(noise) Re: SPAM bait

nobody@alpha.c2.org (Anonymous) wrote:

<snip>
>
>Don't worry, "Janet Dove", or actually sanghi3@grfn.org got mailbombed
>severely for this one.  I'm just glad he doesn't know how to use remailers.

Good going, Anonymous. What I don't understand about inappropriate
SPAMs like that one (or telephone ads) is; what's the business
incentive to do it? I assume that no Cypherpunk has subscribed to
"Janet's" magazines, and I know that no Ray has _EVER_ spent
money over a telephone unless we initiated the call, yet *still*
we get unwanted calls every once-in-a-while. WHY? [Please respond
privately to liberty@gate.net ]
JMR

> nobody@alpha.c2.org (Anonymous) wrote: 
> <snip>
> >
> >Don't worry, "Janet Dove", or actually sanghi3@grfn.org got mailbombed
> >severely for this one.  I'm just glad he doesn't know how to use remailers.
> 
> Good going, Anonymous. What I don't understand about inappropriate
> SPAMs like that one (or telephone ads) is; what's the business
> incentive to do it? I assume that no Cypherpunk has subscribed to
 <snip>
> JMR
> 

I'm no lawyer (and probably wouldn't admit to it if I was.. ;) ) but
in most states there are laws restricting advertisement wherein the
target of the advertising does not have to pay for the privledge of
being advertised to.  I beleive this came about right after FAX machines
started taking off, and people were sending out advertisments wasting
fax paper and jamming telephone lines.

Can't this be applied to the internet?  I believe someone sued Visa
when he was forced to receive junk e-mail on CompuServe (I think he
even won.) Anyone have any info on this?

> What I don't understand about inappropriate SPAMs like that one
> (or telephone ads) is; what's the business incentive to do it?
> I assume that no Cypherpunk has subscribed to "Janet's" magazines,
> and I know that no Ray has _EVER_ spent money over a telephone
> unless we initiated the call, yet *still* we get unwanted calls
> every once-in-a-while. WHY?

Well, that may be true, but I'd suspect that the average IQ on this
list is significantly higher than the net at large.  So if you spammed
enough newsgroups, chances are that you'd find a sucker somewhere.

Even tho it is becoming more common for marketing firms to keep
databases of who buys (or doesn't buy) what, I suspect that a lot of
calling is still done at random (the local newspaper still calls us
even tho we have subscribed for years and told them several times that
they are wasting their time calling.  So I suspect it is just done at
random.)

These days, many telemarketers have autodialers that call ahead and then
connect a salesman after you have answered the phone.  So if I get a call,
say hello, and hear silence and then a click of being transfered to the
next available salesperson, that it is my cue to hang up. 

> [Please respond privately to liberty@gate.net ]

uh, well at least this post is labelled 'noise' for the mailfilters...