Christian Nielsen's Blog

Most people put up with spam, bad spam filters that either don't catch a lot of it or eat your important emails. Few take a little time to activly fight spammers and make their life a little difficult as they make ours.

I've been fighting spam for years and I still use the same primary email address that I started with back in 1999. This despite the fact that the address has been used on many sites, WHOIS reconds, forums, and blogs. How is this possible? Well, the only way I was able to do that is by reporting spam. When reporting spam you either get the spammer's accounts closed or they get the spam reports and take you offer their lists.

The reason I am posting is that many years ago I used to use SpamCop.net to report spam. They make it easy to file correct reports to those responsible for systems involved in the abuse. I stopped using them at one point and started reporting by hand because spamcop closed my account. They did so because I was editing the spam to make sure the correct sites were included in the reports. Spamcop felt this was against their policy and while it allowed many spammers to NOT be reported correctly, they were within their rights.

Last week I decided to see if spamcop reporting was any better than it used to be and I think it is, alrhough I don't think it goes far enough. For example, while the systems that send spam and the sites promoted in spam are reported, the domain names used are NOT reported to the domain registrars. A number of registrars these days will suspend domains used in spam, and this goes beyond hurting spammers by getting their hosting accounts closed. Once the domain is suspended they cannot use it for their spam pages nor to get any email messages from those they abuse. All domain registrars should be involved with this problem and help out when their spam polcies have been violated.

The point of this post is to encourage you to try spamcop.net and maybe just report one spam a day. There is  no cost and it just takes a couple of minutes. If you register you can even forward the spam as an attachment and spamcop will process it. That is really quick and easy and you don't need any technical ability.

(hris

The script used by one blog comment spammer just puked up a wad of rotating comments here. And I thought the annual hairball season was bad! Kitty's off the hook after this. My god what a stench! I've already spent about 30 minutes trying to clean this foul mess up and it looks like it's going to take much longer than I thought. Of course the time would be shortened if I didn't have to post about it, But I need to get as much mileage as I can from this vomited content. I'm worried that I will NEVER get the smell out...!

Poor sick little comment spam script! Did the newbie feed you too many comments to rotate at once? Or were they past their expiration date? Maybe the misspellings, grammatical errors, sugary complements, or lame pretexts upset your little PHP tummy? Shame on the wannabe blog spammer for treating you this way! Here, I will clean up this mess so if you feel hungry you can have something to eat that may sit a little better. Enjoy!

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DomCollect Resorts To SPAM. Is SEDO SPAM-Friendly?

Another seller of domain names is using spam to find customers. While I hate spam, I really hate domain name spam because it reflects badly on an industry that already has image problems. I don't contact the \/iagra spammers when I get spam from them, I just report them.

But when new domain sales spam arrives I check it out and often contact the sender to let them know a spam report could close their hosting account, suspend their domain, or both. Often I am treated like a crank who has no valid complaint and who talks about concequences that are impossible. Sigh. Big mistake.

I have been getting spammers accounts closed for years, not because I have special tricks, take direct action, or anything else complicated or possibly illegal. I just report them to their service providers that have rules against the sending of unsolicited commercial email or SPAM. All I have to do is see who is responsible for what the spammer is using, and let them know. They may or may not take action, but most do. Those that don't prompt me to start publishing the spam and information about it so that others can see who is playing nice and who is being abusive.

I suggest those that would spam reconsider what they are doing and instead send a single email inviting people to subscribe or opt-in to received their emails. I would not report such emails as long as I only get one in my lifetime.
===================================
-----Original Message-----
From: DomCollect :: Sarah Therré [mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012
To: webmaster
Subject: Auction now running

To whom it may concern,

Just a polite reminder that asbestos-lawyer.net is in auction right now.

To go to the auction click the following link:

sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=asbestos-lawyer.net

This is a great opportunity to acquire a great domain at a throw-away price. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to send me an email.

Best regards,
Sarah Therré

DomCollect Worldwide Intellectual Property AG
Zeughausgasse 9a :: CH 6300 Zug
tel +41.41.710.93.64 :: fax +41.41.710.93.62

German office
Neusserstr. 93 :: DE 50670 Koeln
tel +49 221.995553.14 :: fax +49 221.995553.10
DomCollect.com <DomCollect.com> :: sarah.therre@domcollect.com <mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com>

Click here to unsubscribe <mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE> .

=====================================
What follows is the report on the second SPAM we received about domains Dom Collect is selling. After talking with Sara on the phone following the first spam, I assumed they would not be spamming anymore and deleted the first spam they sent. I reported this second one below, but then I got a follow-up spam for the first one they sent. They must be using spam-friendly service providers. So now I'm going to post about each one until they stop spamming. And as far as SEDO.com being spam-friendly I don't know the answer to that question, but if you read the spam report below, you may also wonder what their connection is to the spam, aside from the profit they get if the domain should sell via them. Oh yeah, DomConnect does have a German office...
=====================================

-----Original Message-----
From: webmaster
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012
To: net-abuse@hosteurope.de
Cc: abuse@internetwire.de; service@internetwire.de; abuse@psi-usa.info; contact@psi-usa.info; abuse@sedo.com
Subject: FW: consultant.info

net-abuse@hosteurope.de: domcollect.com is hosted on your 80.237.133.12.
abuse@internetwire.de; service@internetwire.de: domcollect.com is registered via you and should be suspended for spamming once you complete your investigation. You are notified in case the spammer is providing their own hosting or if a spam-friendly host is being used.

net-abuse@hosteurope.de: consultant.info is hosted on your 83.169.4.144.
abuse@psi-usa.info; contact@psi-usa.info:  is registered via you and should be suspended for spamming once you complete your investigation. You are notified in case the spammer is providing their own hosting or if a spam-friendly host is being used.

abuse@sedo.com: This spam seems to originate from your 85.236.53.142 which is connected with adlinkgroup.net and adlink.net which both forward to your site. I am sure you do not want your systems abused by the sending of spam and will address this issue quickly.
abuse@sedo.com: consultant.info is offered for sale via your site. If your policies do not allow using spam to advertise domains for sale, which reflects badly on your company, the domain should be removed from your site.

[Please Note: We do not unsubscribe from things to which we do not subscribe in the first place. We contacted the sender and requested that the stop spamming people, but they do not feel they are doing anything wrong. Please advise them of your rules and terms of service so they understand the reality. This is the second spam we have received about a domain they are selling. Thank you. ]
===========================================
Return-path: <sarah.therre@domcollect.com>
Envelope-to: webmaster
Delivery-date: Wed, 08 Feb 2012
Received: from mail2.adlinkgroup.net ([85.236.53.142])
by s484.c4.crucialx.net with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256)
(Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <sarah.therre@domcollect.com>)
id 1Rv7H6-0005Ol-5a
for webmaster; Wed, 08 Feb 2012
Received: from adaexch1.adlinkgroup.local ([10.31.35.3])
by mail2.adlinkgroup.net with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_ARCFOUR_MD5:16)
(Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <sarah.therre@domcollect.com>)
id 1Rv7Gz-0000px-NC
for webmaster; Wed, 08 Feb 2012

Received: from ADAEXCH1.adlinkgroup.local ([10.31.35.3]) by
ADAEXCH1.adlinkgroup.local ([10.31.35.3]) with mapi; Wed, 8 Feb 2012

From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?DomCollect_=3A=3A_Sarah_Therr=E9?=<sarah.therre@domcollect.com>
To: "webmaster" <webmaster>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012
Subject: consultant.info

Thread-Topic: consultant.info
Thread-Index: AczmYseLU+G7kH9sQ9eKENnvNdCvcA==
Message-ID: <7F898139F0CBEF@ADAEXCH1.adlinkgroup.local>
Accept-Language: de-DE, en-US
Content-Language: de-DE
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
acceptlanguage: de-DE, en-US
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_7F89813549BBEFADAEXCH1adlin_"
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6
X-Spam-Score: -25
X-Spam-Bar: --
X-Ham-Report: Spam detection software, running on the system "s484.c4.crucialx.net", has identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label similar future email. If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details.

Content preview: Good morning, Please excuse the direct approach regarding the domain consultant.info. My name is Sarah and I work for a company based in Germany, my manager has asked me to contact companies who are using the term "Consult" in their own web address or for marketing their business on the internet; I can see that this is certainly the case with your company, consultant.com, and wondered if you might be interested in the domain consultant.info? The term "consultant" has an average of 60500 searches every month in Google and with such a strong keyword and search volume I am confident that this may be of interest to your company. If you would like more details please do get back to me, if you are not the right person to be speaking with I would really appreciate it if you could either let me know with whom that might be or alternatively forward my request to the responsible department, any guidance or assistance would certainly be appreciated, thank you in advance for your time. Please appreciate that I found your details on the internet and will not be pursuing you further on this matter, should this not be of interest please reply with unsubscribe<mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE>
(click here) in the subject bar and we will remove you from our mailing list.
[...]

Content analysis details: (-2.6 points, 2.2 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
-2.6 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 0 to 1%
[score: 0.0000]
X-Spam-Flag: NO

-----Original Message-----
From: DomCollect :: Sarah Therré [mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012
To: webmaster
Subject: consultant.info

Good morning,

Please excuse the direct approach regarding the domain consultant.info.

My name is Sarah and I work for a company based in Germany, my manager has asked me to contact companies who are using the term “Consult” in their own web address or for marketing their business on the internet; I can see that this is certainly the case with your company, consultant-directory.com, and wondered if you might be interested in the domain consultant.info?  The term “consultant” has an average of 60500 searches every month in Google and with such a strong keyword and search volume I am confident that this may be of interest to your company.

If you would like more details please do get back to me, if you are not the right person to be speaking with I would really appreciate it if you could either let me know with whom that might be or alternatively forward my request to the responsible department, any guidance or assistance would certainly be appreciated, thank you in advance for your time.

Please appreciate that I found your details on the internet and will not be pursuing you further on this matter, should this not be of interest please reply with unsubscribe (click here) in the subject bar and we will remove you from our mailing list.

If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to get back to me.

Kind regards
Sarah Therré

DomCollect Worldwide Intellectual Property AG
Zeughausgasse 9a :: CH - 6300 Zug

UK Office 0044 203 3183953

German office
Neusserstr. 93 :: DE - 50670 Koeln
tel +49 221995553.27:: fax +49 22199555310
DomCollect.com :: mailto:sarah.therre@domcollect.com

I've been getting some complaints that most of my posts are negative and depressing. Some people are tired of hearing about scams, spams, and domain renewal rip-offs. Tell me about it...! Here's something that has nothing to do with the Internet and may put a smile on your face:

(hris

If you are like many domain owners, you are familar with the email spam I got below. I have posted about them many times and reported the spam with no positive results. They must be taking many people in to continue spamming about this scam over the years. I was just deleting them for a while, but I just got a new batch and they are for domains I don't even own anymore. Most are not even registered!

So I decided there must be something I can do to try and fight this abuse. What I started doing is saving the spam as a PDF and then faxing the un-edited spam back to them using their fax number. I've been using one of the free online fax services at www.http://faxzero.com. It doesn't take long to do and costs nothing but a little time. Try it yourself, it's fun! :-)
=====================================
Attention:  Important Notice

DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE

Complete and return by fax to: 1 (646) 783-3687

2885 Sanford Ave SW
Suite # 19746
Grandville, MI 49418
United States of America

ATT:  ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT
- sucker@NIELSENTECH.COM
---- - BLOOMINGTON - MN - 55438
UNITED STATES
COLLECTIVEVINES.COM

Domain Name:  COLLECTIVEVINES.COM
Search Engine Submission

Requested Reply FEBRUARY 06,2012

PART I: REVIEW SOLICITATION

Attn: -
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration.  This letter is to inform you that it's time to send in your registration and save.

Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.

Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering.  Search engine subscription includes domain name search engine submission.  You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated below unless you accept this offer. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.

This Notice for: COLLECTIVEVINES.COM will expire on February 06, 2012 Act today!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DETAIL OF (worthless and un-needed) SERVICE:  ANNUAL WEBSITE SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION FOR DOMAIN NAME COLLECTIVEVINES.COM

Detail of Service: SEARCH SUBMISSIONS

Reply by Date: 02/06/2012

For Domain Name: COLLECTIVEVINES.COM

Select Term
Your Existing Domain
Period Covered
Price

COLLECTIVEVINES.COM
[  ]  1 year
02/06/2012 - 02/06/2013
$75.00

[  ]  2 year
02/06/2012 - 02/06/2014
$119.00

[  ]  5 year
02/06/2012 - 02/06/2017
$199.00

[  ]  10 year
-Most Recommended-
02/06/2012 - 02/06/2022
$295.00

[  ] Lifetime (NEW!)
Limited time offer - Best value!
Lifetime
$499.00

Please ensure that your contact information is correct or make the necessary changes.

Full Name:  -                              

Email:    sucker@NIELSENTECH.COM                          

Email 2:  ____________________ 

Phone:  _____________________

Want to receive this notification for other domains you own? simply list them below:

_____________________                     _____________________

_____________________                     _____________________

Today's Date: _____________________

Signature:  _____________________

Payment by Credit Card
PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN BY FAX: 1 (646) 783-3687
(Please do not include your credit card number on this form just fill the information above and fax it to us, once we receive your fax we will send you instructions on how to make a payment by credit card)

COLLECTIVEVINES.COM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DS liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation.  You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the DS.  This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. There is no pre-existing relationship between DS and the domain mentioned above.  This notice is not in any part associated with a continuation of services for domain registration.  Search engine submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site.  If you do not wish to receive further updates from DS send an email to unsubscribe@sesubmission.com and in the subject line only put remove to unsubscribe.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents for this letter is strictly prohibited.  * 100% satisfaction guaranteed, you may request a refund within 30 days.

There are a lot of reasons, but I think the main one is that their basic business model is not what I would call "fair". The idea of an auction-based marketplace seems like it's ok, but when you are dealing with something of a monopoly, it isn't. Sure, you can stop your AdWords account and use other systems and marketing methods, but if you vote with your business choice, will it make any difference to anyone besides you?

The real turning point was a couple of years ago when Google lifted the $100 cap on bidding. Before that you could only bid up to $100 and that kept things somewhat sane although it seems unsane to say that a click that costs you $100 is reasonable. That click could be a bot, a click fraud scammer, a competitor, or just someone who is curious because your ad was written in a way that doesn't discourage idle passers-by. Ka-ching.

The thing that got me started on this hopefully coherent rant, is the realization that while an expensive click may be worth it to the advertiser, the cost to provide that click is very small. We're talking tiny folks. How small? Well, without access to financial data I have to guess, but I would say it makes the soda pop industry look like one with massive overhead.

It's not "fair" because one player selling Yak Butter will be able to pay a fairly small amount of money to reach their customers, while others selling cars, homes, and other high price items have to pay a much higher percentage of their profits to maintain sales levels. Of course, the advertisers COULD band together, declare a periodic "Bid Reset Day" where all bidding is set back to some low level and people can start out-bidding each other again while saving money during the process. Or they could just agree to not bid more than a certain amount and let CTR, Quality Score, and other factors determine whose ads should be ranked higher. But of course people will cheat and raise their bids and not tell anyone.

So I don't have an answer for that. I do have an answer for the problem of click fraud and that is to offer a system when people can "bid" for exposure. You pay a certain amount and your ads are shown for a certain amount of time. If the ads work for you, you may have to bid higher to continue. If they don't work, you lower your bid or stop advertising on that loser site. This is nothing new as a concept but large search companies don't like it because it benefits the advertiser and not them. Why should they put your ad on a site and let you get 100 clicks for $30 when they can give you those 100 clicks for $300 or more?

Look, someone one told me that when I sell a domain name, I should not take into consideration what that person can "afford" to pay. The price should be the price without that consideration. When you sell something for thousands of percentage points over what it costs to produce, is that price gouging or just a nice business to have...?

I just think it's a shame that some of that bloated profit could not be kept in the hands of the advertisers, that's all. Wouldn't that benefit the economy more than going into Google's pockets or those of it's shareholders? I guess it's a matter of your point of view.

We launched a new blog last year and with a modest amount of effort it has become one of the most popular sites for people looking for information on web hosting[Not true!]. As the attached screenshot shows, the traffic has increased every month site the site was launched[That's true]. A Hosting Guide offers information and news on web hosting and domain names. It's actually 4 blogs in one and that may account for some of how well it has done. The blog has attracted more than it's share of spam comments, but you will see that we have approved many of them since they are so funny.

We are quite pleased with our choice of b2evolution as a blog platform. It has worked really well for the most part and they have done many things that make using and managing the blog or blogs pretty easy. The fact that it does so well with generating traffic is a huge plus. And this was done without much optimization. You can specify what keywords will be used in a post filename if you want, but we have not bothered with that much. And of course you can edit the meta tags but we have been a little lazy and worried more about getting content published and not SEO.

From my perspective, b2evolution could become very, very popular if more people knew about it. I would say it is not as newbie friendly as WordPress is and certainly does not have as many plugins and templates. But what it has is really good and I prefer it to WP.