Blaming Anti-Virus Companies For Adding To Spam Mess

from the catch-up-with-what's-going-on dept

I'm sure I'm not the only person who noticed that plenty of the annoying myDoom related messages that found their way into my inbox in the last few days came from anti-virus companies telling me (incorrectly) that I had sent someone a virus. I didn't send anyone the virus. As everyone knows, myDoom works by spoofing the "from" address - just like almost every other virus/worm these days. So, why exactly, do anti-virus companies continue to send out these messages? Found over at Politech is a nice little rant about just how stupid it is that these anti-virus companies are continuing this practice. In fact, the author claims that they're just as bad as spammers. First of all, they know that these viruses and worms are spoofing return addresses - yet they continue to send out such "you've sent a virus" emails, even when they can be pretty sure it's not true. At the very least, they should be smart enough to not send out such a message on viruses that are known to spoof emails. Second, many of these messages include annoying advertising for the anti-virus product itself. Thus, it's unsolicited commercial email advertising - and it even violates the CAN SPAM law by not offering an opt-out. So, from now on, when you get such bogus anti-virus reports, you should report them as spam to the proper authorities.

9 Comments | Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    Antivirus software sending warnings...

    identicon
    Vegard Riseng, Jan 28th, 2004 @ 2:43pm

    You said a guy claimed that this practice by antivirus software of sending "Your mail was infected" messages is just as bad as spamming. I beg to differ. I think it's much worse. Fortunately, the last time my inbox was drowned by these messages I teached my junkmail filter to recognice these "warnings" as spam, and it's been sending "520 - Junk Mail Not Accepted" back ever since.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    "appropriate authorities"

    identicon
    Michael Leuchtenburg, Jan 28th, 2004 @ 3:16pm

    Who exactly are we supposed to report CAN-SPAM violations to? I've yet to see any information on that.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re:

    identicon
    Kevin, Jan 28th, 2004 @ 6:33pm


    to report CAN-SPAM violations you download the proper forms, print them out, carefully fill them in and then file them under your hampsters habitrail.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Re:

    identicon
    PhuzzyLogic, Jan 29th, 2004 @ 7:15am

    After the Hamster cage cleaning, you can try here:

    http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/inbox.htm

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    you can turn off the bounce messages...

    icon
    drteknikal (profile), Jan 29th, 2004 @ 10:26am

    Rather than blame the anti-virus vendors for including the option to generate a non-delivery report or other bounce messages, why not blame the system administrators who accept the default settings without question?

    All the products we work with allow us to modify or disable these messages, which we do. We notify our own internal users when we munge their mail because it was infected, but we don't bother notifying senders that their message wasn't delivered because it was infected or spam.

    We looked at the volume during spam or virus outbreaks, and found that the bounce messages were clogging our system more than the spam or viruses. Beyond their being futile, we disabled them because our systems perform better without them.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    spoof

    identicon
    tommy, Jan 31st, 2004 @ 6:44am

    Hi. I agree with you regarding the spam mail antivirus vendors send with the excuse im infected.
    Can you please tell me why the virus can use my address & maildomain to send itself to other users, even know that im not infected ?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  

    Re:"520 - Junk Mail Not Accepted"

    identicon
    annette, Feb 9th, 2004 @ 10:07am

    Very interesting. I know how to set the filter, but how do I set the
    "520 - Junk Mail Not Accepted" reply??
    I'm using Spamcops Webmail, but would be inte3resting in Eudora, too.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    softwares, Oct 18th, 2009 @ 6:54am

    i am also not happy due to this spam problem.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Pauly, Feb 18th, 2010 @ 12:26pm

    I think these emails set the big boys apart from the also-rans. My antivirus of choice did not execute any of these messages, and I just add that to the long list of positive things I have to say about them.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss
From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This