Vicarious Spam

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

From: Jordan Pollack <pollack () cs brandeis edu>
Subject: **SPAM** Vicarious Spam
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

A friend of mine is in the MORTGAGE business at a Fortune 500 Bank. We 
chatted about the huge flow of mortgage spam and how nobody 
would  refinance from an email message. He said "yeah, we don't spam 
ourselves, but we do get great LEADS from these guys."

Does the current Anti spam legislation address vicarious spamming?

There should be very large fines on legitimate companies who accept  LEADS 
generated by third party spammers. But a law might be hard to enforce 
without any standards of reporting on "affiliate" programs.

So FTC could have a voluntary national spam tracking database, where 
consumers are incented to enter information in order to share in the bounty 
of companies which are fined:

  Did you open a spam or follow a link?
  What good or service was it selling? (viagra, drugs, mortgage, credit 
cards, other)
  Did you subsequently buy a similar good or service from a reputable company?
  How did you choose that company?  (direct mail, telephone,  known brand, 
etc.)

Mining that database will indicate who is profiting off the spam and is 
worth further prosecution.

Here is an example: Viacom/scholastic/nickelodeon is NOT spamming me, they 
are merely
paying a third party  some commission for every book sold.

I did not subscribe to "laprunner"  nor do I plan to unsubscribe.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Get 4 Books from Dora, Blue, and friends...
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 05:45:07 -0500
From: Nick Jr. Books 
<mailto:deliveryka () alphamater net><deliveryka () alphamater net>
Reply-To: <mailto:deliveryka () alphamater net>deliveryka () alphamater net
To: <mailto:pollack () cs brandeis edu>pollack () cs brandeis edu

<spam msg deleted LONG djf) 

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