This is a response to one of our cousin's suggestion Jill do something about "Sam's" use of the ONEALL-L list for spamming. My intention is not to start a discussion on e-mail ethics, but I do want to point out that Jill, other listmasters, and ISPs are as much victimized by the "Sams" as we are. If anyone feels compelled to take issue with my stand, please take it offline and address me directly. I don't think our cousins care to get their mailboxes jammed up with off-issue messages. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of the freedom of the Internet is it also exposes us to the unethical trade practices of people like "Sam." I'm sure Jill can remove him from the list under his current guise, but that doesn't keep him or his ilk away. They tend to have thick skins or somehow convince themselves they are providing a legitimate service. The economics of direct mail make spamming seem very attractive. Who can pass up a practically zero cost advertising medium? The return is very low and who cares if you reduce the value of a medium for 99.9% of your audience? That 0.1% return pays for your trouble. "Sam" is particularly offensive to me because he appears to be selling his list mining knowledge under the guise of legitimate e-commerce trade practices. E-mails come in with a detailed record of their origin which ISPs can use to track back to the offender. For example, I checked Sam's record and learned his e-mail address is [email protected] That address, however, is probably only used for sending mail and he probably doesn't care if that box gets loaded with flames or requests for removal from his lists. Another way to find out more about offenders is to check on the registered owner of their domain at www.internic.net. I added what I found out about "Sam's" domain to the end of this message. Sometimes the registrant cares about abuses of their domain. I recommend addressing the issue with the webmaster of your ISP (for example, [email protected] or [email protected]). They have far more control over this than Jill. You can also try [email protected] or [email protected] though mini-mail.com is probably just "Sam's" alias. Most legitimate ISPs want his kind of spam off their bandwidth as much as we do. For example, my ISP (GTE) actively tracks down such people and pulls their plug. Alan O'Neal ----- Information on "mini-mail.com" obtained from www.internic.net 11/11/1998. Registrant: Coconut Software Ltd. (MINI-MAIL-DOM) Palm Court, Val De La Mare St Peter, Jersey JE3 7FA UK Domain Name: MINI-MAIL.COM Administrative Contact: Simon Linford (SL269-ORG) [email protected] 01534 498051 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Tim Wills (TW68-ORG) [email protected] +44 (0)161 286 2787 Fax- - +44 (0)161 718 0435 Billing Contact: Simon Linford (SL269-ORG) [email protected] 01534 498051 Record last updated on 14-Aug-98. Record created on 06-Aug-98. Database last updated on 11-Nov-98 06:05:32 EST. Domain servers in listed order: NS0.COCONUT.CO.UK 195.89.193.97 NS0.SERVE.NET.UK 195.89.151.188