Hi Dave & Kenneth,

thanks again for the information.  I did check out Spamcop to find that I was NOT listed with them - so I am now investigating others suggested. However, I did find out something that I thought was in the past and dead and gone - which was that some of the former Soviet-bloc countries - and old stamping grounds of mine - such as Poland and Ukraine apparently are still blocking 'uninvited e-mails'.

I find this interesting as on the face of it it seems quite appealing as a recipient of spam, but on the other hand how does one create a business relationship (or even continue one as in my case) when the State apparently is blocking e-mail entry.

I would be very interested to hear from any of the Adland people in these countries to see if this is universal or just in pockets.  I have no problem with friends in Hungary, Rumania or the Baltics - and not even China nowadays although they used to do it.

On balance I think I prefer to have the choice of hitting the delete button rather than the State making that choice for me - what do you think?

Cheers - and thanks again,

Norm

Ad-books for Fun & Education

http://www.lulu.com/Normlaure0

Hi Norm, As one who owns a number of websites with email accounts, I do get a LOT of spam. However, I would rather, as you say, have the choice of hitting the delete button, instead of having someone else decide what I want and don't want. A classic example of this was when my daughter tried to send an email to her aunty and had it blocked because our ISP was on a blacklist. There are thousands of people on our ISP, so it's bound to be abused by some. Blocking the whole thing is simply ridiculous. I actually called her aunty's ISP and asked them why they would go to such extremes. They're the ones that told me that our ISP was blocked because it had been blacklisted for spam. After trying unsuccessfully to convince them that they were likely blocking a lot of legitimate email that their paying customers wanted, I gave up and created an email account for my daughter on one of my own domains. Nobody likes spam, but the extreme outcry against it has created a whole lot of other problems, too. God bless, Dave

Thanks Dave a very interesting letter! I too am terribly sick of spam! I am also sick of people opening up forums with titles that promise one thing and then all you get from them is spam and business junk! I have several businesses and when i asked people to be my friend or they asked me it wasn't to have their businesses pushed down my throat with multiple emails daily ( i'm talking 10 or more here!) I have found the best thing is to just remove myself from all the forums that aren't what they said they would be and leave it at that! Thanks for touching on a very sensitive subject for some! mainly those who are doing i'm sure! Again thanks have a great day!

Blessings, Susan

Hi Dave,

The content of your post definitely explains why I couldn't respond early enough. I honestly thought it was one of those unsolicited ad invitations so I dismissed it altogether. Thank God I didn't delete it outright, it was when I checked thru my box this morning that I discovered it actually came from you.

The fact is most of these bunch will not even accept to participate in intelligent and more rewarding community activities like forum discussions, votings and assistance probably because they are more interested in stuffing their gabbage down your track in the name of junk business offers or they are just dumb bags.

I wish they are reading this piece but don't be suprised, they don't have the time and common sense of checking healthy posts found in those fora, all they are interested is to drop some junk ads and pass on as quckly as they can.

Thanks for another great and educative piece.

Hi Susan, Thank you for posting! It makes this all worthwhile. Spam really doesn't have much affect on me, any more, although there are a few times, like when someone posts totally off topic on my forums, that I still see red! Spam in my email is just a fact of life that I have to deal with in large volumes, every day. Since I own quite a few websites, I get a LOT. God bless, Dave