miraculously makes their computers literally melt down or explode into burning shrapnel.

Just thought I'd point out that, since there's no need for anyone to respond to those emails as they have links or something in them, there doesn't need to be a return address or a sender's IP for the email to get sent. As a result, if you look, they usually have some clever title they think is witty, or just something random, rather than an actual address. Also, according to your computer, the spam won't necessarily come from a real IP, so you can't respond. It's like sending the all-clear for a DDOS.

They've come up with a scheme to reduce this method of spamming however, wherein the receiver's email will send a query to the sender asking for confirmation that it's a real email. Obviously, if the sender doesn't exist, the mail won't go through, but it will add an extra hoop to jump through for average users. It was a fun idea, though, JYAMG.

[barend]

never reply. if it doesn't bounce it will confirm your existence and triple your quota from that group!

[SimeSublime]

Better yet, get a program called mailwasher, which allows you to choose to manually bounce spam.