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Ask HN: Why aren't we fighting email spam more effectively?

12 pointsby outcoldman7 months ago
I own a few businesses and receive daily emails from (a) hiring agencies, (b) investment firms, and (c) companies selling “user data” (e.g., Docker users, Apple users, etc.).<p>None of these emails are CAN-SPAM compliant (in the USA). I started looking into whether it’s even possible to report these violations, but it seems like ICANN doesn’t really care. They only enforce abuse forms&#x2F;emails with domain registrars when spam includes phishing or other specific violations.<p>Have we just given up on fighting spam? Is it because we allow cold sales outreach to continue unchecked?

6 comments

jfengel7 months ago
I dunno what you&#x27;re using, but GMail is doing great for me.<p>The vast majority of the truly crappy spam just gets dropped on the floor. Practically none of it gets into my actual inbox.<p>My spam folder gets about 1 message per day. About half of it is well and truly spam. The other half is more-or-less legitimate mass email, and I unsubscribe to them when I notice them.<p>The emails you&#x27;re describing sound like cold calls from companies that really ought to know better. You should report them as spam, and your provider should start weeding them out. Following the CAN-SPAM rules would be smart for them, because that&#x27;s less likely to get them tagged as spammers and just plain filtered out.<p>Maybe you need a different provider. As far as I&#x27;m concerned, Google has solved the spam problem, at least to a tolerable level. I&#x27;m sure others have as well.
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terminalbraid7 months ago
I use <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;acidtool.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;acidtool.com&#x2F;</a> to report unwanted email directly to the email providers.<p>I&#x27;m not surprised ICANN isn&#x27;t going to generally care about US law enforcement on email content. If they are CAN-SPAM violations, you&#x27;d have better luck reporting violations to the FTC (this is their legal mandate to deal with)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reportfraud.ftc.gov&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reportfraud.ftc.gov&#x2F;</a>
mlisowsk7 months ago
I think spam is just a nuisance, not a big problem. What <i>is</i> a big problem when hosting providers or your email server are blocking or marking as spam legitimate business communication.<p>It has happened several times to me that I have not seen a customer&#x27;s email because it was marked as spam and likewise customers have not seen my email as it was sorted in their spam folder. This is a breakdown of communication that is far worse than spam.<p>A classic use case that is more likely to be flagged as spam is when a customer submits a request via a web form or on social media and you try to follow up by email. From the receiving email server point of view this is a cold email and in danger of being flagged as spam.
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Turboblack7 months ago
4 mails: for the phone, for registrations on sites, for correspondence with clients, and personal correspondence. and forgot about spam forever. spam will go where the registrations are
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altdataseller7 months ago
Mark them as spam and it will affect their deliverability rates<p>I highly doubt any agency will enforce violations since there would be thousands of companies in violation
examango7 months ago
There is an old Chinese saying that cutting off someone&#x27;s money is like killing their parents. Spam can bring benefits to the sender. This is the main reason why spam cannot be eliminated.