First and foremost, Clueless Mailers is about education, not punishment. Even though there are plenty of companies out there that are knowingly spamming, some mailers and marketers honestly don't know they are. Some don't fully understand what it takes to ensure that their lists truly are permission-based. Some list brokerage/list management companies offer legitimate confirmed opt-in mailing lists, even as they offer unconfirmed lists. And some marketers and advertisers don't realize that some lists they're buying may contain addresses that were added to those lists without the address owner's knowledge or permission. If you have a relationship with — or just happen to have contact with — a mailer, marketer or other entity that's mentioned on this website as having sent unsolicited commercial email (UCE), please make a good-faith effort to explain to that entity the importance of — and the practical reasons for — the decades-old Internet standard prohibiting the sending of UCE. And take the time to explain the tenets and simplicity of using a closed-loop confirmed opt-in subscription system.

We want the information on this site to be 100% factual and complete. In this website's short history, several marketers and mailers have already contacted the owner of the site, and have provided important information about their own mailing operations. Because of this, some of the info here has been corrected or clarified. In particular, some marketers have explained that they have left their previous host due to the host's spamming activities; some hosts have notified us that they have terminated clients for spamming; and some marketers have learned of the potential hazards of participating in some co-registration networks, due to those networks' acceptance of unconfirmed address submissions from a variety of unvetted sources.

Clueless Mailers wants to hear from you if you're an entity mentioned on this site, and there's information here that you think should be corrected or clarified. Just drop us a note via the contact form!

Email marketing works... when your recipients really do want your email. And it's easy to be positive they do... just follow the best practices for mailing list mangement , and you'll save yourself and your recipients time and money... and you'll save your reputation.

Here's to better business, and less unwanted email!

The last few months of 2001 saw a dramatic increase in unsolicited commercial email ("UCE" or "spam") that is transmitted by mailers and/or "network marketers" using unconfirmed address lists supplied by themselves or their customers. These mailers do nothing about the abuse, or demand that spam victims surrender their address in order to be "unsubscribed." This practice might be seen as a kind of extortion, and leaves the spam victim open to spammer retaliation and the sale of the spammed address to even more spammers.

Atqui, inquit, e lotio est!

There is really no need for a spam victim to unsubscribe from something to which they never subscribed (it's also semantically impossible). But if the mailer just removes all addresses from their database for which they have no closed-loop confirmed opt-in records, then the recipient's address will be removed, and the abuse will stop. That is, if the ISP and the list owner understand what it takes to assure all their addresses are permission-based; if not, they'll simply keep demanding that the recipient give up their email address.

Unfortunately, in this sluggish economy, many ISPs and hosts are now allowing their customers to send this sort of "opt-out spam"... or these services are simply turning a blind eye to the activity. ISPs or mailers/marketers that allow opt-out spam and demand that you "unsubscribe" are performing a spam support service, called "list washing." In this new environment, the spammers aren't doing their own transmission anymore, the mailers are protecting the spammers by demanding opt-out, the ISPs are protecting their mailer/marketer customers — and no one is protecting the spam victim any longer.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

On the other hand, some mailers and marketers don't know that the lists they've bought contain addresses that were added without the address owners' permission. With the new popularity of "co-registration" networks, and the unfortunate abuse of some of those networks by opportunists, well-meaning network members are unwittingly sending email to recipients who never asked for it.

This mixture of clean lists with dirty ones, plus a mixture of deliberate spammers and unwitting senders of UCE, it's now harder than ever to tell the "white hats" from the "black hats."

So, unless the spam victim is willing to leave their email address open to mail bombing and/or additional spam after surrendering it to the sender, the only other option is automatic detection and deletion of UCE.

Wheat: In Box. Chaff: /dev/null

Because of these problems, the owner of this site now receives an average 120 pieces of unsolicited commercial email at his email accounts every day. This forced the creation of a private blocking list to use on his mail server. All mail from the companies listed is now being sent straight to /dev/null (oblivion), or it's being catalogued for tracking purposes. Either way, it never reaches an In Box. There's no other way to safely deal with it.

After creating this private blocking list, your CM webmaster realized that many of the mailers and marketers he was receiving UCE from were doing business with each other, and sharing their address lists. At the same time, ISPs and hosts began giving these purportedly legitimate companies new freedom to send unsolicited email. Knowing that this rapidly developing trend needed to be reported to email users, mailers and marketers alike, the CM webmaster created this site.

Permission granted?

The standards that define "permission" are, to some, varied and complex, while to others, either permission exists for a given address, or it doesn't. And methods of documenting the existence of any flavor of permission vary from company to company, and from community to community. But when all is said and done, either a recipient asked for a sender's email, or someone other than the recipient added the address to the list,

If an unauthorized person added an address to a list, that makes email sent to that address unsolicited. And since unsolicited commercial email has always created problems for users, admins and networks, UCE has always been a violation of Internet community standards. In turn, virtually all ISPs and hosts have contractual policies prohibiting UCE.

And there's the rub: many list managers say their lists are "opt-in". Unfortunately, because many don't adhere to the best practices for mailing list mangement, they have no real proof of permission. Even so, ISPs and hosts are accepting clients' claims that lists tagged "opt-in" are permission based, even though that's not always the case.

Plus, with the popularity of many co-reg networks' acceptance of unconfirmed address submissions, unauthorized address propagation is exploding.

We'll keep the light on for you

Hopefully, this site will illustrate some of these dangerous trends and policies, and will help educate and encourage mailers, marketers and ISPs to adopt and enforce the best practices for mailing list mangement.

The info on this site is compiled by the site owner, and represents the experience of just one spam recipient, so the data is anything but exhaustive. Your mileage may vary. In the future, the data here may be broadened to include user-provided info, but the foremost concern is that all of the information on the site is 100% accurate and complete. Doing our own collation and research helps assure that.

Speaking of which... If you and/or your company are mentioned on the CM site and there's some information here that you think should be corrected or clarified, please get in touch with us via the contact form. Only fair, accurate reportage will build and maintain the credibility of the Clueless Mailers website.

Spam is a financial draw for some, a financial liability for others, and an emotional issue for many. It's hoped that the facts can clarify, illuminate, and help to solve the difficulties arising from the rapid growth of the email marketing industry. We're working to help repair the unenlightened practices of many, and the unethical abuses of a few.

So, enough blabbage for now. Let's dig into the complex world of email marketing...

—Bob West