Word: spam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Some spam victims aren't waiting for the state laws to kick in. They have become spam vigilantes. Marketer Dan Balsam in Santa Monica, Calif., has waged a one-man legal campaign against spammers who refuse to remove him from their mailing lists. No judgment has netted him more than $1,000, but Balsam isn't in it for the money. "I'm trying to raise the cost of spammers doing business," he says. Los Angeles software engineer Bill Silverstein has taken an even more creative approach. When he wanted to sue a company that refused to stop sending...
Those who send spam for a living contend that some vigilantes, in their antispam fervor, take it too far. "I have had death threats against my family," complains Robert (Bubba) Catts, a former used-car salesman and professional bull rider from Shreveport, La. Catts, who runs a 10 million--message-a-day direct-marketing business and clears up to $700,000 a year, was exposed when his address and phone number were listed, along with those of 179 other "top spammers," on the British-based website Spamhaus.org...
...mail providers are trying to tap into a little of that anger by enlisting the help of aggrieved users. REPORT SPAM buttons now adorn all e-mails in AOL, EarthLink and MSN software, and AOL alone receives 9 million reports a day. That may not be enough to stop the Carmacks of the world, but anything that saves us from a few more cable-descrambler ads can't be all bad. --With reporting by Kathie Klarreich/Miami, Sean Scully/Los Angeles, Eric Roston/Washington, Simon Crittle/New York and Noah Isackson/Chicago
...although if you're not careful, they will throw birth announcements out with the bath water). If you need something a little more discriminating, there is plenty of software you can buy that will help you filter your own mail. There's still no such thing as a 100% spam-free In box, but if you're willing to make the effort, you can keep the e-noise down to a dull roar...
...largest Internet provider is also the No. 1 conduit for spam, which may explain why each new version boasts ever more powerful spam protection. New mail controls let you set up custom filters, but they leave a lot of room for improvement. For example, you can create "allow" and "block" lists on AOL, but there's no shortcut for uploading an entire address book. You have to type or paste them in one by one. Nor can you autopopulate your allow list with each new person you e-mail. Your best bet may be to simply reshuffle your...