On August 20, Peter Hemming of rinconprojectgroup.com sent this objection to the presence of his domain name or names in the Rhyolite Software list of Unwelcome Domain Names. In his objection, Mr. Hemming wrote in part:
Just wondered why we are considered an unwelcome domain? We enjoy over 2M subscribers to out travel monthly newsletter. Have enjoyed the same subscribers for over 4 years. Some people are convinced that they simply can't get off our subscriber list by clicking "remove" button which actually works! We are an honest company and work totally within the federal anti spam laws of both USA and Canada.
In fact one of the two major places where the US government research for places to stay!
The Unwelcome Domain Name listings exist because of this unsolicited bulk email advertising or spam. That is a dccm logdir file. The target address in that page has been censored to protect a "spam trap" from disclosure. That spam trap that has never been used or advertised. Any mail sent to it is unsolicited. It exists because several years ago unsolicited bulk mail advertisers started sending mail to it. I suspect that it originated in broken spam target harvesting software that misconstrued valid addresses. I wonder if Mr. Hemming is aware of the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act concerning target address harvesting. Of course, because the unsolicited bulk advertising sent toward Rhyolite Software was sent before the CAN-SPAM, that may be moot.
Whether Mr. Hemming stops sending unsolicited bulk email advertising to targets who click "remove" buttons is irrelevant. On principle I do not unsubscribe from junk mail I didn't ask for; instead I adjust my spam defenses.
I avoid repoting spam sent to traps to keep advertisers from "listwashing" or removing my traps from their target addresses. Any mail sent to an address that certainly did not ask for it, such as a spam trap, is spam. It is quite effective to feed such mail to a content filter such as the DCC. Subsequent substantially identical copies sent to real addresses can be detected and rejected or discarded.
Either Mr. Hemming failed to heed my request to check the public archives before objecting to a listing here or he thinks I'm awfully stupid. The Google NANAS archive includes a report from someone else of another of Mr. Hemming's advertising efforts.
Other questions are answered in the list of objections about entries in the Rhyolite Software, LLC list of unwelcome domains.
Contact vjs@rhyolite.com but not this spam trap.
