The New Generation of Spam

Return to my Complaint Department
Go to my home page

The New Generation of Spam

Spam was bad before (see Spam and Attempting to Remove Spam). But now, many email messages load huge files when you try to read them. What is being loaded is an HTML (or similar) document (sometimes including Cookies), and/or graphics. You are visiting WWW sites without knowing it. Read that Cookies article, because now email can store cookies on your hard disk, and the sender can get info about you and your computer, without any action from you. I don't see how to screen these out, or how to disable it. I now have my browser warn me every time a site tries to store a cookie on my hard disk.

Many of these seem to come from China, offering "fancy chemicals," "fancy triangles," "fancy multipurpose adjustable electrical products," etc. I filter out all of the "fancy" email. Sometimes they misspell "fancy" and get through to me.

And there are a lot of ads for human growth hormone and viagra and penis enlargement. There is even spam to help me avoid spam. And some are titled "Why haven't you called," or "About your order." As if I am going to do business with someone who tricks me into reading his email. One email was appropriately titled, "The lowest just got lower."

I am also getting a small amount of unsolicited hardcore (and softcore) porn, in my email. That has got to be highly illegal. Some of this must go straight to kids.

We are still warned to never reply to spam in order to be removed from their email lists, as that often generates more spam.

Addendum:

Look at this crap which I got by email, to which I have made some changes to make it anonymous (you will see what it looks like below):

<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#000000">XXXX Search Services 
Toll Free at [deleted] 
Same Day Service 
We Check People & Corporations Out For You!! 
 
 
WE DO ALL THE FOLLOWING: 
24 Hours or Less Turn-Around Time 
Full National Asset & Background Checks 
We will tell you everything to allow you to make an Informed Decision. 
All Real Estate owned in past  years plus deed transfer/tax assessor data. 
All Corporations, LLC's & DBA's in that person's name since 1983. 
All State and Federal Civil Judgments in past 20 Years. 
All Bankruptcies and Tax Liens covering past 20 years. 
All Addresses covering past 20 years. 
All State and Federal Misdemeanor - Felony Criminal Convictions. 
All residents of Household. 
All people associated, neighbors, relatives. 
All Aliases used. 
SSN Verification. 
Much  much more. 
Free report on all corporations found in asset search. 
 
Same Day Service 
 
 
   ADDITIONAL SERVICES 
Missing person searches 
We find them or no charge 
We run these searches with you on the phone & Same day service 
 
 
XXXX Search Services 
Toll Free at [deleted] 
Same Day Service 
 
 
 
</HTML>

XXXX Search Services
Toll Free at [deleted]
Same Day Service
We Check People & Corporations Out For You!!

WE DO ALL THE FOLLOWING:

24 Hours or Less Turn-Around Time
Full National Asset & Background Checks
We will tell you everything to allow you to make an Informed Decision.
All Real Estate owned in past years plus deed transfer/tax assessor data.
All Corporations, LLC's & DBA's in that person's name since 1983.
All State and Federal Civil Judgments in past 20 Years.
All Bankruptcies and Tax Liens covering past 20 years.
All Addresses covering past 20 years.
All State and Federal Misdemeanor - Felony Criminal Convictions.
All residents of Household.
All people associated, neighbors, relatives.
All Aliases used.
SSN Verification.
Much much more.
Free report on all corporations found in asset search.

Same Day Service

ADDITIONAL SERVICES
Missing person searches
We find them or no charge
We run these searches with you on the phone & Same day service

XXXX Search Services
Toll Free at [deleted]
Same Day Service

[BFRYTE^3247(^(PO1]

Now this ad looks fairly professional. But it should be 1K, maybe 2K, in size; instead it is 11K. That takes up room on my hard disk, but mainly it slows down my email. This email takes at least five times longer to receive than it should; thankfully most of my email is not like this. There is a huge amount of redundancy in the HTML code above. For example, see all those BACK="#000000" and style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #000000" (there are 106 of these) which can be replaced by one BGCOLOR="#000000". And the ad repeatedly asks for a font (Franklin Gothic Book) which my computer doesn't have. I like this one: . The "programmer" has gone to all that trouble to make sure that the line break (carriage return) is in Franklin Gothic Book font, size 3, point size 12, white with black background, language=0 (default language?). The ad contains way more formatting info (which should have been short and simple) than it does text. I guess we can't blame a beginner for being this inefficient on his/her home website. But this is a supposedly professional ad (by sleazeballs who send spam).

Return to my Complaint Department
Go to my home page