At 9:22 PM -0800 2/9/03, Dennis B. Swaney wrote: >[...] Of course if Eudora adds a >bounce feature, then I'll stay with it forever.
Hi Dennis, I'd like to comment on that by quoting something that I saved off the Eudora list, posted by one of the list's most knowledgeable members. (Bruce Giles) [start] Some mail programs (Apple Mail, for instance) do include this capability, [bouncing] but I wouldn't normally recommend using it. Here's why: 1. Most spammers don't care whether you exist or not. They're not spending hours every day carefully maintaining their e-mail database (or you wouldn't be on it in the first place). They simply bought a CD containing a million addresses for a few bucks from another spammer. In many cases, their spam program references the database directly off the CD. Thus, there's no way for them to remove your address, even if they wanted to. The whole purpose of spam is to get something for nothing. These people have no inclination to spend any effort to ensure that they're not bothering anyone. 2. If your address is in a spammer's database, and he's distributed a thousand copies of that database to other spammers, then even if it works every time, you'll still have to send out a thousand bounce messages -- one to each person using the database. [..] 3. Spammers usually use fake or forged addresses, so in those cases, your bounce message isn't going back to the spammer anyway -- it's either going to the bitbucket, or to someone who didn't send the spam in the first place. Either way, it's just adding more mail to the Internet, without really solving the problem. [end] I'm inclined to agree with Bruce, that bouncing is not a productive method of dealing with spam and may well be adding to the nuisance factor of worthless 'net traffic. Mary -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
