posted on June 6, 2001 08:13:16 PM new
Hello victoria, a number of folks have reported receiving that Spam which was approved by eBay. A survey of some sort? I think it's probably the same one silkmoth received since they all said the TO and FROM fields were their email addy.
posted on June 6, 2001 08:13:55 PM new
victoria, I got the same email. I looked at the source code, and couldn't tell where it was from. I don't like emails that won't show where they are from, and from a (supposed) ebay partner, this is even worse.
If you view the source page you'll discover a nice web bug and the mention of the dreaded ClickTrade.
<b>After you selected your choices, don't forget to </b>
<input type=submit name=gift value="Press to claim your gift"></td>
</table></form></td>
</tr>
<TR><TD colspan=2>Links to some of our sponsors:
</TD>
</TR>
<TR><TD colspan=2>
<!-- START CLICKTRADE: CHANGES PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION -->
<!-- END CLICKTRADE: CHANGES PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION -->
</TD>
If you follow the ClickTrade trail you'll end up on bcentral which is a Web Portal of Microsoft. EBay and Microsoft have formed an alliance. Isn't that nifty?
http://www.bcentral.com/services/ra/default.asp
This is just the beginning of the eBay Spam onslaught.
posted on June 6, 2001 08:38:54 PM new
Hi microbes. Go to www.paid4survey.net/ and you'll see the survey on that page and then view the source.
BTW, ClickTrade pays their associates per click so I wouldn't click on the link after the part about making your choices in the email. Just go to their site yourself and be sure to clear out your cache when you leave. This email originated from either eBay or Microsoft but they're using the paid4survey to distribute the Spam.
You make me want to click on it a few thousand times. If they pay per click, a million clicks could cost them enough to make them stop send this stuff. (Of course, they undoubtable track where the clicks come from, and only pay off for the first one. )
posted on June 6, 2001 08:55:58 PM new
Yep, you're right. I'd love to try to cost eBay some money right now. BTW, I forgot to mention that the image code that I showed is the one close to the bottom of the page and it's a web bug. It's only 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size and if you look at the actual page there isn't a photo located there.
posted on June 6, 2001 09:12:03 PM new
You would think that ebay would realize that sellers (their sellers) get lots of emails, and we come running when we hear the bell chime, so we can answer questions and try to make some money (for ourselves, AND ebay) and to come running only to find garbage from ebay is counter productive. If I'm listing auctions, and the bell chimes, I go look to see what came in, so what does ebay want me to do, list auctions, or look at their stupid spam??? I don't really want to shut off emails from ebay since they MIGHT send me something I would consider importaint, but it is getting stupid.
posted on June 7, 2001 03:41:51 AM new
Blanche, thanks for taking time to help. Yes, it is the same email from paid4survey.net.
One thing that no one else has mentioned is that there is a web bug in the email itself, so paid4survey can track who has opened it and who deletes without reading.
Yesterday I was concerned that someone was using my email address to spam others. Now I am just pissed at the slimy, underhanded tricks that eBay is using.
posted on June 7, 2001 02:55:21 PM new
Yet another reason to turn off the HTML rendering part of email, and let the "active" stuff spin off to a separate file and can be deleted -- or at least turn off auto-rendering of images. I won't update to email clients that won't let me shut off HTML rendering permanently.
The trick with web bugs, if anyone hasn't heard of these disgusting critters yet, is simply in the address the email (or webpage) is forcing you to retrieve the 1x1 pixel image from. The image doesn't matter; it's where your browser or emailer is forced to get that image from, namely a URL complex enough to uniquely identify each recipient (e.g.):
in the next. An "excellent" and intrusive way of keeping track of who opened the email. The more bugged spam you open, the more bugs spit something back to the direct marketer, and the more likely you are to get an even higher rate of spam -- as in, "Hey, we've got a live one here! Let's spam him some more!"
The link in the quoted email in this thread is a bit on the short side, ID-wise; but maybe paid4survey doesn't handle a lot of volume yet.
Best way to "play dead" IMO is to turn off HTML rendering in email, which makes the HTML portion spin off as an attachment. If someone you know and trust sends some HTML that you *do* want to view, the email client should provide a link to the attachment that you can go to in your browser.
Most of the time, though, unless your friends have an artistic bent in HTML, it is their words that are important, which you will see just fine without HTML rendering.
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
[ edited by dc9a320 on Jun 7, 2001 03:00 PM ]
Is the current version of Eudora (5.0, I think) one of those that can turn off HTML?
I am using an old version of Eudora Lite precisely because it does not support HTML in emails. It also does not support email filtering, which is a capability I wish it had.
I have considered upgrading to the paid version of Eudora because it supports filters and multiple email accounts, but there is very litte information available about it on the Qualcomm site. I'd hate to install the thing and have it strip my no-HTML protection from web bugs.
posted on June 8, 2001 03:02:53 PM new
I checked with someone who uses Eudora 5.0, and who is also aware of the problems with HTML in email, and was told he's never found such an option in Eudora, unfortunately. I don't know why they didn't choose to include one.
I do know of a site (http://www.houghi.org/ that discusses how to turn off the sending of HTML email (so that you can be sure you are only sending plain text, and not unnecessarily tripling the length of your email), and will see if I can contact the webmaster about whether s/he knows of a way to disable the rendering of HTML on received email.
I have stayed at the 3.x version. I don't know if 4.x was an issue, because I don't get every major upgrade to start with, and by 5.0, didn't like that I'd first have to try adware (Lite), and then might not be able to shut off the HTML rendering even if I got Pro (a losing proposition either way, IMO). Sometimes less is more.
Sorry I can't be of much help for the moment, but I'll let you know if I hear more about Eudora 5.0
)