Due to the recent flurry of messages in the forum about SPAM, I'm going to post
this ONE TIME message with some suggestions and comments on how to handle SPAM
email.  Please do not respond to this and do not continue such discussions
further in the SCRoots forum.  If you want to discuss this topic, do it in
private email or join one of the many email forums available elsewhere on the
net for such topics.

In my opinion the advise to send SPAM to the Federal Trade Commission is a
really bad idea.  Do you really want to make the Federal Government the nanny
for all net activities?  I hope not.  A more logical tiered approach would be
something like the following.

1. First attempt to resolve problems person to person.  Many times this works. 
If we have problems with another person, it makes sense to attempt to resolve
our differences before we resort to calling the police. I know that many people
claim that sending a request to cease and desist in response to a SPAM email
only generates more SPAM.  In my experience this is not true.  Most companies do
not want to get the reputation of being offensive.  Most companies try to
satisfy their customers and potential customers.  If you send them a polite
message to be removed from their mailing lists, most companies will comply.

2. The next step should be to contact the Postmaster@ at the offender's email
domain.  They have control over what mail can be sent from that site.  They can
counsel, warn, or cut-off the offender.

3. The next step would be to contact your own Internet Service Provider, or
other mail service provider, and ask them to investigate.  They have the ability
to block all email from any user or domain.  They also have contacts around the
net who can help them quickly investigate the problem without having to resort
to search warrants or other legal necessities which a government agent would be
required to employ.

4. In most cases, email will not involve a criminal activity and will not be
subject to police action.  So reporting it to the police will usually be a waste
of time for both you and the police.  Our policemen have enough work to do
hunting murders and thieves.  Lets don't bog them down with Spam reports too. 

5. Instead of involving the police, if you haven't gotten satisfaction at this
point you could contact State or Federal regulatory authorities.  By this time
you should be able to provide them with better information and a list of the
people you have already contacted in an attempt to resolve the matter.  This
should make their job easier and minimize the tax dollars expended investigating
your complaint.  

6. If you haven't received satisfactory resolution and it concerns you enough to
push onward, at this point you might want to talk to a lawyer.  Sadly, in our
litigious society, too many people run to the lawyers first without trying to
resolve problems themselves through other means.

Steven J. Coker 
[email protected] 
http://www.wp.com/Coker 
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/2780 
http://www.awod.com/gallery/rwav/cokers

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