On 2025-05-09 at 13:10:21 UTC-0400 (Fri, 9 May 2025 13:10:21 -0400)
Mark London <m...@psfc.mit.edu>
is rumored to have said:
Hi - Our site has recently been getting lots of "cold emails".
You have my sympathy.
I've read according to a Google search, they aren't considered
"spam".
You can get a Google search to tell you anything you like, especially
now that they preface every search result with "AI" slop.
Whether a cold email is "spam" depends on the specific details. For
example, there is a webpage of mine where I specifically solicit email
to a particular address of mine regarding any errors on the page. Email
from anyone to that address pointing out an error there is not spam.
Email about anything else is spam. On the other hand, if I said "send
your sales pitches to me" on that page, it would be hard for me to call
anything sent "spam."
Basically, if an address is published, *some* people will claim that
they have a right to send mail to it for whatever purpose comes to mind
for them. Those people are called "Spammers."
Others will claim that if they publish an address with a clear
solicitation for email of a particular sort that when they get the
requested sort of mail it can still be spam if they dislike it for any
reason. Those people are called "Cranks."
People have debated the definition of "spam" since its first use to
describe unwanted bulk email. It has not proven a useful debate.
And websites provide instructions and templates for people, on how to
send cold emails. Or there are web sites that prove a service, to do
it for them.
Spammers, all.
Most infuriating, is that cold emails send several follow up emails,
if the people receiving the cold emails, don't respond! I've been
trying routine add custom filters to block them. Although I keep
having to adjust them every week. I'm wondering if anybody else has
this problem. Thanks. - Mark
This is what it means to run your own mail server. The tweaks never
really end.
Many of the sources of B2B "cold" emails operate from static locations
so they are easy for DNSBLs to list and they do. Many send mail with
URLs in the same domains repeatedly, and URIBLs can help a lot with
those. Based on the pitches I see aimed at an unpublished business
address, I know that a well-trained Bayes DB will nail them pretty well
too. These tools help reduce how much you actually need to do manually
Of course, SpamAssassin includes all of those tools so if you have it
set up properly you shouldn't have much trouble with these spammers,
especially not with their repeat pestering.
--
Bill Cole
b...@scconsult.com or billc...@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo@toad.social and many *@billmail.scconsult.com
addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
