I haven't seen this activity related to bonafide (Type 1 or Type 2)
spam, though I've heard anti-spammers say this a lot.
By definition, this is bidirectional communication. I've only seen it
abused by fake opt-out addresses that are either directly annoyance
related (eg, send IM floods) or send more email annoyance. For example,
I've observed that responding to 20 Nigerian 411 scams resulted in no
solicitation of personal information, one response about a forged email
address, and a increase in the rate of 411 scam emails.
It has to start with a valid address, or via a dictionary attack. I
haven't observed any real spamhouses doing this.
There is little point, if they start with a valid address. Most real
"harvesting" is via usenet, web, or email lists, or from published
directories sold by ISPs like AOL and Hotmail. So they already have a
legitimate address. Marketing business is not interested in how many
addresses don't bounce, but what the response rate is. That is, how many
purchases there were on a previous campaign to the same list. There is
little point in real organizations wanting to know whether the address is
valid, except to remove invalid addresses to reduce costs. Since email
costs are trivial, there is little benefit to this activity, unless you
have to handle the bounces. Mailing lists have this concern, but spammers
don't.
I think this activity is probably done by anti-spammers in protest of
"opt-out".
--Dean
On Mon, 26 May 2003, Bill Manning wrote:
sending crap to see if the email address is valid is spam. it is
unwanted, unsolicited, consumes resources I pay for w/o my consent.
the perp could care less what they send, as long as my local mail
system indicates delivery is successful. they then "harvest" the
email address. if they do it twice and get an affirmative response
that mail is/would be successfully delivered, ... double opt-in!!
thats one thing -we- generally call spam.
% Harvesting addresses isn't an email message. Its spam-related activity,
% but it isn't spam.
%
% --Dean
%
% On Mon, 26 May 2003, Bill Manning wrote:
%
% > % There are 3 types of email that we generally call spam:
% >
% > who are "we"?
% >
% > type 4: harvesting/collecting "working" email addresses to be re-sold.
% >
% >
% > --bill
% > Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
% > certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).
% >
%
--
--bill
Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).