Just Leave Me Alone Already

I tend to avoid online sites that require you to register and provide information including email addresses. In my experiences companies cannot resist sending email and my email load is extremely heavy and I want less email, not more. Sometimes, though, what I need to do requires an online registration and giving an email address to a company I would really prefer not to have it.
Recently, I had to register online with AT&T Wireless. My iPhone was getting repeated text spams and I wanted it to stop. The only way to do this is register online. Registering online required giving them an email address.
The text spam has stopped, but they have been sending me almost daily emails since then. Each email has an opt-out, and I have availed myself of every opportunity to opt-out. Each opt-out link takes me to a different site, a different page, a different process.
In two of the cases, AT&T seems to be violating the new CAN SPAM provisions. For one, I had to tell them what I wanted to opt-out of (email or phone) and then was taken to a page where I had to input my cell number, my email address and request to be removed. In another case,  I was forced to login to my online wireless account and then was able to change preferences. In only one of the 3 opt-outs I have requested, was the opt-out form actually a single click, just requiring my email address.
I am wondering just how many mailing lists AT&T added my address to and how often they will continue sending me mail after their 10 days are up. It is this level of frustration, that mail just keeps coming and coming and coming even after the recipient has repeatedly attempted to opt-out, that causes people to hit the “this is spam” button on mail that the sender thinks is opt-in.
But, really, AT&T, please stop sending me mail that I never asked for, and that I have repeatedly asked you to stop sending me by jumping through your hoops. Oh, and you may consider sharing the opt-out data with all the same internal groups that you shared my email address with initially.

Feedback loops: net benefit or net harm?
Excite (BlueTie) FBL live

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McCain Campaign Spamming

As I mentioned in my post on spam from the Obama campaign, there have been reports of spam coming from the McCain campaign. However, the McCain campaign does not seem to be sending the volume of mail that the Obama campaign is, and so they are not as visible.
A recent post over at Denialism Blog shows that the McCain campaign has some of the same problems as the Obama campaign. Chris talks about the unsubscribe options he is presented when trying to stop the spam he is receiving. He suggests the campaign adds another option:

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SpamZa: corrupting opt-in lists, one list at a time

A number of ESPs have been tracking problematic signups over the last few days. These signups appear to be coming from an abusive service called SpamZa.
SpamZa allows anyone to sign up any address on their website, or they did before they were unceremoniously shut down by their webhost earlier this week, and then submits that address to hundreds of opt-in lists. This is a website designed to harass innocent recipients using open mailing lists as the harassment vehicle.
Geektech tested the signup and received almost a hundred emails 10 minutes after signing up.
SpamZa was hosted on GoDaddy, but were shut down early this week. SpamZa appears to be looking for new webhosting, based on the information they have posted on their website. 
What does this mean for senders?
It means that senders are at greater risk for bad signups than ever before. If you are targeted by SpamZa, you will have addresses on your list that do not want your mail. Some of those addresses could be turned into spam traps.

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Email and the Obama Campaign

Late in the summer there were people talking about the spam coming from Senator Obama’s presidential campaign. At that time, most of the discussion was focused on the open subscription form on their website and that there were some individuals who had been fraudulently signed up and were now receiving email from the campaign.
Last week, the Senator’s campaign again became a topic of discussion among some anti-spam groups. The maintainer of one of the more respected public blocklists and members of his family received mail from Senator Obama’s presidential campaign at their personal addresses. Because the mail was unsolicited and met the qualifications for listing, the sending IP addresses were listed on the blocklist. In response, the campaign’s ESP started moving the Senator’s mail to other IP addresses, resulting in those IPs also being listed on the blocklist as well.
I talked with the blocklist maintainer and I believe that his address, and those of his family members, were added to the Senator’s mailing list as the result of an email append. All of them are registered Democrats and they all live in a battleground state.
This may have made for good campaign strategy, not being an expert I cannot comment on that. It is, however, very poor email marketing strategy.
First, the campaign decided to appropriate permission to send email. There is not ever permission associated with an email append. Just because you have a name and a street address does not mean that you have permission to send email. In very, very limited circumstances, an opt-in append (click here to continue receiving email) may be acceptable. However, that is not how appending is normally done.
There is no pretense of permission to send email. Just because someone is registered to a particular party does not mean they want to receive email from that party.
Second, when the campaign started seeing delivery problems they started sending off different IP addresses. Moving IPs around is out and out spammer behavior, no questions asked.
Now, I know this is a very hotly contested election and I know that some people believe that any method of getting the word out is good. I also expect that there may have been some positive reaction from recipients. The overall reaction, based on the IPs changing, may not have been so positive.
Do I really believe that Senator Obama is a evil and willful spammer? No, not really. But that does not change the fact that the Obama campaign seems to be sending email without the permission of the recipient and seem to be attempting to evade blocks by moving IP addresses.
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