Stay at home mom admits to be spammer

[RawAlex]

I would add this as well: Any single spammer, provided they are not the type that cluster spams, isn't what I would consider as a huge problem individually.

I think of them as the punk on the corner downtown with a squeege trying to guilt people into giving them money. A single one is an amusing annoyance.

Now, picture that there is 100 squeege people on each corner. Every time you stop your car for 1 second,20 of them jump on the hood all trying to clean your windshield and steal your cash.

Finally, you stop driving because your car is now useless.

Spam is like that to me: So many spammers send out so much spam over and over again, repeating the same few subjects, watches, software to stop spam, pills, penis patches, and pump and dump stock scams seem pretty much to be it. Thousands of pieces per day of total, overwhelming shit.

It is enough to make me want to turn off email and not use it again.

I won't let these fuckers ruin the internet for everyone. JenC can go to jail and learn something from it.

Alex

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

...It is enough to make me want to turn off email and not use it again....

I dare ya

Am I the only one that thinks she was told that the lists she was sending to were double opt in & legal & all that crap?

[PR_Tom]

I wouldnt doubt that she was told that, dont know it, but wouldnt doubt it. This is why we (and others) dont take ANY email traffic whatsoever. Don't care how "legit" people think it is, just dont want it period. If we find it, we terminate it.

[fetish1]

Originally Posted by Tommy

I think you guys are being a little hard on her

on top of it she is a single mother who wants to work at home to be around her kids

So wanting to be at home with your kids should allow you to break federal laws that everyone else has to abide by or pay the cost? I can't even begin to bite on that theory.

[Tommy]

also I didn't see any thing about it being porn spam

I am sure if it was the article would have said so

Alex no offense but your analogy is sort of dumb but lets say its the same

there's 100 squeege people on the corner and when the cops arrest em what happens

a fine or some other slap on the hand but Poor Jen
(I dont know her)

is/was facing real jail time

the same could be said for graffiti
1 person writes his name on the wall and its not really a huge deal
but hundreds do it and the city looks like shit

plus it takes a lot of time and effort to remove that stuff

but what happens to the graffiti artists that get caught
a slap on the hand

all I am saying is let the punishment fit the crime

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Am I the only one that thinks she was told that the lists she was sending to were double opt in & legal & all that crap?

If so, she obviously didn't make a very good legal case for herself.

I am willing to say the punishment they hand down for these cases is pretty fucked up, but that's no surprise. Sexual predators wander the streets on probation while spamtards sit in federal fuck-me-in-the-ass prisons for 10-15 years. The leveed jail terms appear to have been designed for the monster spammers running 10 email servers out their basements. She was working cahoots with two other spammers though, so who even knows what kind of operation they were running?

[Loganp8000]

thats why i use a mac and spamarrest - nothing but my friends , clients and family emails get through. Its the asian spam that is the worst!
ALOHA

[Useless]

I'm not trying to pick on you Tommy, cause I really don't have the balls to do that , but...

Originally Posted by Tommy

also I didn't see any thing about it being porn spam

From the article:

A work-at-home mother pleaded guilty this week in a US federal court to sending millions of spams hyping Internet porn sites, prosecutors have said.

[Tommy]

I am not saying that she should get away scott free

but cmon.... nobody was hurt, no property was damaged

spaming isnt any worse then spray painting your name on a bridge

but because the politicians have a hard on for the internet
its a 5 to 10 year prison term

get caught spray painting your name on a bridge and I bet its a 200 dollar fine, MAYBE they might make you spend a day washing the shit off

[RawAlex]

Tommy, no problem - let the punishment fit the crime. For invading without permission the personal space of 1 million people (assume that many got spammed) - 1 minute of a jail time for each person bothered.

It was apparently porn spam as the article refered to her "porn spam program Phatbucks". I wouldn't be shocked to find it that it was both porn and mainstream spam.

Comes out to about 2 years give or take.

Greenguy, I can almost live without it now, most people I know send me PMs, contact me through IM type programs, or by hotmail... my email is almost entirely a dump for spam at this point.

PR_Tom: She may or may not have known, but at the end of the day, you are responsible for your own actions. Ignorance is rarely an acceptable defence.

Alex

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Tommy

I am not saying that she should get away scott free

but cmon.... nobody was hurt, no property was damaged

but because the politicians have a hard on for the internet
its a 5 to 10 year prison term

I really dislike spam, but I too have a beef with the punishment. It's far more severe than necessary. If they really want to dissuade a financial venture like spamming, then punish them financially. And it comes right down to what you said about the government having a hard-on for the internet. They don't know how to control it, so they go insanely overboard. Of course, they do so knowing that their aol subscribing constituants are mindlessly cheering them on. If someone was spamming phishing schemes or shit like that, that steals from the unsuspected surfer, then prison terms would make a lot more sense to me.

[amareck]

RawAlex: Oh yeah, spam faxes are against the law in the US last time I looked.

Yes they are Alex. Illegal to the tune of USD500/fax in fact. If you live in a state where the state has also legislated against fax spamming, make that USD1,000 (or thereabouts) per fax.

How do I know this? I built a document assembly system for my client who makes a living from suing spam faxers & mass broadcasters. Wish I lived in America, then I could make a healthy living out of getting spammed! Im not up on the other spam modes, but figured this might be interesting to anyone who gets spammed bad via facsimile.

[Bare]

No, she isn't a mom. On her mainstream site for stay at home moms that seems to be the biggest issue she came clean about. She has no children.

And yes, she says it was porn spam.

Now whether or not she believed it was legal, I certainly don't know. As I'm pretty sure none of us will ever know all the facts of this case. Just because some "reporter" says something surely doesn't mean it's true does it?

[Viper]

The problem with email spam isn't necessarily that I get a few spam emails

One problem is that kids get porn spam and I don't see how anyone can say "it's just spam" to that issue.

Another problem is that companies and individuals are forced to spend a lot of money to combat the spam and, because of spam, viruses as well and now spyware type programs. If you add up all the time I spend battling "spam", that's a ton of time I could have been spending on my business or on my relationships.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with spam these days goes far beyond the emails we receive. Here's what's currently happening that we don't even think about or even know about.

We all receive hundreds and thousands of gallery submissions every day of "cheaters".. One such group that I tracked down, redirects via GEO IP thru chhits.com. This site then redirects to some TGPs and also fake "galleries" that installs "spyware/malware" on their computers. One of the guys involved with this also sells spyware removal programs which, actually installs more. This spyware/malware then creates a huge base of "zombie" computers which these spammers then use to send out their spam.

Spam is much more than the few emails we receive in our inboxes.

[glowlite]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

I would add this as well: Any single spammer, provided they are not the type that cluster spams, isn't what I would consider as a huge problem individually.

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I really dislike spam, but I too have a beef with the punishment. It's far more severe than necessary. If they really want to dissuade a financial venture like spamming, then punish them financially. And it comes right down to what you said about the government having a hard-on for the internet. They don't know how to control it, so they go insanely overboard.

There are many excellent posts in this thread. We, as internet marketers, walk a very fine line when discussing marketing tactics.

Can anyone really define spam? So you receive unrequested email, big deal, so what? If you don't like it just stop using web based email. The internet is public realm.

Maybe we should jail ad execs at Budweiser, Proctor & Gamble, General Motors, etc, etc. I don't request TV commercials either, but hey, they shove them in my face anyway. They are spamming the public airwaves. En masse! But that's my problem, I'm using public facilities by choice.

As soon as 'they' (our collective government bodies) figure out how to tax spam it will be as legal as can be. Spammers don't go to the expense, time or trouble just to personaly piss you off. Out of so many emails sent some moron will buy a "genuine Rollecks watch".

For the record, I detest spammers. But I detest censorship and "big brother" control even more. I'd rather tolerate spam than risk being the next do-gooder target. The next time you jump on the anti-spam bandwagon you may be cutting your own throat.

later ................

[RawAlex]

Glowlite, well thought out, but I have to disagree with your concepts.

Budweiser and all the other companies that buy ad space on TV are not spamming. When you watch TV, you are accepting a contract that effectively says "in order to pay for this program, we sell ad space. If you want to watch the free TV show that cost millions of dollars to producer and distribute, you have to accept advertising. If you don't want advertising, pay your sat or cable company for HBO, which will cost you $x per month so that you don't have to look at commercial ads".

It is the same deal as broadcast radio - they play music, and in return, they hope you will also listen to the commercials that come up in between songs or programming. If you don't want the ads, call XM or whoever, and they will gladly take $X per month so that you don't have to be burdened by the commercials.

The internet works in reverse.

We pay for our net connection, we pay for the computer and software to access it, and spammers get to send shit to us for free (or such a low cost per piece that it is effectively free). They don't pay us to look at their ads, they don't give us a product (tv show, radio show, movie) to enjoy, they just jump right in and interrupt our lives and say "fuck you, here is my ad anyway".

Again, if I only received a couple of unwanted emails I day I wouldn't complain. But I have personally deleted 1000+ pieces today (post filters, time to add some new ones, I guess), which, even at 5 seconds a piece, it means I spent more than an hour hitting the fucking delete button just to get rid of shit.

Can you imagine having people come to your front door every 20 seconds all day, ringing your doorbell every 87 seconds? That it what spam it like to me. Every 87 seconds on average I get another spam that makes it's way into my inbox, requiring me to look to see if it is valid or not. (I got 5 more pieces in the time it took me to write this post).

All day, all night, without interruption, every 87 seconds your doorbell gets rung, or your phone rings, or someone just barges into your office and tries to sell your a stupid fucking rip off $20 rolex knockoff for $300.

No censorship - if you don't have my permission to spam me and waste my time, don't waste my time.

Alex

[Ramster]

Ok I will say this. Jail time for spammers is a tough call. I mean really as already said violent crimes get away with very little jail time all the time. How do you put a stay at home Mom in jail for sending email spam? Taking her kids away to foster care, ect, that's a tough one to justify. Second offense? Lock her ass up!!!!

I guess we'll see what she gets for punishment.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Budweiser and all the other companies that buy ad space on TV are not spamming. When you watch TV, you are accepting a contract that effectively says "in order to pay for this program, we sell ad space. If you want to watch the free TV show that cost millions of dollars to producer and distribute, you have to accept advertising. If you don't want advertising, pay your sat or cable company for HBO, which will cost you $x per month so that you don't have to look at commercial ads".

I saw something on CNN the other day about sponsors thinking outside the box to reach consumers that use TIVO, etc. to block commercials.

Apparently the Kentucky Fried commercial where 2 guys are having chicken and the other guys has noodles has a hidden discount code buried in it. Now you gotta watch the commercial in slow motion to get the freebie.

Another $$$ consideration on email spam is it is taking up something like 30-40% of the internet overhead by chewing up bankbone BW, etc.

[Tommy]

I argee with Ramster 100%

and the only reasons I have been sticking up for her is because its really not fair to send a low level spamer away for 10 years
especially a stay at home mom
(I know those facts are in dispute)

Rawalex I get about 1000 spams a day, maybe 400 get past my filters
it doesnt take me no 10 secs a email

I am sure it doesnt take no more then 3 mins to look thru em and dump em

[fetish1]

Originally Posted by Tommy

especially a stay at home mom
(I know those facts are in dispute)

There is no dispute over this...here are direct quotes from her "I need to come clean" statement on mommyjobs.com

Apparently he had been sending adult-themed spam emails (yes I know....ugh) and he wanted to train me how to send them for him and he would pay me $6000/month. My first thought was "no way, this is illegal and I'm not doing anything illegal". It was bad enough that I was doing "immoral" things such as working on his adult sites. <snip>
Then when he told me to "keep it quiet" I asked him once again if he was sure it wasn't illegal. He insisted that it was not illegal and the reason that I had to keep it quiet was because he didn't want to get sued in civil court by anyone (this was a man who had millions). So I relented.... <snip>
I made a promise to God. I told him that I would stop working with the adult themed material as long as he helped me become a success with my non-adult sites (mommyjobs.com and my other sites). <snip>
Furthermore I feel like I have to "come clean" about something else. In another extremely poor decision made by me (although I have learned differently now) I felt that in order to run a WAHM site I had to be a WAHM. Indeed I do work at home with my spouse, but I don't have any children. The "son" that I speak of is actually my nephew whom I feel very close to as if he were my son! So I have not lied about having a little man in my life, I only embellished that he was mine in order to have more credibility.

So, she asked if it was illegal, he said NO, but keep it on the hush hush cause I don't wanna be sued....Um OK! Then she tried to make a deal with God, I will quit this porn stuff IF I can make enough money at something else...so if God doesn't let me then I will continue to peddle porn. Next, she lied to unsuspecting "mommys" to gain credibility with another "legal" website.

Gimme a break, we need to quit looking at this girl as the Virgin Mary who is looked down upon for her unwed pregnancy!

She isn't a mommy who wants to work at home to stay with her kids.

I have a HARD time believing that she thought she was making $6000 a mo sending porn spam out that the boss wanted done on the hush hush and DIDN'T think something was fishy.

She has lied to make herself credible on the mommy site, why wouldn't she lie to cover up that she knew what she was doing was illegal??