| Comment Number: | OL-101817 |
| Received: | 3/24/2004 11:33:57 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Updegraff |
| State: | PA |
| Agency: | Federal Trade Commission |
| Rule: | CAN-SPAM ANPR |
| Docket ID: | [3084-AA96] |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
A.(3) regarding "primary purpose" - most of the spam I get has miscellaneous characters thrown throughout the subject line, in order to throw off anti-spam software, or contains several lines of garbage characters at either the beginning or end (sometimes both). This, again, is an attempt to bypass anti-spam filters. Any message that bastardizes words by inserting extraneous characters so as to mispell but not completely hide the word, especially when done in the subject line, is also a dead giveaway. B(2) - I have gotten several confirmation messages re: purchases, warranties, setting up accounts, etc. for items I did not buy and with companies that I never contacted. In all cases (so far) I have contacted the companies and found that nothing was charged to my credit card, billed to me, etc.; however, my email address was being used by someone (or someone's spam generator) to initiate contact with those companies. C(1) - There is no good reason any company doing business on the internet cannot process an opt-out request within 1 day, regardless of whether it's a business day. This is an electronic exercise and should be handled by daily batch processes. D(1) - Failure to provide a functional opt-out link and resending the same spam under a different email address should be considered here. I've gotten 40-50 emails of the same ad (complete with identical lines of garbage text) from different addresses. E(2)(4) - Each sender should provide the opt-out. E(4) - The "from" line should clearly state the business name whose product is being advertised and the words "commercial solicitation". No first and last names of fictitious people (let's be real - none of the people whose names are listed as senders actually exist), no miscellaneous characters, etc.