GPI's Anti-Spamming
Policy: Spam Activities are
unacceptable and will be penalized.
I know it seems ironic that I sent you this newsletter with our Anti-Spam
policy via a bulk email process without your specifically requesting it,
but since you are using our services we feel it is more of a vendor-client
update with implied acceptance. I hope you'll accept this sincere rationalization
with my apology if you feel your mailbox has been invaded. I assure you
that I only plan to send these updates out a few times a year, so we will
not be too intrusive. However, I am afraid I can't delete you from our
update list since it is going to our full client base to make sure everyone
is aware of changes and improvements with your service provider, Global
Pacific Internet.
In essence, our Anti-Spam policy is this. If you use any of our services:
(dialup modems, email servers, or newsgroup servers, etc.) to send a volume
of unsolicited email, and we receive a number of complaints about such
activities, we will cancel your account and may take legal actions as allowed
by California law. There has been a bill introduced to the California Assembly
AB1629, which could impose a fine of $250 per email message up to $5000
and one year in jail.
Why are we taking such drastic actions? Well, in mid-July, we were Spam
attacked as a result of an unethical person sending out junk email (Spam)
to hundreds of thousands of email addresses and they used one of our client's
email addresses as a return address for the Spam. They didn't use their
email address because they know their actions are wrong and there is always
severe backlash with Spam, and they didn't want to take responsibility
for their unethical actions.
This naturally caused a flood of complaints and the other ISP (AOL in
this case) automatically bounced all the Spam and legitimate email straight
to us since the Spammer stole and used one of our addresses. This action
caused our mail server to crash several times that week and took almost
80 work-hours to contain the problem and fix the server. This can also
get our mail servers banned from other ISP's so you and others won't be
able to send real and legitimate email. As you can see, this is very serious,
and we will take appropriate actions when necessary.
Now you know how we feel about Spam. So what can you do when you are
the unfortunate recipient of Spam? Well, the first and usually the best
thing to do, is just ignore and delete it. I know this isn't very emotionally
satisfying since Spam usually makes you want to send a complaint to the
sender, but ignoring Spam is the best response for the following reasons.
First, most Spammers never use their real email address for replies because
they know they're breaking the rules of online etiquette, so your reply
will usually be sent to an unsuspecting victim just like you. This is what
happened in mid-July, which caused a ton of technical headaches for a whole
week.
Also, many Spam messages will say if you want to be deleted from their
list, just send a msg to a specific email address asking to be removed.
Many times this is a trick to get you to send a msg so they can capture
and validate your email address as being current. Many email lists used
by Spammers are old and outdated, so they need to find a way to trick you
into validating your address. Rarely, is their promise to remove your from
an email list true.
We are considering software that will filter out all email that you
haven't pre-approved. I'll let you know when that is available and the
cost involved.
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