We're not pointing fingers or naming names, but surely anti-spam products shouldn't be sold through. . . spam?

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [September 18, 2003]

It is very disappointing to get spam offering anti-spam products. It's annoying enough to be exposed to various financial scams, dubious medical offers (some of them explicit), and crude come-ons throughout the working day.

It's particularly aggravating when these messages say, "you are receiving this message that you don't want because you subscribed to services through us or one of our affiliates" when that is a blatant lie.

But the combination of ignorance and gall required in sending out an anti-spam offer through the spam medium is breathtaking. Even spam offers of anti-virus software are not as annoying.

The spam problem concerns everyone who has an Internet account. It is a commons issue, meaning that it is a free medium (like air) that has been poisoned and is no longer as reliable as it was in the past, and everybody is suffering because of the polluters. The polluters, in contrast, are making money as they cause harm to everyone else.

E-mail is a groundbreaking, new economy technology. At least, e-mail would be, if it weren't for spam. If you're selling an anti-spam solution, you want to be on the side of good, not evil. You want to help people fight the spammers.

Whether they're poor out of work graduates like the Buffalo Spammer or multimillionaires with global server farms, spammers have to hide because their business cannot withstand public scrutiny. Each spam e-mail arriving in an inbox is, at some point in its path, the product of theft, whether the e-mail was harvested from a website, sent from a stolen server, or simply sent without permission.

Costs are borne by the victims, the intermediaries whose resources have been used and the end user whose time is wasted.

It's easy to complain about spam; it's difficult to do something about it, but anti-spam companies should be the last to add to the problem. A post from a year ago on Measure Twice, the blog of The Kalsey Consulting Group summarizes the issue nicely. Under a sample of spam from an anti-spam software company, the post notes succinctly, "Isn’t that kind of like an auto body shop walking through a parking lot with a sledgehammer?"

Anti-spam companies will have to abide by best practices. Unfortunately, the phrase is losing some of its currency, as marketing firms have failed to agree on even the most basic definition of best practice (see DMA Delays E-mail Guidelines Again).

Some anti-spam spammers are, not surprisingly, culprits themselves, such as one recently exposed in this BroadbandReports forum.

Based on a bit of research, I'm now convinced you're a spammer. Trying to sell your [anti-spam] service by posting in forums is just kind of lukewarm bad, but it appears that you've been spamming to sell your service. Your domain is listed as sending spam on this page. I'm guessing you're Brad Heckman from Palm Beach, Florida? Listed as a spammer here too. That second page lists the contact information that you ended up yanking out of the registration information.

[data not posted here]

Time to mobilize, warriors. You opened the wrong can of worms, Brad Heckman.

Technology will not stop spam. Legislation will not stop spam. It should be no surprise that the vigilantes are on the loose.

If you're a part of the problem and you're selling an anti-spam solution, I want to know who you are so you can be placed on a list of thieves.

— End