Spammers beware!\u00a0 South Africa\u2019s Internet Service Provider Association (Ispa) is out to name and shame you.<\/p>\n
Last week Ispa launched its first hall of shame report that lists the top five South African spammers.<\/p>\n
On the list are Database Development, Dynamic Seminars, ILLUDER.com Marketing, James Munro and The Peer Group.<\/p>\n
It appears that the hall of shame is working, because within hours of it being published one of the companies listed, ILLUDER.com, contacted Ispa to negotiate how it could be removed from the list.<\/p>\n
Ispa\u2019s general manager, Ant Brookes, said it will be releasing the hall of shame reports every two months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep local spammers on their toes,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThere isn\u2019t much South African ISPs can do about spam from the rest of the world, but the least we can do is make sure that South Africa is not contributing to the spam problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said South African-generated spam is minimal when considered in the context of the global picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth African spam makes up less than 1% of the total spam people receive on their machines,\u201d said Brookes.<\/p>\n
He said this is little when you consider reports from Ispa\u2019s members indicate that almost 85% of traffic on most busy mail servers is spam.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is positive that South Africa is not a significant source of spam.\u201d<\/p>\n
ILLUDER.com Marketing\u2019s Wesley Peters said the company was quite upset to find out that it was included in the list and immediately contacted Ispa to rectify the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed with them the reasons we were put on the list and they went through some guidelines with us and there were one or two little things that were getting us on the list,\u201d said Peters.<\/p>\n
Brookes said ILLUDER.com has agreed to get its database in order and has committed, in writing, to fixing the problem areas.<\/p>\n
He said that ILLUDER\u2019s approach was great because the main objective of the spammer\u2019s hall of shame was to educate people.<\/p>\n
\u201cILLUDER was good, they have bent over backwards and agreed to do whatever it takes to clear their name,\u201d said Brookes.\u00a0 \u201cThey realized the damage being listed does to their brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be signing an agreement with them next week that will bind them to their commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spammer\u2019s hall of shame has been well received by consumers, with many leaving comments on consumer activism website MyADSL.<\/p>\n
These are some of the comments:<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamic Seminars and Peer Group, they seem to get everywhere,\u201d said Slootvreter.
\n\u201cAgreed \u2013 I receive numerous of their junk mails, was not sure everyone else did as well until now,\u201d said RPM.\u00a0 \u201cGreat initiative by Ispa, well done to them.\u201d
\n\u201cJob well done to Ispa, would be nice to have a top 10 and those IPs should be blocked,\u201d said Rehd.<\/p>\n
A user named Beri had a novel solution: \u201cSpam the spammers I say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brookes said Ispa decided spam would be a key focus area for the organization in 2008 and so it allocated some budget to its anti-spam working group to keep track of South African spammers.<\/p>\n
Brookes said Ispa had designed a rigorous set of criteria to identify spam.<\/p>\n
To make the hall of shame, a spammer must be reported three times by different Ispa members and at least two of these reports must be within a 30 day period.<\/p>\n
Brookes said the content must be unsolicited and be promoting something.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a spam reporting system in place that tracks all the spam that is reported by our members and then our working group combs the results looking for serial spammers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brookes said to test the spam hall of shame, Ispa ran internal reports from November last year until now.<\/p>\n
The Peer Group\u2019s Clive Price said it was proud of promoting education in South Africa, but obviously the company was not proud to be on the spammer\u2019s list.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we could find a way of getting our message to the consumer in a less obtrusive was, we would,\u201d said Price.<\/p>\n
Price said The Peer Group relies on clients who enjoyed their training courses to recommend people to contact and because 90% of the feedback is excellent, the referrals are high.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we get someone who wants to unsubscribe from their list, we do that immediately,\u201d said Price.\u00a0 \u201cWe never try to keep them on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attempts to contact Database Development and James Munro were unsuccessful and Dynamic Seminars\u2019 Brian Jude failed to respond to the Mail & Guardian\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n