Re: What if anything is going to be done about spamming of *.answers

Steve Summit (scs@eskimo.com)
Mon, 5 Dec 1994 08:29:52 -0800

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In reply to: Tom Lane: "Re: What if anything is going to be done about spamming of *.answers"

In <16254.786641655@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> It is my understanding that a certain unscrupulous company has begun marking
>>> commercial articles as approved for posting to groups such as rec.answers.
>>
>> Could you be more specific (give Subject lines and Message-ID's)?
>
> ...C&S of green card fame have started posting
> off-topic advertisements again, this time on behalf of other people
> (in particular, a clueless Colorado ski resort that was apparently sucked
> in by reading C&S's book). They are being more selective than before
> about which groups they hit...

...But only a bit more; hundreds of groups are involved.

> I have not seen any of the postings myself, but reports are that the
> postings now include an Approved: line, so that they can spam moderated
> groups if they feel like it... Whether they have actually hit any
> moderated groups was not reported.

One report I saw, <19941131a$zbbfr@nospam.nohow.edu> from
"Cancelmoose[tm]", said that
> All of these messages carried an "Approved:" header in an attempt to
> circumvent the policies of any moderated groups posted to, (ie
> rec.answers).

, and that article did list rec.answers as one of the groups
affected. There are a number of eagle-eyed observers out there
looking for spam of any sort, and everything C&S does is
scrutinized especially carefully, so these ads were canceled
almost immediately, and it's not surprising if none of us saw a
copy in rec.answers.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more outcry on the forged
approval angle. I've half-composed, but have not yet posted, an
article to news.admin.misc lamenting the new heights of arrogance
to which Canter & Siegel have stretched. One or two of their
defenders have managed to argue in the past that their ads, even
if widespread, are protected under free speech and can't be
prohibited, but moderated newsgroups are Usenet's last bastion of
defense against the deluge, and forged approval is most clearly
unacceptable and intolerable.

Steve Summit
scs@eskimo.com

Next message: David C Lawrence: "Re: Keywords"
Previous message: Tim Pierce: "Re: What if anything is going to be done about spamming of *.answers"
In reply to: Tom Lane: "Re: What if anything is going to be done about spamming of *.answers"

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