Question for the attorneys

[phylodog]

Is there some form of legal protection afforded to companies who send out junk emails for a living? I've had it up to my sack with corporate America and nothing drains more of my time than wading through the endless junk that consumes my email accounts. I've got one I stopped using almost a decade ago because it was so polluted but after using it for more than a decade I've never been comfortable simply abandoning it for fear of missing something of importance.

Surely I am not the only one out there. If I had to guess there's probably around 200 million other Americans who would be willing to sign on for a class action lawsuit. Is that a possibility? I don't care about pursuing a criminal avenue, though I've never felt more harassed by anything in my life, but could we make an example out of just one company to set the stage to stop this BS? Put one of the dirtbags into bankruptcy?

I spent the better part of an hour "unsubscribing" to a hundred of these BS emails I never signed up for. Now, less than a week later I'm blessed with three times what I had before. It pisses me off that every second I waste deleting an email some scumbag on a yacht in Miami makes another nickel.

 

[loudgroove]

I use a 2nd account if I think I will get spammed. And yes there are at least 100 emails on there a day.

 

[Ingomike]

I spent the better part of an hour "unsubscribing thereby letting them know I am a real person so they will now send even more" to a hundred of these BS emails I never signed up for.

FIFY…

 

[Brandon]

I still get mail from the previous residents at my home.

They get their w2s, credit cards, vehicle title work and other stuff sent here. Still.

Thankfully our mail lady generally takes it back now without delivering. -I know they still send it here because of the email with photos we get every morning from the post office.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Is there some form of legal protection afforded to companies who send out junk emails for a living? I've had it up to my sack with corporate America and nothing drains more of my time than wading through the endless junk that consumes my email accounts. I've got one I stopped using almost a decade ago because it was so polluted but after using it for more than a decade I've never been comfortable simply abandoning it for fear of missing something of importance.

Surely I am not the only one out there. If I had to guess there's probably around 200 million other Americans who would be willing to sign on for a class action lawsuit. Is that a possibility? I don't care about pursuing a criminal avenue, though I've never felt more harassed by anything in my life, but could we make an example out of just one company to set the stage to stop this BS? Put one of the dirtbags into bankruptcy?

I spent the better part of an hour "unsubscribing" to a hundred of these BS emails I never signed up for. Now, less than a week later I'm blessed with three times what I had before. It pisses me off that every second I waste deleting an email some scumbag on a yacht in Miami makes another nickel.

NEVER EVER EVER unsub unless you know for a fact you signed up. Here is how it works.

Scum harvests a list of 10,000 email addresses. They sell them for $10 because who knows how many are live.

Scum#2 buys the list and sends them all a spam message.
2,000 people unsubscribe, confirming they are still live accounts.

Scum #2 now has a list of 2,000 confirmed live addresses and can now sell it for $100.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Is there some form of legal protection afforded to companies who send out junk emails for a living? I've had it up to my sack with corporate America and nothing drains more of my time than wading through the endless junk that consumes my email accounts. I've got one I stopped using almost a decade ago because it was so polluted but after using it for more than a decade I've never been comfortable simply abandoning it for fear of missing something of importance.

Surely I am not the only one out there. If I had to guess there's probably around 200 million other Americans who would be willing to sign on for a class action lawsuit. Is that a possibility? I don't care about pursuing a criminal avenue, though I've never felt more harassed by anything in my life, but could we make an example out of just one company to set the stage to stop this BS? Put one of the dirtbags into bankruptcy?

I spent the better part of an hour "unsubscribing" to a hundred of these BS emails I never signed up for. Now, less than a week later I'm blessed with three times what I had before. It pisses me off that every second I waste deleting an email some scumbag on a yacht in Miami makes another nickel.

This came up at Thanksgiving. And, yes, there is federal legal protection for "spammers".

Under Bush 2.0, 15 USC §7701, CAN-SPAM Act. As with most things, federal preemption was to "control" spam e-mail, guess what happened, no, guess!

Right, it made things worse. However, fraud and deceptive practices can get around fed preemption otherwise you (me, us all) lack standing. May want to talk to Todd the Rod (dude there are 500 DAGs there now, I was shocked) or the FTC.

 

[Cameramonkey]

My current annoyance is "cold calls" via email where they push their legit business product to my work email and say "Let me know if you are interested."

And even though you ignore them because you arent interested they send you a "hey. did you see my last email?" every couple weeks for months.

No, a-hole. I shouldnt have to reply "unsubscribe" or generally tell you to go away. You should do so on your own when I havent responded to your 6 other emails. Just go the F away!

 

[HoughMade]

There are some laws about having to opt in or opt of e-mails or having a specific "unsubscribe" function.

But how many of these places do you think operate where U.S. courts can reach?

 

[phylodog]

Pretty much what I figured. If someone finds a kickstarter for a way to reply to an email and attach a mini EMP to nuke their equipment into dust I'd be willing to kick in.

I can't fathom the entirety of my existence and depth of my accomplishments consisting of being a pain in humanity's ass but apparently there are plenty who don't feel like I do.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

NEVER EVER EVER unsub unless you know for a fact you signed up. Here is how it works.

Scum harvests a list of 10,000 email addresses. They sell them for $10 because who knows how many are live.

Scum#2 buys the list and sends them all a spam message.
2,000 people unsubscribe, confirming they are still live accounts.

Scum #2 now has a list of 2,000 confirmed live addresses and can now sell it for $100.

^^^This^^^ I have a yahoo account (same one I've had forever). If I get spam, I mark it as spam and it goes to my spam folder where I delete it every day. Now I hardly get any spam at all, and if I do, it usually goes straight to the spam folder. If one does make it to my inbox, I repeat the above.

 

[NHT3]

I use Gmail and as much as I dislike Google and some of the things they do, I just mark them spam and generally don't hear from them again.

 

[HoughMade]

Pretty much what I figured. If someone finds a kickstarter for a way to reply to an email and attach a mini EMP to nuke their equipment into dust I'd be willing to kick in.

I can't fathom the entirety of my existence and depth of my accomplishments consisting of being a pain in humanity's ass but apparently there are plenty who don't feel like I do.

If it were up to me, I'd have some really smart people track these people, the spammers and internet fraud people and all such that operate out of reach (and maybe some who are in reach, but good at hiding their tracks) and send a group of amoral mercenaries in to kill them all, loudly with plenty of video. May have to do it again, possibly a 3rd, but that would be about it....as long as we were willing to do it again if necessary.

I'm not smiling; I'm not joking.

 

[indyblue]

They come in waves for me, but I have been marking them all as junk, and eventually the spam filter gets trained to remove most of them. But these folks are just generating random email accounts and rotating them in and out just like spam calls, anyone can spoof their real originating address/number.

There’s just no way to track most of these accounts down to find anyone to prosecute.

 

[NHT3]

My current annoyance is "cold calls" via email where they push their legit business product to my work email and say "Let me know if you are interested."

And even though you ignore them because you arent interested they send you a "hey. did you see my last email?" every couple weeks for months.

No, a-hole. I shouldnt have to reply "unsubscribe" or generally tell you to go away. You should do so on your own when I havent responded to your 6 other emails. Just go the F away!

Made the mistake of having Renewal by Anderson come by about 2 years ago to look at windows in my house. Now I get a weekly reminder of their current "deal" in the mail.. What a PITA

 

[Lpherr]

^^^This^^^ I have a yahoo account (same one I've had forever). If I get spam, I mark it as spam and it goes to my spam folder where I delete it every day. Now I hardly get any spam at all, and if I do, it usually goes straight to the spam folder. If one does make it to my inbox, I repeat the above.

Yep. A simple click and I never see them again.

 

[loudgroove]

what is driving me more nuts are the robo calls, cloned numbers, random texts. I will not answer the phone unless the number is on already in my phone and not in all caps.

 

[Brandon]

Made the mistake of having Renewal by Anderson come by about 2 years ago to look at windows in my house. Now I get a weekly reminder of their current "deal" in the mail.. What a PITA

Only 30k for a single window! Why haven't you gotten their deal yet?!

 

[DoggyDaddy]

what is driving me more nuts are the robo calls, cloned numbers, random texts. I will not answer the phone unless the number is on already in my phone and not in all caps.

Yes!! Every friggin' day. And apparently most of them live in the 463 area code! (Not really, but that's the area code they're spoofing.)

 

[loudgroove]

Yes!! Every friggin' day. And apparently most of them live in the 463 area code! (Not really, but that's the area code they're spoofing.)

I've even seen some numbers that was a digit or two different than mine.

 

[littletommy]

what is driving me more nuts are the robo calls, cloned numbers, random texts. I will not answer the phone unless the number is on already in my phone and not in all caps.

A couple years ago, I diligently blocked every spam call I would get, I did that for months. Of course, I never answer calls that are not from someone in my contacts, very rarely will I even give my number to a reputable company that I might be dealing with at the time. Anyway, for well over a year now, I only get a spam call maybe once a month, sometimes not even that often.