Charles
Marshalltown,#2UPDATE Employee
Wed, October 13, 2004
First of all, the $30 per year is the current cost for a Filtered E-Mail account that also has spam reporting capabilities. Not noted in this complaint is that there is also a free-reporting account and a pay-as-you-go type reporting account. Spam submittals are parsed, analysis performed to track the and identify the source of the spam and also included spamvertised web site. These parse results are offered up in a list that the user then must verify and concur with before hitting the "Send Reports" button. As explained throughout the available on-line documentation, the SpamCop parser is simply a tool to perform this analysis. The actual reporting sequence and targets are selected / deslected by the user. 1. missed hyperlinks - things like submitting spam in the wrong or incomplete format can cause the SpamCop parser to err on the side of not reporting certain items. That the spammers work overtime trying to defeat the SpamCOp parser should be an obvious fact of life. 2. reported to the wrong hosting ISP - as above, the SpamCop tool set is just a tool. It is up to the reporter to decide whether or not to agree with the parsing results. 3. or sent complaints directly to spammers - not impossible, but in addition to the above comments about the reporter's decisions, there are procedures in place to handle a different routing of some targets, sending reports upstream for instance. ISPs in the "don't give a d**n" position end up with reports basically dropped on the floor, but the statistics are added to the SpamCopDNSBL to be used as filtering data on the paid SpamCop e-mail accounts (and also provided for use by other ISPs) Also not noted in the complaint is that the service is offered as-is, and if not happy, refunds are available for the asking ... and again, pointing out that there is a free-reporting account available that would normally be used to check things out before spending any money.