Spam emails seem to have become a larger and larger problem. One of the latest attacks involving email spam has been sending unsolicited sales pitches via the contact us form on your website. At least once a week I receive an email (spam) from some marketing company offering to send thousands of unsolicited offers for my company using this method.
As often as possible, I write back to tell them that I believe they are violating at least the spirit of the CAN-SPAM act passed in 2003. At the time of this federal legislation, most spam was being sent email directly to the target’s inbox. Sending unsolicited marketing pitches via a business owner’s website based “contact us” form causes the same unlawful result.
Just this week, I received a notification from a popular hosting company, Site Ground, informing me that they are rolling out a new SPAM protection service for their clients. They feel the new system is much improved over the 3rd party system they had previously used for filtering spam. Here is an excerpt of their announcement.
We would like to inform you that we are replacing the current third-party anti-spam solution that we have been using on our servers with an in-house-built, significantly optimized, and adapted to our client’s needs Spam Protection service. It is developed to efficiently minimize the amount of SPAM emails that reach your inbox and work seamlessly on our hosting platform.
Your site(s) below now use the new SPAM protection service:
The transition from the current spam protection, which uses a third-party solution, to our in-house built system has already started. As of today, your websites listed below are using the new solution:
I am happy to know that some of our vendors who provide the necessary services that enable our customers’ websites to function as we design them, are supporting us in our battle against the distraction of SPAM.
As I mentioned, the most common form of spam in 2003 when CAN-SPAM legislation was passed, is a type that is sent from a mass marketer directly to your email inbox. It is not clear from the Siteground notification whether their new proprietary SPAM filtering service will offer the same protection against SPAM sent via contact forms as well but we shall see. They have requested website designers’ feedback in the notice so maybe I should let them know how big of a benefit it would be for small business owners if they can filter contact form spam as well.
May this post find your email inbox spam free,
