4 ms·

We seem to have reached a bearable truce with spam. I think well north of 90% of email people try to send is spam nowadays, but no more than 50% of what I actu

We seem to have reached a bearable truce with spam. I think well north of 90% of email people try to send is spam nowadays, but no more than 50% of what I actually see on any given day is PR junk, unsolicited or otherwise. Granted, messages I care about sometimes get lost, but it doesn't happen often enough to make email useless. ML-based "native advertising" blockers will eventually become as common as spam filters, and the war will become a slightly unpleasant stalemate. Maybe the end-state will be something like current product placement in movies and TV, which is usually either comically heavy-handed, or completely unobtrusive and ignorable.

esolyt 11y ago
But PR pieces are not exactly spam. You might block "27 Thoughtful Wedding Gifts" because it has product links, but there is chance some of those links would actually be useful to people looking for wedding gifts. Such a blocker would have to block the entire Buzzfeed, for instance.
- takno 11y ago
  I'm pretty relaxed about that
  - cfarre 11y ago
    Me too!
- niij 11y ago
  If anyone thinks that this behavior is desirable, download BuzzOff [1], it blocks BuzzFeed and other click bait on the web. It is more than a simple DNS block, it removes entire elements that contain click bait from websites like Facebook, so that they never even appear. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buzzoff/jhnikgadddmapihkfbadhpghihphphcb?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buzzoff/jhnikgaddd...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
aninhumer 11y ago
Actually, I was quite interested to notice recently that I don't seem to get that much spam any more. There are apparently only 16 emails in my spam folder from the last 30 days. I'm not particularly careful with my email address either.
- cosarara97 11y ago
  You must have a good filter. I get hundreds of chinese spam emails every month (which get moved to the spam folder automatically) since I made my address public on a couple mailing lists.
  - aninhumer 11y ago
    No, I mean I use gmail and that's apparently all the emails that have been caught by the filter in the past 30 days. That's why I'm so surprised. Unless Google is automatically deleting stuff it's really sure about straight away?
    - tim333 11y ago
      gmail is sufficiently good at blocking spam that a lot of spammers don't bother with it.
- jrnichols 11y ago
  I have fairly a boring Spamassassin configuration on my mail server, and I don't get a lot of spam reaching inbox. What I have noticed, however, is that I am now getting more and more telemarketing phone calls (robo calls) on my cell phone than I am spam hitting my inbox. It's reached the point where I keep my phone on silent all of the time because I get 5+ robo calls each day.
Nullabillity 11y ago
There are laws about disclosing ads, no machine learning required.
- username223 11y ago
  There is the CAN SPAM act, too, but it only works for legitimate organizations with reputations to preserve (politicians and legitimate retailers, mostly). SMTP-level blocking gets rid of most of the bottom-feeders, and ML targets the stuff in the middle. The web already has customer satisfaction and host-level blocking for the top and bottom, but ML will still be needed for the middle.
  - Nullabillity 11y ago
    The known sites aren't the one violating CANSPAM (and its ilk). There's a huge difference between websites that people choose to visit and an open inbox that anyone can ping.
    - username223 11y ago
      Given that even reputable/suable ad networks have been caught distributing malware, I don't see ad slots served by third parties as much better than open inboxes (though at least most mail clients don't load external resources or execute JS by default...). I think the web equivalent of CANSPAM-compliant mail is first-party advertising and third party networks who make a real effort to block malware and enforce some sort of design and privacy standards; maybe they would even obey do-not-track. The bottom-feeders are most of what currently shoves ads at people's faces.

esolyt 11y ago

But PR pieces are not exactly spam. You might block "27 Thoughtful Wedding Gifts" because it has product links, but there is chance some of those links would actually be useful to people looking for wedding gifts. Such a blocker would have to block the entire Buzzfeed, for instance.

takno 11y ago
I'm pretty relaxed about that
- cfarre 11y ago
  Me too!
niij 11y ago
If anyone thinks that this behavior is desirable, download BuzzOff [1], it blocks BuzzFeed and other click bait on the web. It is more than a simple DNS block, it removes entire elements that contain click bait from websites like Facebook, so that they never even appear. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buzzoff/jhnikgadddmapihkfbadhpghihphphcb?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buzzoff/jhnikgaddd...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

aninhumer 11y ago

Actually, I was quite interested to notice recently that I don't seem to get that much spam any more. There are apparently only 16 emails in my spam folder from the last 30 days. I'm not particularly careful with my email address either.

cosarara97 11y ago
You must have a good filter. I get hundreds of chinese spam emails every month (which get moved to the spam folder automatically) since I made my address public on a couple mailing lists.
- aninhumer 11y ago
  No, I mean I use gmail and that's apparently all the emails that have been caught by the filter in the past 30 days. That's why I'm so surprised. Unless Google is automatically deleting stuff it's really sure about straight away?
  - tim333 11y ago
    gmail is sufficiently good at blocking spam that a lot of spammers don't bother with it.
jrnichols 11y ago
I have fairly a boring Spamassassin configuration on my mail server, and I don't get a lot of spam reaching inbox. What I have noticed, however, is that I am now getting more and more telemarketing phone calls (robo calls) on my cell phone than I am spam hitting my inbox. It's reached the point where I keep my phone on silent all of the time because I get 5+ robo calls each day.

Nullabillity 11y ago

There are laws about disclosing ads, no machine learning required.

username223 11y ago
There is the CAN SPAM act, too, but it only works for legitimate organizations with reputations to preserve (politicians and legitimate retailers, mostly). SMTP-level blocking gets rid of most of the bottom-feeders, and ML targets the stuff in the middle. The web already has customer satisfaction and host-level blocking for the top and bottom, but ML will still be needed for the middle.
- Nullabillity 11y ago
  The known sites aren't the one violating CANSPAM (and its ilk). There's a huge difference between websites that people choose to visit and an open inbox that anyone can ping.
  - username223 11y ago
    Given that even reputable/suable ad networks have been caught distributing malware, I don't see ad slots served by third parties as much better than open inboxes (though at least most mail clients don't load external resources or execute JS by default...). I think the web equivalent of CANSPAM-compliant mail is first-party advertising and third party networks who make a real effort to block malware and enforce some sort of design and privacy standards; maybe they would even obey do-not-track. The bottom-feeders are most of what currently shoves ads at people's faces.