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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical potentially profitable spam countermeasures
Those of you who operate ISPs that accept credit-card, dial-up customers (and therefore have a problem with spammers abusing your services) might find this item of interest. Earthlink's Acceptable Use Policy has a $200 penalty for spamming in it. I am told that with the advent of this policy, there was a dramatic drop in abuse of their service. See http://www.earthlink.net/company/aupolicy.html for the details. The key section is 2.3.1.3. Member specifically agrees that he/she/it will not utilize the EarthLink Network service, EarthLink Network's equipment or any EarthLink Network electronic mail address in connection with the transmission of the same or substantially similar unsolicited message to 50 or more recipients or 15 or more newsgroups in a single day. For each day upon which this provision is violated, Member agrees to pay EarthLink Network $10.00 per day for an unintentional violation of this provision, but where warranted, such as in the case of an accidental transmission, EarthLink Network may waive all or part of the applicable charge. In cases of willful violations of this provision, Member agrees to pay EarthLink Network $200.00 per day. EarthLink Network at its sole discretion shall determine whether such a violation was unintentional or willful. Payment by member under this provision shall not prevent EarthLink Network from seeking to obtain other legal remedies against member, including other damages or an injunction. So, set the agreement up right, find the spammers abusing your service, and whack them with a fine, per the agreement. Recover your cost, plus lost goodwill. This will not eradicate spam. However, if everyone does this, the effect should be to sharply curtail the penny-ante players who abuse the relative anonymity of dial-up Internet access. We would be left with the "big" spammers who have their own connections, which should be easier to effectively deal with. FYI, Erik E. Fair [email protected]
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