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Re: Holy Spam!



On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 02:00:52PM -0400, Dan Anderson wrote:
> > It isn't just people on listserv's that will be annoyed: please never
> > send automatic replies; the "from" address is a lie anyway.
> 
> 	This is one of the reasons I put a caveat about listservs not following
> rules.

The problem I described isn't a problem with listservs.  The problem is
that there are infected machines out there which have nothing to do with
me which are sending massive amounts of email with my address on them.
(The "from" address is literally a lie; the worm just scraped it off a
web page somewhere, I guess).  The people sending automatic replies to
those messages are shoveling nearly as much email into my mailbox as the
original worm.

So, again, please don't send automatic replies.

> However, FWIW, on a business only address (which isn't
> subscribing to a listserv) this can be a very good way to make sure a
> vital e-mail isn't accidentally sent to /dev/null.

On such an email address I'd be even more wary about using an
autoresponder because I don't want people that are potentially offering
me "multi million dollar" contracts to have to jump through extra hoops
to contact me.

--b.



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