[PLUG] Spam legislation Needed - Wish we could do the same for popups

Greg Long greg at gregory.myftp.org
Mon Apr 8 17:32:44 UTC 2002


How about popup ads?

ALTHOUGH the following is on the Windows platform, it *IS* noteworthy 
because of the greater spam issue - and things like this for Linux may 
not be far behind.

GAIN/Gator has a new one which is included with some installs, the DivX5 
Pro bundle being one example.  DivX is a fine product, but I wish they 
would use another advertiser supported method than GAIN.  Gain installs 
as secretly as possible, and mannages to prefetch its ad-seeker when you 
load your broswer (usually IE on Win) and even bypasses the popup killer 
and ad blockers.  There are no entries in Add/Remove Programs like a 
standard Winapp.  with a little digging, I found the offender was 
GMT.EXE and killed every reference to it I could find.  It seems to do 
the trick.  Last night I did this on Savenow.exe - another one on my 
fiance's laptop, and now it won't boot - chokes at LILO (dual boot).  I 
can't really attribute this to killing Savenow.exe but it does make a 
guy wonder. (incidentally I can't boot to Linux either, as I removed it 
days ago to free up HD space for her - my laptop arrives tomorrow and it 
will dual boot).

---Greg

Rich Shepard wrote:

>  The following e-mail was sent to my local state legislators. You can find
>your representative and legislator from the Oregon state web site. I urge
>you to send them the equivalent (or, the same e-mail for all I care) as we
>try to have Oregon join Washington in having a state law against spamming.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rich
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
>John/Karen,
>
>  I just learned that ORS 646.872 applies only to paper facsimilies sent to
>a fax machine that are unsolicited and continue despite requests to have
>them stopped. I've taken advantage of this law on a couple of aggressive fax
>spammers.
>
>  The Direct Marketing Association maintains lists of those of us who opt
>out of receiving unsolicited paper mail and telemarketing calls. About twice
>a year I renew my desire to not receive unsolicited junk mail and
>telemarketing calls.
>
>  Banks, insurance companies, utilities and other entities also allow me the
>opportunity to opt out of their sharing information about me with other
>business units or entities. This cuts down on those unsolicited (and
>unwanted) advertisements.
>
>  Electronic mail (e-mail) spam is, so far, exempt from these laws. Many of
>these firms send Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE, or spam) despite
>repeated attempts to have them stop.
>
>  One of the most egregious violater of my privace and right to be left
>alone is a domain called 'optamail.com'. This is a part of THE HUMOR NETWORK
>LLC (owned by Eric Targan and with a registred address and phone number of
>54 W. 39th Street, New York, NY 10018, Phone: 212-561-1956, Fax:
>212-769-9060; Email: hostmaster at humornetwork.com). Calls to that telephone
>number are answered by machine and never returned; e-mails to that address
>do not generate a response. The ISP used by optamail.com is run by Applied
>Theory Communications, Inc. (125 Elwood Davis Road, Syracuse, NY 13212-4311,
>315-453-2912, (FAX) 315-453-3052). A telephone call there resulted in their
>claim that optamail.com is not one of their customers.
>
>  I urge you to modify Oregon's Statutes before the next scheduled
>legislative session in 2003 to close this gap. Perhaps ORS 646.872 can be
>modified to include electronic mail; perhaps a similar law can be passed by
>declaring an emergency and acting now.
>
>  If you need substantiating documentation of this abuse, as well as other
>known spam factories, please let me know. I will arrange for abundant
>evidence to be provided to support such legislation.
>
>Thank you very much,
>
>Rich
>
>Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
>
>                       Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
>            2404 SW 22nd Street | Troutdale, OR 97060-1247 | U.S.A.
> + 1 503-667-4517 (voice) | + 1 503-667-8863 (fax) | rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
>                         http://www.appl-ecosys.com
>
>
>
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