SpamArrestIsASpammer

SpamArrest Is A Spammer!

Beware Spam Arrest Users, Spam Arrest is spamming your contacts! If you are a Spam Arrest user, did you know that the company that is helping you receive less spam is actually contributing to the spam problem by spamming the very people you communicate with?

Spam Arrest (http://www.spamarrest.com) claims to be against spam, yet they themselves are sending spam. That seems like a very inconsistent position.

What's even worse, if you are a Spam Arrest user, Spam Arrest is seeding their spam lists with your personal friends and contacts, those who perform the Spam Arrest sender verification process just so they can communicate with you.

The message below is an example of the spam messages that Spam Arrest sends to your personal contacts:

From info@spamarrest.com  Wed Feb 12 21:57:06 2003
Received: from spamarrest.com (smtp.spamarrest.com [66.150.163.172])
	by rhea.toyz.org (8.12.2+Sun/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h1D5v4Nx014046
	for <david@bdt.com>; Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:57:04 -0800 (PST)
Received: from [66.150.163.149] (HELO server1.spamarrest.com)
  by spamarrest.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.0.3)
  with ESMTP id 13654959 for david@bdt.com; Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:56:22 -0800
Message-ID: <7420347.1045115782009.Jmmarrest.com>
From: Spam Arrest <info@spamarrest.com>
To: David Beckemeyer <david@bdt.com>
Subject: ADV: Enjoy a spam-free inbox
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:56:22 -0800
Status: RO
Content-Length: 1025
Lines: 38

You may remember recently sending an email to a Spam Arrest customer, 
and receiving a response asking you to visit our website and type in 
a word that was shown to you in a picture.
 

It was pretty easy, wasn't it? 
 

Did you know that that one simple step stops virtually all spam from 
entering our customers' inboxes?
 

You too can enjoy the benefits of a spam-free inbox. 
 
We are so confident you'll like our product, that we'd like to offer 
you a 30-Day free trial. If you are un-satisfied for any reason, just 
cancel your account before the end of the trial and you'll pay nothing. 
 


Click here to visit our website and start your trial:
 
http://spamarrest.com/affl?1780501 
 
 
Spam Arrest
Take control of your inbox! 


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

You are receiving this email in response to an email you recently
sent to a Spam Arrest customer.

If you do not wish to receive further promotional emails from
Spam Arrest, please click the following link:

http://spamarrest.com/affl?1780501/optout/index.jsp

To add insult to injury, sending to abuse@spamarrest.com results in a sender verification request email, asking you to go through the Spam Arrest verification process, which will put you on the Spam Arrest Spam Mailing List to receive future spams!

Granted, the above email includes an opt-out link, but that hardly makes it okay. If Spam Arrest were really against spam, they wouldn't be contributing to the problem by sending spam (for more information on opt-out see: Stop Spamming Us).

For more information on sender verification systems (sometiems called challenge-response), including free implementations of systems like Spam Arrest, see: SpamCap.

You should know, I don't blame anyone for signing up for Spam Arrest. The spam problem has become so bad, making us all so frustrated that we'll try almost anything to reduce spam at this point. And I'm sure nowhere during the Spam Arrest sign-up process, did Spam Arrest tell you that they would be sending spam to all your conacts, everyone you receive mail from and send mail to.

Other views on this Spam Arrest marketing idea:

• Steve Atkins: http://static.samspade.org/spamarrest.html also titled Spam Arrest is a Spammer. He claims the above spam sent out by Spam Arrest is a violation of California state law (click to read about the laws and decide for yourself)
• Declan McCullagh's Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=spamarrest.
• Carl Bussjaeger: Spam Arrest: Busted
• Broadband Reports: When Anti-Spammers Spam
• AVN Online: Is the Spam Fighter a spammer itself?

Update: February 18, 2003

Apparently Spam Arrest has informed subscribers that they will stop this specific type of spamming. However their published privacy policy ( http://spamarrest.com/privacy.jsp) still says that they have the right to send email to any email address they receive from any source (including their sender verification process). It even says they can sell those email addresses if they wish. They also say they can keep all email messages forever, even after you close your account.