Are You Compliant With The Law? Take The CAN-SPAM QUIZ!

Are You Compliant? Take The CAN-SPAM QUIZ!

Test Your Knowledge of The Law - 22 Questions You Should Know.

ANSWER THESE STATEMENTS: TRUE OR FALSE?

The Can Spam Act went into effect Jan. 1st, but marketers have
90 days to become compliant with the new law.

The Can Spam Act Pre-empts many tougher state anti-spam laws.

You may send commercial email with falsified headers.

You must include your phone number in all commercial emails.

You may send UCE as long as the message contains an opt-out
mechanism, a functioning return email address, a valid subject
line indicating the email is an advertisement, and the legitimate
physical address of the sender.

You must include a privacy policy when you collect subscribers.

You may harvest email addresses as long as the messages you send
contain an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return email address,
a valid subject line indicating the email is an advertisement,
and the legitimate physical address of the sender.

You must have a process for handling unsubscribes within a 15 day
window.

Referencing or including a link to a commercial entity in an
email message is sufficient to make it a commercial email
message.

You must add your postal address to all your marketing emails.

The Can Spam Act is enforced by the Attorney General in the state
wherein the alleged spam originated.

You must not share the address of a person who unsubscribed with
any other entity seeking to send that party email.

It's O.K. to use a misleading subject in your marketing email, as
long as you identify the email as an advertisement or
solicitation somewhere within the body of the email.

The FTC is required to report back to Congress within two years
on the effectiveness of the law and the need, if any, for
modifications.

Wireless spam is not covered by the law.

The new law allows for a $250 fine per non compliant email, and
possible jail time, for intentionally sending UCE with falsified
header information.

All persons in charge of running web servers that relay email
must close all open relays within 90 days of enacted of the law
(Jan. 1st).

Sending commercial email through an open relay is prohibited by
the Can Spam Act.

You must include an unsubscribe mechanism in every commercial
email.

Under the law, businesses knowingly promoted in UCE with false or
misleading header information are also subject to FTC penalties
and enforcement remedies, regardless of whether the FTC is able
to identify the spammer who initiated the email.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must
contain ADV in the subject line, to indicate the email is an
advertisement.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must be
identified as an advertisement or solicitation.

For answers to these questions, take the quiz online at:
http://www.EmailMarketingSurvey.com/CAN-SPAM-Quiz.html

Copyright 2004, Jim Symonds, EmailMarketingSurvey.com. All
Rights Reserved.

Test Your Knowledge of The Law - 22 Questions You Should Know.

ANSWER THESE STATEMENTS: TRUE OR FALSE?

The Can Spam Act went into effect Jan. 1st, but marketers have
90 days to become compliant with the new law.

The Can Spam Act Pre-empts many tougher state anti-spam laws.

You may send commercial email with falsified headers.

You must include your phone number in all commercial emails.

You may send UCE as long as the message contains an opt-out
mechanism, a functioning return email address, a valid subject
line indicating the email is an advertisement, and the legitimate
physical address of the sender.

You must include a privacy policy when you collect subscribers.

You may harvest email addresses as long as the messages you send
contain an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return email address,
a valid subject line indicating the email is an advertisement,
and the legitimate physical address of the sender.

You must have a process for handling unsubscribes within a 15 day
window.

Referencing or including a link to a commercial entity in an
email message is sufficient to make it a commercial email
message.

You must add your postal address to all your marketing emails.

The Can Spam Act is enforced by the Attorney General in the state
wherein the alleged spam originated.

You must not share the address of a person who unsubscribed with
any other entity seeking to send that party email.

It's O.K. to use a misleading subject in your marketing email, as
long as you identify the email as an advertisement or
solicitation somewhere within the body of the email.

The FTC is required to report back to Congress within two years
on the effectiveness of the law and the need, if any, for
modifications.

Wireless spam is not covered by the law.

The new law allows for a $250 fine per non compliant email, and
possible jail time, for intentionally sending UCE with falsified
header information.

All persons in charge of running web servers that relay email
must close all open relays within 90 days of enacted of the law
(Jan. 1st).

Sending commercial email through an open relay is prohibited by
the Can Spam Act.

You must include an unsubscribe mechanism in every commercial
email.

Under the law, businesses knowingly promoted in UCE with false or
misleading header information are also subject to FTC penalties
and enforcement remedies, regardless of whether the FTC is able
to identify the spammer who initiated the email.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must
contain ADV in the subject line, to indicate the email is an
advertisement.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must be
identified as an advertisement or solicitation.

For answers to these questions, take the quiz online at:
http://www.EmailMarketingSurvey.com/CAN-SPAM-Quiz.html

Copyright 2004, Jim Symonds, EmailMarketingSurvey.com. All
Rights Reserved.

Jim Symonds publishes "Web Secrets Exposed!" Eye popping, and jaw
dropping, sneaky little web design tricks & web marketing secrets
revealed. How'd they do that? We'll show you! Subscribe Now FR*E!
Learn 1001 Sneaky Tips 'n Tricks http://www.WebSecretsExposed.com
 

Spam Revisited

Spam has reared it's ugly head again. I got thinking about it because of a few articles I've noticed on the subject popping up here and there. One side of it concerns spam filtering software ( the reason you keep seeing weird words like FR^E instead of FREE as publishers try to avoid the trap) and secondly it concerns over zealous `spam cops`.

Here's my take on it. I mentioned this briefly in the bonus issue a few days ago :o)

1. No matter how much mail you're receiving please be sure that you didn't request it. Some things that look like spam are really ads or offers from places you've given permission to. Be vigilant when you enter your e-mail into forms or reply to autoresponders. Watch out for terms such as 'Allow carefully selected companies to send you special offers' or similar!

2. It's easy enough to manage your spam by managing your e-mail addresses. Use multiple accounts to make sure important pail goes one place, and junk goes another. Use one address for all those web forms you fill in.

3. Don't use spam filtering software. None of it really works, yet. If you do use it please be sure to allow your e-zines through. For example, mine always begins with the subject NNews: making it easy for you to filter, or unblock, as the case may be.The address will always be netpreneurnow.com, so you can also enable that domain. No-one else uses that domain bar me!

Some mail service, such as HotMail, have an `exclusive` feature where ONLY e-mails and domains authorized by you are allowed through. That's good to have on your primary, private e-mail. Only mail from contacts can come there. Just be sure to add any new correspondents to your address book or you won't get their mail!

4. Now for the mail that is spam. If it has an unsubscribe link, use it. I know that a lot of unsubscribe links are ignored but the majority do work. If there's no link there's not much you can do except delete it. Can you manage to press that little button?

5. A lot of the stuff you find on the internet is free or nearly so because of advertising. If you enjoy an e-zine, and benefit from it, I'm sure that you can manage an extra ad or two? If you don't like the e-zine or perhaps they're a little to overboard with their solos then just unsubscribe. It's totally under your control. Just remember that a e-zine represents a lot of work to the writer at no cost to you, but I'm glad to have you anyway! :oD

6. The only mailings that I would class as spam are those that I never requested, also called UCE (unsolicited commercial email). Some people bend the rules (a lot!) and take the fact that you e-mailed them to be a good reason to e-mail you ads back. I would not call it spam as such but it isn't really good practice. Another type of unwanted e-mail are those that come from services that were only *supposed* to mail you once, but keep doing it. Finally, the worst kind, are those that just take your e-mail from web pages, news groups or whatever then send you mail. That's the only way someone gets your address without you doing anything short of stealing it from another service. Those people who use e-mail scavengers are the kind that deserve the bad press.

6b. But, like anything, there's a grey area there. If I take e-mail addresses of web sites to request a link swap or similar am I spamming? If I use Zeus (which does the same thing) is that
spam? No, because there's no ad involved in those situations. Do not forget the middle word in `Unsolicited Commercial Email`!

7. And those Spam Cops. I've never encountered one, but the things I hear aren't too good. I'd suggest they are a little more
thorough in their investigations and less hasty. Dialogue is much better!

So how do you say safe from a publishers point of view? Newsletters / Ezines should always be opt in. Don't add someone because they posted to your FFA but an `invitation` could be ok. Don't add bulk lists to your autoresponders. Basically, ensure that anyone who gets mail from you has given you permission!

No doubt this debate will go on and on. Spam will get worse, but as long as you can distinguish between Spam and Advertising and take some basic steps with your accounts all should be ok.

--------------------
Stuart Reid is the publisher of Netpreneur News and webmaster of Netpreneur Now! Visit us for weekly tips, reviews, recommendations and more. Sign up for a free ad and 30 free e-books.
mailto:signup@netpreneurnow.com
http://www.netpreneurnow.com/
--------------------

20 Words That Kill - At Least When It Comes to Spam Filters

Spam, spam, spam. It's terrible not only for those of us on the receiving end, but for those of us who SEND e-mail.

This deluge of irritating junk has unfortunately interfered with
legitimate e-zine publishers, because we're caught in the anti-spam crossfire. If you publish any type of e-mail publication, there's a likely chance that your e-zine is NOT reaching a portion of your readers. Why? Their Internet service provider (ISP) or e-mail program uses a spam filter.

These software programs search for words and phrases that are typical of spam and assign each incoming e-mail a "score." If your e-mail has too many of these words and phrases, you receive
a high score, and you may be blocked.

While there are other words that will cost you more "points" than these do (e.g. sexual phrases), here are the most common "trigger" words and phrases that you may be using in your e-zine:

1. amazing
2. cancel at any time
3. check or money order
4. click here
5. congratulations
6. dear friend
7. e-mail marketing
8. for only ($)
9. free (including toll-free)
10. great offer
11. guarantee
12. increase sales
13. order now
14. promise you
15. risk free
16. special promotion
17. this is not spam
18. to be removed
19. unsubscribe
20. winner

You have two choices when it comes to beating the filters. One is to avoid using these words and phrases altogether. I've found that hard to do. For example, in a recent issue, I discussed how to use your e-zine to increase business. Unfortunately the word "increase" cost me a fat 1.4 points in SpamAssassin, one of the
most popular filter programs.

Your second choice is to disguise these words and phrases in clever ways by inserting keyboard symbols within them and/or replacing a letter in them with a symbol. The trick is not to make it too cryptic -- you want your readers to be able to understand what you're saying. For example, in my e-zine, I use "fr*ee" for free.

While some spam filters pick up on this trick and penalize you for doing it by adding onto your score, I've found that the points this tactic costs you penalize you much less than using the words and phrases themselves. It's not a perfect solution, but it's working for now.

>

It's a great idea to test how YOUR e-zine stacks up before you send it out. The good news is you can do this for FREE.

Lyris' Content Checker (http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker/)
tells you how your e-zine ranks in Spam Assassin. All you do is copy your e-zine text and paste it into the box on their site. They'll run your free report and e-mail a copy to you. It usually arrives within minutes.

The report will tell you exactly which words are costing you points. Usually you should only be concerned if your score is over 5 points. If so, you can either delete those words or disguise them, as I mentioned above.

I test each issue of my e-zines in Content Checker before I publish them, and often I'm surprised (and relieved) that my score is low. That makes me a happy publisher. : )

Alexandria K. Brown

Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-
winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine" and the publisher of the e-zine, "Publish for Profits." To learn more about her book and FREE tips, teleclasses, and resources, visit
http://www.EzineQueen.com.

Internet 101: How To Make SPAM Disappear Like Magic!

It absolutely amazes me how many people over-react to receiving e-mail SPAM.

What is this obsession...this preoccupation with SPAM?

Where are our priorities?

There are who knows how many pedophiles out there abusing children; whom barely serve more than a couple of years in prison before they're free to walk the streets again.

Where's the public outrage over that? Yet, when it comes to SPAM, many of us are ready to support the severest anti-SPAM legislation. Yes, we want to lock up all the spammers and throw away the key.

What's wrong with this picture?

I personally receive over 500 e-mails every single day. Approximately half of that is SPAM. Want to know how I deal with the problem? I use magic. That's right, magic. I hit that magic little "delete" button and just like magic, my SPAM disappears!

And since I have high-speed cable access, it literally only takes me a few minutes to make hundreds of uninvited SPAM guests disappear like magic. No problem!

I don't let SPAM annoy me or upset me. And I certainly don't let it ruin my day.

When you let SPAM annoy or upset you, all you're doing is letting the spammers win. However, when you use that magic little delete button, you win. You've got the power to delete. Why not use it?

What's so hard about doing that? It's certainly a lot easier on your emotional well-being than getting upset over the situation.

Unfortunately, SPAM is a part of everyday life like telemarketers, reality television shows and junk mail. Learn to treat it as such.

Don't get mad...use magic!

Til next time...

Dave Turner is a writer and entrepreneur with over twenty years of marketing experience. Questions? Comments? Dave can be reached at mailto:internet-marketing-xpert.com Website: http://www.internet-marketing-xpert.com/ Internet marketing expert will teach you how to get a Guaranteed Monthly Income!

Trapped Between Abusers and Accusers. It's a Spam Sandwich!

This week was dominated by SPAM issues for me. I alternate between stunned and complacent over SPAM I receive each day. One day my delete-key-trigger-finger works in rapid bursts to clear the inbox. The next day brings a new barrage and I fume as the HTML SPAM emails launch web browser windows automatically that can't be closed without opening more windows.

Each time Java is launched while I'm reviewing my mail, I almost explode in anger as there is literally nothing I can do to stop it until it loads the email, pops up a browser window and I can finally begin to close the rapid fire group of popup windows attempting to show hardcore porn or the latest body enhancing pills.

A news headline caught my eye the same day about a Scottsdale, Arizona based company that was closed down by the state attorney general for fraud, using spam to gain customers. C.P. Direct, a company selling penis, breast and even HEIGHT enhancing pills was shuttered and assets seized. Apparently there are way too many men without common sense who purchased those "Longitude" pills and then convinced their significant-others to buy the pills offering fuller breasts. It saddens me especially those who fell for the pills to make you taller. But it seems to pay well to sell snake oil.

"Among the items seized were luxury cars, including a Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Ferrari and Bentley, $20 million in bank accounts, $3 million in cash and a bounty of luxury jewelry, according to a list of the items. Company officials could not be reached for comment. The initial cost of the pills was $59.99, plus shipping and handling for a month's supply and $39.99 a month thereafter. Records showed the pills cost $2.50 per bottle to manufacture. The company also allegedly sold pills that supposedly guaranteed height increases and bigger breasts, officials said."

http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=1030199

As a list moderator for multiple lists and a host of several newsletters, I have plenty of email to deal with on a routine basis. The time lost to SPAM is just too valuable to give up any more. I see this as a privacy issue as well. Those email addresses harvested from my site by spammers (about a dozen different special purpose addresses) are then resold to so-called legitimate marketers that actually remove me from their lists when I ask, but the spammers sell the harvested addresses over and over again. I even get spam sent to my I-Privacy list address that were harvested by spambots.

I encoded many of the email links on my site with UNICODE symbols in an attempt to foil the harvesting software and then immediately got a note from someone doing spamming in an attempt to end spam (!!!) who offered a tool to encode my emails with UNICODE! It must be a joke site because their links don't work and the spam sent encouraging me to go encode my emails actually showed my address in UNICODE BEFORE their enocoding! For those of you that haven't used this little trick it's detailed in an article (along with a dozen other articles on spam issues) at:

http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spambot_unicode.html

I also recommend two others, one that details a list of anti-spam techniques and a second that lists resources to fight spam.

http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spam_fighting.html http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spamfilter.html

I finally decided I'd had enough of it and signed up for a paid service that cleans my emailbox every twenty minutes and removes the latest load of stupid promotions -- before I retrieve my mail. It is such a valuable service and worked so well for me that I've begun reselling that service from my site. A free trial is available.

OK, well, now I can rest easy, right? NO! Now I'VE been ACCUSED of spamming and complaints have been registered with SpamCop! I host a daily horoscope list with about 4500 subscribers that is very popular. I get notes (to the astrologer, Brandi Jasmine) regularly raving about how much they enjoy the daily list. Someone was apparently subscribed by a friend or relative without their permission and they sent nasty notes (anonymously through SpamCop) screeching at me to stop spamming them! Details and full story are available at the following address:

http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spamcop_vigilanties.html

I think SPAM will be the death of me. I'm so tired of fighting it, writing about it and being accused of it myself! I've done all I can to require double opt-in to all my lists. But I'm a list publisher of sorts online and either must learn to live with the issue or quit. I won't quit -- but sometimes it sure is tempting. Less tolerant souls could end up "going Postal." The problem is that the only thing I can damage in my rage would be my own computer.

Spammers drive Ferrari's while driving us all nuts. Go figure.

Mike Banks Valentine
I-Privacy Discussion List
Protecting Privacy is Good for Business http://www.adventive.com/lists/iprivacy/summary.html SUBSCRIBE: mailto:i-privacy-join-request@list.adventive.com

"Fighting SPAM!"A.T.Rendon

Junk email is estimated to have grown about 42% during 2001,
with the seemingly non-stop invasion of X-rated email, scam
offers from Nigeria, drugs and other such unwanted intrusions.

Analysts predict that the volume of email on the Internet,
most of it junk, will grow another 50 percent in 2002.

That is a lot of email!

With estimates that the number of Internet users is nearing
the 1 billion mark, the amount of email floating around the
Internet will only continue to increase.

The question many people want to ask is, "Are there any
sure-fire cures for all this junk email that we receive right
now and any more that may appear in the coming years?"

The short answer - Yes.

Make good use of your delete button! :-)

The long answer is - No.

No, there is no 100 percent cure for the spam that plagues us
all, X-rated or not. Not even pending federal legislation will
make a significant dent on all that junk. But there are several
ways to try and alleviate this problem.

Most email programs, including Microsoft's Outlook Express, have
custom filtering features that are built into the program but which
are, more often than not, very much unused.

The big problem in using ANY email filter system is that
they may cause blocking of legitimate email.

Basically, you can set up filters to remove email that comes
from a specific email address or set it up to block email
which contains certain key words in either the Subject
section or in the Body of the message.

Netscape Communicator 4.0 or later also has filtering ability
but Netscape Navigator does not. And Eudora 3.0 and above
can also filter your email.

Filtering will not eliminate all spam email but it can make your
life on the Internet just a bit easier.

Just keep in mind that filters are a constant, ongoing process.
Spammers are always changing strategy to keep ahead of the
filters or other Spam Blocking software.

There are many popular email management tools to help you
combat the problem of SPAM which are free, available for free
trial or cost a modest fee.

For a FREE List of SPAM Resources via Auto-Responder,
send us a blank email to:
mailto:spamtools@emailexchange.org

Once you decide how you want to approach this problem, then
it is just a matter of keeping tabs on your email and making
adjustments to block future changes that spammers might make.

Keeping on top of this will allow you to eliminate the majority
of the SPAM that is now finding it's way into your in-box.

A.T.Rendon is an entrepreneur and published writer.
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How Spammers Fool Bayesian Filters - And How to Stop Them

 Trust, Inc.Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than blocking individual IP addresses and creating rules based on keywords that spammers typically use. The increasing sophistication of spam tools coupled with the increasing number of spammers in the wild has created a hyper-evolution in the variety and volume of spam. The old ways of blocking the bad guys just dont work anymore.

Examining spam and spam-blocking technology can illuminate how this evolution is taking place and what can be done to combat spam and reclaim e-mail as the efficient, effective communication tool it was intended to be.

One method used to combat spam is Bayesian Filtering. Named after Thomas Bayes, an English mathematician, Bayesian Logic is used in decision making and inferential statistics. Bayesian Filers maintain a database of known spam and ham, or legitimate email. Once the database is large enough, the system ranks the words according to the probability they will appear in a spam message.

Words more likely to appear in spam are given a high score (between 51 and 100), and words likely to appear in legitimate email are given a low score (between 1 and 50). For example, the words free and sex generally have values between 95 and 98, whereas the words emphasis or disadvantage may have a score between 1 and 4. Commonly used words such as the and that, and words new to the Bayesian filters are given a neutral score between 40 and 50 and would not be used in the systems algorithm.

When the system receives an email, it breaks the message down into tokens, or words with values assigned to them. The system utilizes the tokens with scores on the high and low end of the range and develops a score for the email as a whole. If the email has more spam tokens than ham tokens, the email will have a high spam score. The email administrator determines a threshold score the system uses to allow email to pass through to users.

Bayesian filters are effective at filtering spam and minimizing false positives. Because they adapt and learn based on user feedback, Bayesian Filers produce better results as they are used within an organization over time. They are not, however, foolproof. Spammers have learned which words Bayesian Filters consider spammy and have developed ways to insert non-spammy words into emails to lower the messages overall spam score. By adding in paragraphs of text from novels or news stories, spammers can dilute the effects of high-ranking words. Text insertion has also caused normally legitimate words that are found in novels or news stories to have an inflated spam score. This may potentially render Bayesian filters less effective over time.

Another approach spammers use to fool Bayesian filters is to create less spammy emails. For example, a spammer may send an email containing only the phrase, Heres the link. This approach can neutralize the spam score and entice users to click on a link to a Web site containing the spammers message. To block this type of spam, the filter would have to be designed to follow the link and scan the content of the Web site users are asked to visit. This type of filtering is not currently employed by Bayesian filters because it would be prohibitively expensive in terms of server resources and could potentially be used as a method of launching denial of service attacks against commercial servers.

As with all single-method spam filtering methodologies, Bayesian filters are effective against certain techniques spammers use to fool spam filters, but are not a magic bullet to solving the spam problem. Bayesian filters are most effective when combined with other methods of spam detection.

The Solution
When used individually, each anti-spam technique has been systematically overcome by spammers. Grandiose plans to rid the world of spam, such as charging a penny for each e-mail received or forcing servers to solve mathematical problems before delivering e-mail, have been proposed with few results. These schemes are not realistic and would require a large percentage of the population to adopt the same anti-spam method in order to be effective. You can learn more about the fight against spam by visiting our website at www.ciphertrust.com and downloading our whitepapers.

Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The companys flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.