Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by William in Indianapolis on August 14, 2008:

The irony for all of this to me is that the VAST majority of the real spam email I get comes from spoofed yahoo.com email addresses. It has gotten so severe lately, that I am actually considering blocking all email with a yahoo.com sender address.

Posted by Chad MA on August 15, 2008:

I don't use the SPAM button because the spammer setup an address, blast out a bunch of SPAM, then move on to a new address. I do have to use the NOT-SPAM button a lot to keep getting the newsletters I want.

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The "This is Spam" button is indeed poor for identifying a particular spammer. Where it's valuable is to help your ISP figure out what spam "looks like" so they can develop filters to get similar stuff in the future. The "Not Spam" button helps them realize the mistakes made in that process. -rc

Posted by Michael in Florida on August 18, 2008:

As much as I hate to suggest it, one thing that may help this issue is moving the unsubscribe notice to the top of the e-mail, putting it in the preview pane where a user has a better chance of seeing it.

Sure there will still be users who don't bother to read (the REALLY lazy/careless ones), but it may help those who are slightly less lazy and may read the first line or two of the e-mail.

In addition, the UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom is not separated by white space, and starts in the middle of the line; even though I know it's there, my eyes don't lock onto it right away.

It may be a small price to pay to help avert a similar catastrophe in the future. I'm sure one concern is Free subscribers not reading and clicking the link, but the question becomes is that worse than the problem? And even more to the point, will it prevent enough people from hitting the "SPAM" button?

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There is already an unsubscribe link at the top -- in the headers. Different mailers may or may not show it, but it's there, both top and bottom. I'll consider replacing the upper one with a more explicit link. -rc

Posted by Jenna, Michigan on August 22, 2008:

I'm surprised that no one mentioned that the "This is Spam" clicks might have been intentional and spiteful.

I know whenever you have a particularly "controversial" entry, that you'll get a lot of angry un-subscribes from people who were offended. I think it is possible/likely, that some of those would click on the "This is Spam" button out of spite (maybe not even realizing that it would have negative repercussions, or maybe because they do) because they now feel that your "obvious anti-Christian/Liberal/Conservative/whatever else" is so horrible now that they "realize your agenda".

I've know people that I could see clicking on something calling it spam for a jerky reason like that.

Posted by Cam, Baltimore on August 24, 2008:

Yesterday I realized that i had not received This is True for quite a while. I did not have your email addresses on hand, so I tried to search using the Yahoo search engine. I used Yahoo before Google existed. Yahoo seemed to have a closer fit to responses than Google so I never changed.

Interestingly enough when I searched Yahoo for 'This is True' I found many dating services and so much other stuff it was ridiculous, but no Randy Cassingham's This is True. Did your complaints upset them? Looks like I will have to find another search engine to get comfortable with. So far I am not comfortable with Google and now I am unsatisfied with Yahoo. Any suggestions?

Posted by David, Raleigh NC on August 25, 2008:

I am pissed with Yahoo. I have been a This is True subscriber (non-premium one sad to say) for probably around 10 years. I have subscribed under a number of different accounts because occasionally one of the weekly notes would somehow be lost in transit. I'm also subscribed to several other daily or weekly lists for comics or other newsletters. I have used Yahoo as my primary non-work email for years because I didn't have to worry about losing it if I moved or changed my ISP/Broadband provider. I depended upon Yahoo as being the provider that I could trust - having used Yahoo for over 10 years now.

Yet More and more frequently, I have noticed my Yahoo account as the one where the email is missing from. I hate to have to subscribe yet again via another email account to ensure I get delivery of my daily/weekly fix of humor, but I probably will have to. I just hope it does not come to pass that I have to give up Yahoo altogether because of their problems.

Posted by Duane Toole, Richmond, VA on August 27, 2008:

I have a Gmail address, an "org" domain, a "com" domain and a "net" domain. The org, net, and gmail accounts are often filtered by servers as spam, particularly Microsoft Exchange servers.

I've been very vocal about over-zealous anti-spam filters; you almost always screw up when depending on software rather than people.

In your case, reason prevailed; that isn't always true. And if people keep clicking the "This is spam" link, the next new guy on the server will ban you again.

So, I'm linking True to my several pages and will be forwarding the free issue to my groups. I hope others who read this will, too.

Posted by Amy, Portland, OR on August 30, 2008:

I USED to subscribe to TRUE on yahoo, but gave up on yahoo a long time ago due to being flooded with spam in both my inbox and spam filter. I realized soon what makes one subject to spam. Spam bots construct common names and words and add a common host (@yahoo, @hotmail) and spam everyone with an english-word constructed addy. My address at hotmail is in french. I get less than 1 or 2 spam e-mails a week, and the ones I get in the to field include addresses very similar to mine. I got lucky creating a foreign phrase for an e-mail (that and my boyfriend or ex's will never remember it and spy on my e-mails..)

I use hotmail and though for the most part I am satisfied with their spam filter, it seems to be almost entirely key-word based. I frequently sell items on craig's list and if they spell anything wrong or put a curse word or a possibly "obscene" word in their message, it goes to spam, despite being a reply to an ad I posted. As for "this is true", I long set up a filter to send each newsletter to its own folder, "This is True" so I can find them easily when I have time and go back and read old ones when I see fit.

Hotmail has a handy message I'm sure most people ignore at the top: "You're subscribed to this mailing list. Unsubscribe" -- Unsubscribe being a link. It is, however, very small text, and easy to miss since many e-mails come with a similar message above them.

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The spammer technique you describe is called a "dictionary attack", and has been quite common (and included in my Spam Primer for years. They don't just do it on popular sites like Hotmail; they'll do it at any domain they find. That's one of the reasons people with domains with "catch-all" addresses (anything@domain.com) get so much spam. -rc

Posted by Dale, Carmel, IN on September 5, 2008:

Why do people still even use Yahoo? Go to GoDaddy (or most any other registrar) and buy your own domain for $9.00; then set up the free e-mail account that comes with it. Then, you not only have your own private e-mail, but (barring anything really outrageous) it can't blocked, cancelled, or interfered with.

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It's good advice, though GoDaddy absolutely does block some incoming mail, including on occasion TRUE. -rc