RAC Using Known Spammer Frankdata
Another Spam presumably paid for this time by the RAC who should know better. They appear to have bought a list of spammed e-mail addresses from well-known spammer Frankdata International Marketing Limited and are thereby helping to keep this spammer in business.
Well I’d just like the RAC to know that I will never buy any of their goods or services as a result of this. If you hate spam, why not do likewise and boycott firms who use spammers.
[Update]
Well the RAC called me back a couple of times, but refused to get their Marketing Department – presumably the ones who paid for the spamming campaign and made arrangements with Colin Franklin to send it – to discuss it with me as they don’t deal with the public.
In view of that, a formal complaint has now been made to the Information Commissioner’s Office – see the link at the foot of this page.
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I would prefer that all emails were sent to only those who wish to receive them. I agree that visible maintenance of stoplists is a primary requirement for marketing companies – and I’d like to see responsible companies put up forms to allow users to go online when they want and opt out forever, when they want.
There is a place in the world for responsible companies who are attempting to provide marketing services. Marketing companies often use third party providers to supply them with data, which although may be ‘guaranteed opted-in’ may in fact be full of addresses of people who have not gone through a full confirmed opt-in procedure, or worse still contain spam traps. Marketing companies are remorselessly exploited by data companies providing an execrable service – without comeback. Encouraging Marketing Companies to clean up their data is key, and this should include hash back-to-back contracts for data providers who transgress.
Attacking marketing companies who have a name and address is as easy as police radar cameras snapping motorists – and about as educational. More effective and responsible and long-lasting measures can be taken.
Putting aside the thousands of zombie PC networks spamming the world with *really nasty* stuff, is taking a rose-tinted look at the world. These guys use every technique in the book to ‘get through’, including hijacking peoples machines without their knowledge or permission. Bundling up a UK based marketing company working for the RAC in the same category as those spammers is an underwhelming analysis at best.
Pushing the marketing companies (who are nice and easy to find unlike spammers) into cleaning up their data and their acts constitutes moving forward with integrity, and will clean up the industry in the long term.
So tell Frankform what you want, and keep telling them if they don’t get it. Pester MP’s to make (fair) laws compelling law abiding companies to tow the line. Block offshore spammers.
Just ‘putting them out of business’ leaves only those zombie networks we know and love (FX: Yuk!) and is not a way forward.
The zombie networks will always be a problem whilst the ROI of unregulated Spam is relatively good thanks to the feeble-minded and.or gullible.
On the other hand, while large companies continue to do business with known Spammers, they will in turn continue to produce lists of e-mail addresses that have never opted-in to receive such e-mails.
And the rules on sending e-mail communications are quite specific as to what is and is not allowed by way of opt-in and exemptions.
While companies the size of the RAC willingly ignore these rules, companies selling at best dubious e-mail lists will continue to flourish.
Don’t confuse the two issues.
No confusion present. Both issues need simultaneous attention.
I don’t agree that ignoring the zombie networks because the users are feeble-minded and.or gullible is the right thing to do, just convenient. I believe that society should take care of those that can’t take care of themselves.
One can’t just ignore criminal spamming as it’s inconvenient and difficult to catch them.
By definition, if a company reveals it’s details when sending emails it lays itself open to abuse. No sane company that wants to stay in business would behave like this.
If they reveal their details I propose they must want to ‘do things right’. That means remorselessly improving the quality of their service and compliance with the laws of that land. We can all help in this, as per my previous comment.
Going for the RAC will mean RAC going for the sending company which means the sender going for it’s data providers (and hopefully improving it’s systems ATST).
This is clumsy. There must be a better way and there is. Go for policy change and governmental enforcement. Those who really are spammers will give up, those that seriously want to run a business doing this will stay – and be compliant or die.
Yes, but you ignore my intial complaint about the RAC: not only did they wilfully flout the law in the first place, but they then chose to refuse to even discuss it with someone who complained!
That is either arrogance or stupidity or a combination of the two.
Going for the person who paid the bill in the first place is the right thing to do. It’s their choice what they do about their preferred suppliers. And of course in this instance, the supplier should be just providing the service delivery and not the recipients.
I’m waiting to see what – if anything – the ICO does in relation to the complaint.
Yes, it’s a fair cop.
I doubt the RAC wanted to break the law, I think it is down to rubbish data. Nevertheless, pursuing the RAC will achieve something, as they will pursue the service company. I wanted to outline that there is more that can be done for a long term solution rather than bandwidth sapping short term fixes.
Ignoring your request to discuss it is appalling. WRT the service company, I would expect them simply to remove you from the list and let you know it has been done.
British law is flawed WRT to bulk email broadcasts – see http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/newslog/CategoryView,category,SPAM.aspx
“WRT the service company, I would expect them simply to remove you from the list and let you know it has been done.
If they were a legitmate company, yes. Of course the fact that the e-mail they added to their list – along with many others in the past – was never opted-in in the first place speaks volumes about their legitmacy.
It’s back to data, then.
Data should have provenance. That comes either from a full audit trail concerning the opt-in, or provenance supplied by the data supplier. Either way, you should be able to request the opt-in provenance from the service provider and if it isn’t present, you should be ‘outed’ from the list. Even better, you should be able to do it for yourself.
Having the provenance means that you can identify the *source* list and be removed from that – hopefully removing you also from any companies using the list.
We have this…
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/
for fax too, which is *really* useful.Something global like this for email would be a move forward.
No, what would be really useful is for Spammers to not simply trawl the Internet for potential e-mail addresses, actual ones (in the terms of domain registration e-mail addresses/whois records) or ones where they simply match a given name with a given domain name to make a headline number of addresses to sell.
Or the global ability to opt-out your domain names.
Or for respectable companies to simply follow the law…
Oh and the TPS is run by whom? Oh yes. Maybe that’s why I still receive junk faxes.
Whilst I applaud your Utopian vision, one has to recognise that all businesses out there want to reach existing and new customers. It’s about money.
You would need unprecedented support to achieve these aims by pushing (kicking?) governments into a position where they’d. take your stance. Of course it would be easier if they were able to make money out of it, but I don’t see that opportunity here.
We are wandering off topic.
I use http://assp.sourceforge.net/ to trap spam. It’s *very* effective. I received about 180 spams yesterday, many of which were phishing, phamaceutical (!), other scams or pornographic. I expect 95% were zombie produced – I am quite happy to go through this with you if you wish to firm up the stats. Personally I don’t bother unless something I am expecting doesn’t get through. The remaining 5% was made up of items I had requested but ASSP thinks is spam (Laverda owners club) or other spam. Thunderbird mops up a couple that get through.
I just can’t get excited about the couple that sneak past. Like most people, I run anti spam software – and it’s very effective and free. Was the email you received offensive? If it came via the RAC I doubt it. I think getting hot under the collar about this level of traffic is rather yesterday.
I can’t yet stop the new pdf’s and straight images. I find these *far* nastier. But then it is so much harder to track down the real culprits. These guys send the kind of stuff I’d hate my kids to see, if they glanced at my monitor at the wrong moment.
My kids already know about nasty filthy spam and it doesn’t come from the RAC.
BTW, WRT to MPS, FPS, TPS I have subscribed to all three. They stopped almost 100% all mail, phone and fax pestering. The ‘almost’ is fine by me – my wife no longer thinks we are being stalked as a result of those delightful ‘silent’ phone calls. I think they are a great service and far far better than nothing at all – whoever runs them. Now the banking ombudsman… that’s another story.
If you are being pestered by faxes after subscribing to the FPS, why aren’t you pursuing them with the same zeal you apply to email? I just don’t get it. Why is one OK and not the other? I find faxes far more offensive as they cost me money to receive and tie up my phone line. I might add that I have never received filth over the fax. That’s a fair indictment of nasty emails.
Does it come down to what is trendy to think and talk about? Fax is 80’s and lacks kudos, email is – well, 90’s ish. Everyone likes to go on about the 1% of unsolicited marketing they may receive – and ignore the 95% of nasty, criminal philth or even worse bundle them up together.
I think you are on the wrong soapbox. There are worse things going on in the world.
“Whilst I applaud your Utopian vision, one has to recognise that all businesses out there want to reach existing and new customers. It’s about money.”
…which is back to my original point. The RAC wants new customers and has chosen to flout the legislation by buying list of e-mail addresses from a Spammer. And you don’t seem to have a problem with that.
The “think of the business community” crap is one reason why it took so long to bring in anti-Spam legislation here. Funnily enough, we do well enough in terms of new business through our web presence and the search engines without ever having had to resort to spamming anyone.
“I received about 180 spams yesterday”
…whereas I received 1,214 – my daily average is around 1,000.
And there is no difference between people trying to sell me pharamceuticals or breakdown services by UCE. It’s still Spam. It’s still not a legitimate way of doing business.
I have stated my position on spamming already. I am not going there again.
It’s like this.
o The RAC wants to attract new customers
o The RAC uses a marketing company to select likely customers
o The RAC expects the marketing company to use opted in emails (it may even be in the contract), they may also supply data
o The marketing company buys data, sorts it, categorises it from a variety of sources – all ‘guaranteed’ opted in (FX: ROFL) they may or may not have comeback clauses
o the marketing company broadcasts. As it wants to stay in business, it is not in it’s interests to bite the hand that feeds it.
As I have already said, it’s all about the data.
What is broken here is the data – and it’s provenance.
There is nothing wrong with marketing to people who have agreed to receive marketing.
It’s really quite simple. Comply with the law.
The above steps *do not apply* to the guys who send nasty stuff via zombie networks. So whereas in the above there is an identifiable process to attack (I’d like to use ‘improve’) the 1%, there is none for the *95%* of bad stuff coming through.
They are not the same!
Ignoring the 95% *by far the worst* in order to drive down the 1% seems to me to be – how shall I say it? surprising?
Concentrating such effort on punishing the RAC/service provider may be laudable but does it supply the most good?
The legislation is very easy to follow. The RAC chose to use a known Spammer. The message itself was sent from the US and does not comply with the legislation. The data is not “broken”: it is fabricated.
And my whole point was that the RAC did not comply with the law! So I cannot see what point you are trying – and failing – to make. Spam is spam is spam. It makes not one jot of difference who sends it. It makes not one jot of difference whether its is sent via “a zombie network” or from Spamhauses in Korea, China or Florida. It’s still Spam.
And whilst large UK-based companies continue to flout the legislation they are no better than those flogging warez or pharmaceuticals or dump stocks.
Was I not clear? I apologise.
I am disappointed that you cannot see the difference between disgusting emails sent illegally from hi-jacked machines anonymously and an email sent mistakenly to you by the RAC.
Perhaps when you have dependants who might innocently come across this vile torrent of insidious sin you might alter your opinion.
If the law hasn’t yet caught up with this then morally it should and I hope it will, soon.
Yes, it was wrong, you should have been treated better. I have already stated what should have happened.
Lumping these two *very different* forms of email together allows you to take the stance that you are involved at the front line of combat against spam.
This is not true. You are involved in combating the 1% of spam that is easy to trace and sent by companies in error such as the RAC.
You have chosen to fight the 1% battle.
To the uninformed it might appear that you are taking a major stance against spam. You are not.
If your header had said ‘ignoring the bulk of spam, often of a pornographic and just plain nasty nature, I have selected this one from the RAC as it’s easy to trace to publicise my fight against the 1% of spam’ I probably wouldn’t have read any further.
I would have been much more impressed had you tracked down some of the perpetrators of the seedier spams. Now that would have been hard, and possibly dangerous.
Fujitsu Siemens UK have today (16th December 2008) also decided to start using Frankdata to send out uncilicited email to people who not have subscribed.
For me it is just not acceptable at all that a global company like Siemens is sending via Frankdata / Teluis (69.64.156.44, 70.32.43.3).
STOP SPAMMING US SIEMENS