http://privacycouncil.org Together we can end SPAM, Junk Mail and Unsolicited Phone Calls Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:34:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Some good news on the spam front this month: worldwide spam was cut in half when a single web hosting firm was shut down, The Washington Post reported. McColo Corp, a company based in San Jose, California (but claiming a Delaware mailing address), allegedly operated servers that sent spam messages for various ... http://privacycouncil.org/in-the-news-a-small-respite-from-spam/ I received this spam email a few days ago. The subject line caught me first: "Cleanse and Flush up to 20lbs from your colon!" The rest of the email reads like this: Lose Weight With Your Mate! - Flush out up to 25 pounds - Remove Deadly Toxic Buildup - Relieve Constipation ... http://privacycouncil.org/marketing-hall-of-shame-cleanse-your-colon-and-your-grasp-of-reality/ The scary thing about this email is not that someone was able to find my address and send it to me (unsolicited albeit), but rather that people must be responding to it.... http://privacycouncil.org/marketing-hall-of-shame-spam-email-135-thailand-lotto/ At this festive time of year, you might notice a few more phone calls than usual. The holidays are a prime time for telemarketers to amp up their solicitations and try harder to get your business. And if you're on the Do Not Call List (which you should be), you could still get ... http://privacycouncil.org/charity-telemarketers-should-you-give/ The holidays are coming, and that means more unsolicited catalogs and direct mail offers crammed into your mailbox than ever. While unsolicited mail is annoying at any time of year, the flood of junk mail usually hits hardest in November and December, all in the hopes that you'll make holiday purchases from the piles of ... http://privacycouncil.org/happy-holidays-unhappy-environment/ This week, I had the good fortune to see a presentation by Kevin Mitnick, the former hacker who now makes a living as a security consultant. I went into the talk expecting a 90-minute lesson on the latest tools and toys that hackers might use to steal my identity. Instead, ... http://privacycouncil.org/the-tried-and-true-identity-theft-technique-talking-you-into-giving-up-your-information/ Dear Privacy Council member, After 30 days of providing open membership to our community-driven list removal service, we're proud to announce the 500th member. Collectively, we've removed everyone from 4,320 marketing lists, including Do Not Call and all of the direct marketing and catalog lists. This has reduced waste from junk mail, ... http://privacycouncil.org/the-privacy-council-hits-500-members-mark/ CNN Reported that candidates have resorted to setting up robocalls that sound like phone sex. I thought we crossed the proverbial line with the calls themselves, it appears this takes it to a whole new level: Embedded video from CNN Video http://privacycouncil.org/sexy-political-robocalls-have-we-gone-too-far/ A few years ago, I was checking my Yahoo! email account and saw that I had received dozens of strange emails. All of them were listed as “undeliverable,” as if I’d sent the emails out, but then they’d gone to a nonexistent email address and bounced back to me. The ... http://privacycouncil.org/backscatter-spam-is-an-undeliverable-pain/ "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take ... http://privacycouncil.org/political-robocalling/