If you live in a closed community, such as a condo or residential
community, you know what the term "Poop Patrol" means. These are
your self appointed protectors, who are constantly on the alert
for any infraction of the rules of their community. Hang a towel
on your railing - bang - you're busted. If you own a pet, you
can be sure that the "Poop Patrol" is watching you.
Well, the Internet has its' own version of the "Poop Patrol", and
anyone who actively sends email over the Internet, has probably
run into them at least once. This is a fact of life. I had my
service canceled for an infraction I didn't even commit. Another
Newsletter had published my "Internet Tip of the Week" column,
and a "Patroller" sent a barrage of emails to every ISP he could
find in the Newsletter - my email address was at the end of the
article, and he sent numerous complaints to my ISP. I was
cancelled, and although the account was ultimately reinstated,
I learned a big lesson.
There are some people whose "holy grail" is reporting people as
spammers, and I guess the only kick they get out of life, is to
get the service of one of their "targets" discontinued. They
seem to get pleasure out of hurting other people. I call these
people the "Poop Patrol" of the Internet.
Face it - professional spammers do not use their local ISP. They
rent a virtual server for about a hundred bucks a month, forge
the return address, and spam to their hearts content. Only rank
amateurs spam using their ISP. You know them - they are the
ones who send you an email and show you the address of everyone
they sent it to.
So how do you protect yourself if you do send out bulk email such
as a Newsletter? While there is no magic formula, there are
steps you can take to protect yourself.
First - never, ever (and that is a very long time) send out bulk
email from your primary ISP, especially if you have web pages on
their server. If they cancel your service, you will also lose
all your web pages.
Second - provide a way to easily allow people to remove
themselves from your mailing list. This is where a List Server
comes in very handy. If you notify the people who are on your
list how to unsubscribe, this more or less takes you off the
hook.
My adds and drops go to a specific return address. If someone
doesn't read the instructions to find out how to be removed from
the list, and sends me a note, I will try to manually remove
them. But, if the address they are writing from, is not the one
they are subscribed with, and they don't tell you what the
address is, it is impossible to remove them.
Don't figure that if they were smart enough to subscribe to your
list, they are smart enough to remove themselves from it. You
must understand that there are people who won't read the
instructions, and will simply fire off a nasty note. If they are
not immediately removed, they may also fire off complaints to
your ISP. If there are remove instructions given, you will most
likely be on safe ground if they didn't follow them.
I use several ISP's when sending out my Newsletters. I use one
address to handle "bounces" (email addresses which are not valid)
and remove requests, and a different one for email to me. This
allows for an automatic processing of the "bounces" and remove
requests, and if a person wishes to write me, they can. If
someone writes me and asks to be removed, I will take the
necessary steps to try to accommodate them, but it may not always
be possible if they don't provide the proper address.
If you do get a notification from your ISP that a complaint was
made, do not ignore it. Tell them how people can subscribe and
unsubscribe from your list. Keep records of unsubscribe requests
that were made that you could not remove. If it was someone that
did ask to be removed with an address that was not subscribed,
send your ISP a copy of the note you sent them. It is also a
good idea to send your ISP a copy of the mailing they complained
about.
As I said at the beginning of this article, "there is no magic
formula", but if you exercise reasonable procedures, you should
not run into too many problems from the "Poop Patrol".
About the Author
Bob publishes the free weekly "Your Business" Newsletter
Visit his Web Site at http://adv-marketing.com/business to
subscribe and place a Free Ad for your business.