More and more e-mail service providers, two recent providers being AOL and Yahoo, have offered a solution to anyone running into spam blockers and filters when sending an e-mail: pay around it. This new service, which allows senders to have their mail blast through filters and land directly in the Inbox, is meant for, but not limited to, banks, credit card companies, and anyone else who feels an urgency to reach a recipient.
Since recipients have the opportunity to report any spam that may come through, e-mail providers that have allowed this service also defend it as a way of filtering out illegitimate e-mails and domains, a feature not unlike—you guessed it—the already existing spam filters.
At first, one would think that individuals or companies would have to pay a modest fee to intrude upon your Inbox. As of right now, the going rate is ¼ of a penny per e-mail.
The main worry of recipients, of course, is that spamming will just become easier for serious spammers. Remember Robert Soloway? He was recently arrested for 35 separate charges, all of which related to his scam-and-spam business. Through his marketing company, Soloway would sell mass e-mail software to companies under the false pretense that the companies could advertise via e-mail to pre-registered recipients. The software, however, was made for mass spamming, and the companies only found out when they started receiving complaints from recipients. Soloway was able to keep inquiries off his trail using dummy sites for awhile, but investigators have finally caught up with him.
What is to stop anyone, legitimate company or spammers, from infiltrating your Inbox? According to one online article, the companies must “promise” to only send e-mails to recipients who have already agreed to receive them. Of course, spam filters already come with a feature where a recipient can allow e-mails from senders from whom they have agreed to receive e-mails.
In the end, if recipients had already agreed to receive someone’s e-mails, the senders wouldn’t be running into filters. But now, at least that “company” that specializes in planting e-mail viruses and spyware can drop you a line with minimal fuss.
Read More About This Topic Here:
http://www.educatedguesswork.org/movabletype/archives/2006/02/aol_yahoo_and_p.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1845851/posts
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3 users commented in " More E-Mail Service Providers Offer Spam Filter Loophole "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAlthough your fears are warranted they are just that. Fears! Goodmail, the company working with AOL and Yahoo only work with legitimate email senders that have complaint rates of .1%. The email comes with a seal wich is impossible to spoof discerning the email from a phishing attempt. This is a good thing for everyone.
I have nothing to fear. My filters are still intact. (No, I get what you mean.)
True, most of those paying to bypass the filters will be legit. However, it wouldn’t be too difficult to just appear legit and have a low complaint rating after only one year, the amount of time these e-mail service providers require a company to have been around.
As for the seal, from what I’ve read, sure, you can’t fake it, but it only serves to tell the recipient, “Hey, this is one of those e-mails that someone paid to have bypass your filter,” no matter what the contents are.
Anyway, I’m just relaying the news and its possibilities. This was just another small example I came across of new corporate liberties that could easily be abused.
Though unlikely, I think this new practice of email providers creates legal grounds for a class action from their customers. If Yahoo is selling me their product, part of which is spam filter, and then turns around and puts known spam from a bank in my mailbox, then it’s false advertising and breach of contract to begin with. Why “known spam” - because if it was not, then there would be nothing to charge the bank for. So they promise to filter spam out, and then put it in.
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