IP: Results of SPAM Survey and Other Comments

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 08:04:10 -0600
To: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
From: dhenson () 1eagle1 com (Don Henson)


> Can I get your spam survey results


Here 'ya go.


Results of SPAM Survey and Other Comments


The word SPAM appears to me to be a word that is rather loosely bandied
about. In some cases, it is applied to any message posted to a large
number of newsgroups. In other cases, it is applied to a single article
posted to a single newsgroup. Since spamming appears to be poorly
defined, I decided to initiate a survey in an attempt to determine the
common definition of a spam and the attitudes about spamming.


As an interesting sidelight, three respondents told me in somewhat
indignant terms that there was a definition of SPAM and proceeded to
tell me what it was. All three definitions were different.


I have been posting periodic ads (for a Munition (Perl/RSA) T-shirt) to
several USENET newsgroups. One person got quite upset and articulate
about 'unrepentent spammers'. Other than that one person, I received
surprisingly few 'flames', requests to desist, or complaints to my
internet service provider. Of the complaints received, none seemed to
use the same definition of 'SPAM' although that was the term normally
used in the complaints. I therefore decided to see if I could determine
what most people meant when they used the term 'SPAM'. I selected eight
of the newsgroups that I had been posting ads to and posted several
questions for anyone interested to answer. I have listed the questions
below for reference and have analyzed the results of this admittedly
unscientific survey after the questions.


If you have any comments about the survey or its results, you will have
to let me know by email since I don't normally participate in this
newsgroup.


THE QUESTIONS


1. Do you consider this article to be a spam? (Notice that it is posted
to eight newsgroups.)


1a. If yes, why and if no, why not?


2. If this article had been posted to 7000 newsgroups, would you have
considered it to be a spam?


2a. How would you have known how many newsgroups it was posted to?


3. If this article contained an offer to sell you, say, a book on the
Art of Motorcycle Repair, would you have considered it to be a spam?


3a. If yes, why and if no, why not?


4. If an article offering to sell a book on the Art of Motorcycle
Repair was posted only to the newsgroup alt.motorcycle.repair, would
you consider it to be a spam?


4a. If yes, why and if no, why not?


5. Do you consider it a reasonable action to 'mail bomb' a spammer's
email address?


6. Do you consider it a reasonable action to complain to a spammer's
internet service provider?


6a. If yes, what action would you expect the internet service provider
to take?


7. Considering your own definition of spam, what is it about a spam
that bothers you?


COMMENTS: Use this space to make any comments you wish about spamming
or spammers. Thank you for participating in this survey.


THE NUMBERS


Total Number Responding: 54


     Question Nbr     Yes     No     No Response     & Yes
     ------------     ---    ---     -----------     -----
          1            19     32          3            35
          2            52      0          2            96
          3             8     42          4            15
          4             2     49          3             4
          5            15     37          2            28
          6            51      0          3            94


RESULTS CONSIDERING SURVEY NUMBERS & COMMENTS ONLY


Q1: Approximately 35% of respondents considered cross-posting to eight
newsgroups a SPAM. This indicates that there is wide disagreement on
what is and what is not a SPAM. The comments associated with this
question indicates that most of the Yes responses consider a SPAM to be
anything off-topic and a somewhat smaller number consider a SPAM to be
any kind of 'commercial' posting whether it was relevent to the topic
or not. One respondent indicated that a commercial posting to a SINGLE
NEWSGROUP is a SPAM.


Q2: There was almost universal agreement (96%) that posting to 7000
newsgroups constitutes a SPAM. However, there was considerable
disagreement in the comments about _why_ this would be a SPAM. Most
simply stated that the large number of postings made it a SPAM. Some
went to great lengths to explain that it would be a SPAM only because
it would be impossible to come up with a topic that was relevent to
that many newsgroups, indicating to me at least that the number of
newsgroups posted to is irrelevent according to their definition. A few
indicated that while posting to 7000 newsgroups would be a SPAM under
any conditions, it would be much worse if the posting was 'commercial'.


Q3: Relatively few resondents (15%) seemed to think that posting a
commercial ad to eight newsgroups constitutes a SPAM. However, many of
the No responses went on to explain that while this would not be a
SPAM, it would be objectionable either because it was off-topic or
because it was 'commercial'.


Q4: Only 4% thought that posting a single on-topic ad to a single
newsgroup would be a SPAM. A few mentioned that it might be
objectionable depending on the charter of the specific newsgroup.


Q5: Sadly, over a quarter (28%) of the respondents thought it would be
appropriate to 'mail-bomb' a spammer. Many of these people were the
same ones who stated the reason they didn't like spams is that spams
waste bandwidth. I did notice a strong correlation between No responses
and those who seemed to be a systems adminstrator, postmaster, etc. (I
would guess that these people have seen that mail-bombs hurt the system
more than the object of the mail-bomb.)


Q6: Again, there was almost universal agreement (94%) that complaining
to a spammer's system adminstrator, postmaster, service provider, etc
was an appropriate response to a spammer. Although not tabulated,
comments indicated that most expect a system admin to warn once and
then terminate the account of anyone accused of spamming. It also
appeared from the comments, although not specifically stated, that a
system adminstrator should accept the complaint without question and
discipline the user immediately using what I would consider to be
rather draconian measures. This could reflect the strong feelings about
spamming or it could reflect an attitude of trying to force USENET to
be what the complainer wants it to be regardless of what others want it
to be.


ANALYSIS OF COMMENTS NOT AMENABLE TO TABULATION


(These are answers to 'free-ranging' questions where responses from
different people would not necessarily address the same subject and
thus would be difficult to tabulate.)


I received an approximately equal number of requests to post the
results to the survey and NOT to post the results.


Many of the comments about why spam was bad revolved around spams
costing the reader money, i.e., it costs me money to download the spam,
wastes my time reading it, and wastes bandwidth of the system. The
words 'crap' and 'junk' appeared frequently in these comments. It
should be noted that what is or is not 'crap' or 'junk' will depend on
individual personalities. Therefore, it would be very difficult to set
up a system whereby you only receive what is going to be important to
or will interest the individual subscriber.


Some respondents indicated that actions such as mail-bombing and
complaining to system admins would be appropriate because it would
'teach' the spammers that they couldn't 'profit' from the spam.
Unfortunately, this is mostly counterproductive since most real
spammers, as opposed to those unjustly accused of it, use fake return
addresses or even other users return addresses so mail-bombing usually
doesn't teach the spammer anything.


DATA NOT CONSIDERED ABOVE (NOT FROM SURVEY)


As I mentioned earlier, I have been placing ads on USENET for a
Munition T-shirt. These ads were placed in newsgroups that I considered
appropriate for the topic. There were a large number of these
newsgroups. My technique was to post the ad to three newsgroups (using
cross-posting) per day until I got thru the entire list. The daily
postings would most definitely NOT be spam but the entire process over
a period of several weeks would, technically, be spam since identical
messages were posted to a large number of newsgroups.


This information is appropriate to this survey analysis as follows. I
advertised these t-shirts over a four month period. Except for several
flames from a single individual (who sells similar t-shirts), I
received fewer than a dozen complaints, notices of inappropriate topic,
requests to stop, etc. In contrast to the complaints, I sold over 1500
t-shirts. Of course, not all of these sales were as a result of
newsgroup advertising but let's assume that half were and to make the
math simple, let's set the number of complaints at ten. This means that
there were 75 times more positive responses to the ads than negative
responses.


I also advertised a different product to a different set of newsgroups.
Similar results were obtained with one exception. I apparently
misinterpreted the topic of one of the newsgroups. Within 48 hours of
posting my ad, I had over a dozen messages from readers of that
newsgroup that the topic was not appropriate. Since I was motivated by
profit, it appeared obvious that continued posting to this newsgroup
would not be profitable so I stopped posting my ad to that newsgroup.
This would seem to indicate that the profit motive is a pretty good
discriminator of what is or is not acceptable behaviour on the net.


MY CONCLUSIONS


The large number of positive responses to what I was doing with the t-
shirt ads, described above, is a strong indicator that this is
acceptable behaviour on the net. This stands in stark contrast to the
conclusions that could be drawn from the survey data alone, i.e., that
anything on the net that posts to a large number of newsgroups (large
being a variable quantity) or anything that smacks of 'commericial
advertising' is a big no-no on the net and likely to be met with
serious countermeasures such as mail-bombing or complaints to system
adminstrators.


In contrast to what the reader is probably thinking right now, I am not
presenting this survey analysis in an attempt to justify my actions.
Rather, I am trying to point out that the culture of the USENET is
changing. USENET is no longer a large semi-private computer bulletin
board system with restricted access. (Access used to be restricted to
those lucky enough to be in a job where USENET was available.) USENET
is now an integral part of the overall internet and is easily
accessible to people who have limited knowledge of computers and
computer networks in general and USENET in particular. To them, seeing
commercial advertising on USENET is a natural extension of what they
are used to, namely, print and TV advertising.


Don Henson, Managing Director (PGP Key ID = 0X03002DC9)
West El Paso Information Network (WEPIN)
email: wepinsto () colossus net
Check out The WEPIN Store at URL:
http://colossus.net/wepinsto/wshome.html