I recognize that it is a serious violation of netiquette to post "spams" to this list, but the following message is directly targeted at listowners. I received it earlier this morning with a copy of my latest TOURBUS post attached (TOURBUS is a 40,000 person OPEN,CONFIRM distribution list operating on LISTSERV.AOL.COM). I particularly enjoyed the line in the spam that says: All you would need to do is to send us your list electronically, and we do all the work and send it back to you cleaned from the problematic addresses. As a thank-you for this spam, I offered the author of this spam some friendly self-improvement advice ("In the future, please purchase your clues at a higher quality clue store.") ----- From: Ram Avrahami <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Email List Cleaning Service Dear Sirs, It is our understanding that you are involved with mass email solicitations. Below is a sample message that apparently was sent from you or your computers. Such messages upset many recipients, which is not helpful to your business. In fact, you or your ISP might have been flamed before or you probably heard about initiatives to regulate or prosecute electronic solicitations. Now, you can take a simple precautionary step to prevent much problems for yourself in the future. We offer a simple cleaning service that removes from your emailing lists the addresses of people who have explicitly asked not to receive further email solicitations. We have a large and growing list of such people. These are not people that you want to mail to, and an upfront cleaning can save you much trouble with very little effort. All you would need to do is to send us your list electronically, and we do all the work and send it back to you cleaned from the problematic addresses. It is just that simple. In fact, a company that uses our service is non other than Cyber Promotions, Inc, which is one of the most well known companies for sending out email solicitations. To reduce your risk to the minimum, we commit that we will not use your emailing list for any other purpose but the cleaning, nor will we disclose it in any shape or form. Furthermore, at this time the service is free, so you have absolutely nothing to lose from trying it. Please contact me at [log in to unmask] for more details. We hope to be able to serve you soon. Sincerely, Ram Avrahami [log in to unmask] .~~~. (\__/) .' ) Patrick Douglas Crispen /o o \/ .~ The University of Alabama {o_, \ { [log in to unmask] / , , ) \ http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/ `~ '-' \ } _( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels. '---..{____}