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  • From: Alexander Wilson <alex AT awstudios.net>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] contacts or suggestions for dealing with SPEWS
  • Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:11:36 -0500

On Mar 22, 2004, at 6:31 PM, Ian Meyer wrote:

So I guess it boils down to: (a) does Apple just run really good spam filters on the dot mac servers or (b) what else could be the reason for this?

I think it has to do with two things:

1. Companies and individuals online are more careful than they used to be because people are more outraged than they used to be. If Amazon today sold all its email addresses to a known spammer, the backlash would be incredible, even assuming there wouldn't be legal repercussions. And Apple doesn't sell your email address to anybody. I don't know for sure that Hotmail does, but it sure seems like they did when I had a Hotmail email account. I too have .Mac account and I hardly use it for anything and I consequently only receive the mail I want from it.

2. Most spammed addresses come from harvested addresses and "best guess" addresses. (If I own MYDOMAIN.COM, I'll get emails addressed to WEBMASTER AT MYDOMAIN.COM as well as POSTMASTER AT MYDOMAIN.COM and a few others even though though those email addresses don't technically exist). I get a couple hundred spams a day because my addresses are posted on websites (mostly my own, but also versiontracker and a couple others). A few companies harvested my addresses and spammed me and then sold my addresses to other spammers and now I have to use Apple's junk mail feature or email would be totally impractical. If you don't post your email address online, and you don't own your domain (as you wouldn't with mac.com), then you're going to have a good chance of avoiding most of the spam.

Alex.

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