Is it time for Internet Service Providers to get with the times and my RTS—Return To Sender concept?
Spammers, who are now cleverly modifying their names and keywords to evade spam blockers and the fortunes being spent on development and prosecution of new internet laws, are like drug dealers and prostitutes which history has proven just get older and wiser but never lesser.
The countless thousands of new accounts popping up on the Internet not only makes spam blocker lists a burdensome ongoing task of self- bookkeeping, but at the current growth rate these lists may soon be a million words or longer. For an Internet service that charges a monthly fee, the frustrating annoyance of having to notify AOL each time as part of a solution has now become an equal problem to receiving spam in the first place. Spam blocker lists also create potential conflicts of interest by using keywords to block email. If you keyword magazine for example–does that block every magazine connection including the ones you may want? We ourselves, not some computerized list, want the option of deciding when and what is actually junk email.
To say the least, I think ISP are well misinformed if they truly believe that current spam policies are working efficiently. I’m constantly finding expected emails lost in my spam folder or completely blocked by spam blockers. I've gathered, as a spam victim, that we do appreciate ISP fighting our battles. However, there are many spam victims who want to personally vent our frustrations at stopping junk emailers from getting away with their transgression. As well, we want to rejoice in the glory of them going through what we go through everyday deleting their spam or sifting through our spam folders for lost email. In a sense one does not have to be a rocket scientist to realize that ISP are playing politics with its clientele. Spam policies are navigating the once simplistic practice of email further and further out to rough seas, when they should in fact as RTS shows, never have left dry land.
Sever years ago I introduced to the deaf ears of AOL and other Internet Service Providers, my right click concept: "Return To Sender" (RTS), which would allow spam victims to selectively return undesirable email unopened to the sender is clearly that reference of dry land. RTS would bombard and crash spammer's email box with their own returned mail. The same system crashing RTS policies would also apply to popup advertisements that invade your computer’s desktop with unwanted intrusions. This would offer spam victims a badly needed feeling of closure, in that they're personally fighting back spammers. Other RTS benefits would allow email that has been mistakenly returned as spam to be re-sent without concern of spam blockers. For these reasons monies should be spent on developing and improving RTS–the most practical and viable solution to spam.
Like any new idea–of course RTS would initiate with some adversity. But once the bridge is built, the door would open to other new ideas that would obviate the flaws in RTS. This general concept would eventually open the door to not only unmasking the source of spammers, but also the source of computer virusus.
Erlene
November 10th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
My email client has bounce option in which you can send back spam to the sender so they think that your address is no longer active.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I am sorry to say that RTS may have drastic effect on genuine users. There are various ways to pretend sending from a genuine mail id. Like many virus infected mailboxes mailing to the people in address book. If all mails are returned, the user is bombed! Actually there is no fault in him.
Another thing is this thing called "Reply-to" option in email. One can mail from genuine id, but put a fake one in reply-to. So the RTS option will generate a bounced mail to the sender itself! (not to mention the additional amount of traffic in the network that actually doesn't solve much purpose)