Newsletter Archive

The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com
The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter
This issue is for Friday, February 20, 2004
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Table of Contents
01. New Type of Spoofing
02. Internet Notes
03. Tip Of The Week
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*01 New Type of Spoofing

As most of you probably know the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
(http://www.ftc.gov/) amended the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR)
(http://www.ftc.gov/os/2002/12/tsrfinalrule.pdf) to create a national
"National Do Not Call Registry" (https://www.donotcall.gov/). The idea
behind this registry is to allow consumers that don't want to receive
telemarketing calls to be placed on a list that telemarketers won't
call.

The list doesn't stop all telemarketing calls; in fact it fails to block
some of the worst callers.  This list doesn't apply to calls from or on
behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors.
You can still get calls from companies with which you have an existing
business relationship, or those to whom you've provided express
agreement (see fine print) in writing to receive their calls.

Beginning the first of this year, telemarketers must now transmit Caller
ID information. According to the FTC, information transmitted through
Caller ID can facilitate the filing of complaints if consumers suspect a
caller is violating the National Do Not Call Registry. Consumers and
apparently the FTC think they can use Caller ID to report companies that
break the rules. This is a good idea in theory only! The shifty group
they are actually after has already discovered they can spoof the Caller
ID.

Just to clarify things, you can't make an outbound call on a toll free
number. Toll free numbers are inbound only! People call you on your toll
free number and you pay the long distance. For any toll free number to
appear in caller ID, it must be programmed into the system. In fact you
can program in any number you want to be reported to Caller ID. This
brings us to the newest spoofing problem.

If you've had your e-mail addressed spoofed by a spammer, then you
already know how much trouble it is. Now we have to worry about
telemarketers spoofing our toll free numbers, to prevent angry consumers
from reporting them. Earlier this week I started getting calls and
e-mails from people complaining about our telemarketing. These people
think we have called them because our toll free number is showing up on
their caller ID. We have a telemarketing company spoofing our toll free
number and every time an angry consumer calls our toll free number to
complain, we pay.

Chuck Arning at chuck@inter800.com

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*02  Just a Few Interesting Internet Notes This Week

Several of the local newsletters have been talking about the new
"in-thing" for getting money for politicians and would-be politicians.
Over the last several months newspapers have repeatedly said that
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean "pioneered" the idea,
raising millions form his website, Blog for America, for all the good it
did him.

However, one of the most interesting stories is about Kentucky
congressional candidate Ben Chandler, who bout $2,000 worth of ads on
blogs and raised $80,000. Actually, Chandler seems to have been talked
into it by his campaign manager, Mark Nickolas, as, according to
Chandler's staff, about the only thing he did on the Internet was play
fantasy football. He learned quickly though, as he posted a victory
thank-you letter on the blogs where he ran the ads saying, in part,
"With the help and support of so many in the blogosphere we were able to
make history." He also has a link at the bottom allowing one to click to
contribute.

So far the only participating political Blog ads we've seen have been
Democrats, but I bet we see a lot more in all parties rapidly in the
near future.

To Another Ongoing Issue:

As the most recent weeks spam attacks have led to hundreds of ideas
being batted around about how to effectively combat this contagion,
perhaps the one being looked at the most is e-mail postage. Although I
feel that there are many problems with this method, of which
administration is staggering, companies like Microsoft and Yahoo! are
giving it serious consideration. This sender-pay approach has been
targeted by a number of existing anti-spam companies, like Vanquish and
IronPort, and is creating start-ups, like Goodmail. At face value, ISPs
like the approach on its surface, because it helps them to defray the
cost of handling the e-mail.

I believe that this approach may work initially for bulk e-mail users,
and may also help eliminate a problem for individual users with many
false positives - that is when the anti-spam blocks or dumps a
legitimate message. Several of the other anti-spam companies recently
said that they are also working hard on eliminating false positives by
creating better filters, managing the approved lists and so-forth. These
guys are also obviously against the e-mail postage fee approach.

Regardless of what approach one is leaning toward, he can bet that there
is going to be a lot more to read about in the future.

Steven Jackson - sjackson@inter800.com

Once every second someone searches the Internet 800 Directory looking
for someone to supply them with goods or services.

Will they find you or your competition?

Call 800-299-1879!
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Tip of the Week

Tired of double clicking icons in windows, here's how change to single
click.

-Right-click your Start button and select "Explore".

-In Windows Explorer, hit "Tools",  then "Folder Options".

-Select the "Web Style" radio button and hit OK.

If you have any tips or shortcuts that you think the readers of this
Newsletter will find useful, send them to chuck@inter800.com

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