After going through recent updates from a friend’s activity, it compelled me to think and write this article. Most of my buddies, even you? I came across many complaints about unwanted emails from Native Business Holders to increase their traffic with attractive email Newsletters, with relevance to user id and name. Which entices receiver to click on the provided link, however, that was not any malicious attack but it could harm the user if they are not cautious.
So what was their intention? 😛 Are they trying to follow any Killer email spam marketing? The answer is a BIG Yes! There lies various effective SEO Strategies and Marketing Techniques, which people usually follow to increase traffic of users to achieve certain goals. May be for some reasons! 😛 But it ought not to be like so 🙂
Nevertheless, getting back to the point while looking over the incident the mail send was ill formatted as if it was sent to increase traffic rate by not following ethical email marketing law. While inquiring about the issue through Owner they said that they got receiver email ids from various media help lines and yellow page sources. {Doesn’t make sense to me} 😛
According to the Law ‘The Privacy and Electronic Communications’ (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011, sending of emails to individuals if you have agreed to receive them, except where there is a clearly defined customer relationship.
An option to ‘Unsubscribe’ via a link or contact details of the organization, where you can send the request to Stop these so called ‘Newsletters’ should be mandatory. Always keep a copy of any correspondence. In addition, telling the sender about the problem and allow them time to put things right. In many cases, things can be resolved quickly without us getting involved. Moreover, if you continue to receive unsolicited marketing emails despite unsubscribing or asking the sender to stop you can complain. Any Spam mail format must be covering the following points:
Can-Spam legislation:
It is the full text description of the actual Act in .pdf format.
Clarification and regulations:
It is about Details and links for the new rules and clarifications announced in May 2008 governing unsubscribe mechanisms, definitions of “the sender,” and other aspects of the original legislation.
Marketing emails or spam:
Detailed information on permission and spam issues for newcomers looking to send out their first marketing emails..
Legal compliance and marketing:
Explains why complying with anti-spam laws does not make your email legitimate in the eyes of recipients.
Targeted opt-out emails: Myth busting:
Takes the arguments in favor of opt-out email and explains why they are wrong.
You’re receiving this email because… :
The comments on this blog post provide an excellent overview of whether you should put a line of text in your emails reminding people of where and when they signed up for them More or less according to law but at least one of these above specifying above rules. In Most of cases such mails are considered meant for heavy email bombing for scams and other types of malicious attacks purpose.
A cyber security analyst organizations study ‘Symantec Intelligence Report” has found that the global increase spam reporting and represented the graphs on data collected from December 2011 to January 2012. Shown below
Symantec Intelligence identified a new tactic in spam emails that included URLs that related to more than 10,000 unique domain names. Each of these domains had earlier been compromised and the URLs pointed to PHP-based scripts hosted on the compromised websites.
The report also predicts ongoing use by spammers of upcoming calendar holiday events, so you should exercise caution before opening an email from a secret admirer! Spammers and malware authors will likely exploit this day and the online activity around it by luring users to click on malware links posing other scams. Spoofing legitimate websites like e-greeting and all app providing is a frequently used technique for distributing email-borne malware.
Malware authors now also appear to be more strategic with their email distribution lists. IP addresses are more likely to appear on anti-spam block-lists if they are associated with a high number of invalid recipient emails. However, in January, the number of spam emails that were reported as spam-related non-delivery reports (NDRs), was consistently stable and low – which suggests that attackers could be taking a more careful, targeted approach to finding their victims, such as exploiting social media to enhance their social engineering tactics.
Tips to Protect yourself
- Do not put your email address in public.
- Check and read privacy policies and marketing options carefully who sends you emails?
- Do not click on the adverts in spam emails. By clicking on spammers’ web pages, it shows your email address is live and may make you a target for more emails. It can also reveal your computer’s IP address.
- Use a spam email filter on your computer. These are programs, which work with your email package to sift through new emails, separating spam emails from personal useful emails and blocking them.
- Keep your systems well maintained. Hackers and spammers can exploit software problems, so most software companies issue product updates and patches that fix known problems.
- Avoid responding to spam emails. You should not reply to emails unless you know and trust the sender.
- Updates are generally available through manufacturers’ websites and are usually free to download and install.
- You should also consider using anti-virus software to protect you against virus programs.
P.S. Article was written with strong intuition to create awareness among masses not pointing personally over an individual Firm or Company or Organization. This can be taken under consideration for any unethical spam-spreading firm or organizations.
Article by :: Chetna Purohit