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 Category :: Spam |
Author :: Jim Daniels  |
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| Article Title :: Help for Victims |
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Now lets move on to help some spam victims. If you're doing
business online, there is a good chance that one day you will be
accused of spamming, even if you are not a spammer. The
anonymity of the Internet promotes the attitude of accuse first
and get the facts later. (I know this all too well after my
recent experience.)
Anyway, when it happens to you, you'll need some letters to send
out to both the spam victims and the company responsible for the
spam. Here are the two you should save for future reference...
Letter to spam recipients:
Thank you for contacting us. Here are the details of this
unfortunate situation.
The spam you received originated from the domain
. Rest assured you have NOT been added to
any email lists at our site. We do NOT use nor do we condone the
use of unsolicited bulk email and we too, are innocent
bystanders in this situation.
We are in no way affiliated with the offending website and along
with your address, our addresses were on their spam list. Any
further actions you wish to take should be directed to them.
More details on our policies and this incident are available at
the following URL:
And here's a letter you can use as a model when you need to
contact the party responsible for your grief...
Dear Offending Website Owner Name, CC to:legal@yourdomain.com
I have copied the headers of an email message sent by your user,
which confirms email activity on . This email has
resulted in numerous complains to our email addresses. Please
take the following actions immediately:
a) explain of how this incident took place and why b) take
measures to insure that this NEVER happens again c) notify each
address on your list that our domain was not responsible and was
an innocent bystander in this unfortunate situation
Please reply to this email message before the close of business
on or we will be forced to pursue further
action. We will also expect a full letter of explanation mailed
or faxed to our offices.
Thank you for your cooperation.
And closing today's column, here are a few additional tips to
help you avoid trouble with unsolicited email...
- If you have an opt-in list, keep EVERY opt-in request you ever
receive. I keep opt-in requests dating back years. On several
occasions I have been able to provide proof of signup to someone
who forgot they joined and accused me of sending unsolicited
email. These email "receipts" also come in handy with ISPs and
web hosts.
- Keep your email addresses from being harvested at your website
by using a tool that encodes your email addresses. It's a great
way to cut down on spam and avoid situations like the one I ran
into! See the following URL for a free encoding service:
www.siteup.com/encoder.html
- At your site, state your policy on unsolicited email very
clearly. It's also a good idea to post reports of any incidents
at the same area of your site. See
http://www.bizweb2000.com/privacy.htm for an example of how you
can set this up.
Well, this closes a rare, not-so-fun chapter in online
marketing. Hopefully today's tip will help you avoid trouble or
save you a bit of time if and when trouble does arrive.
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