Garry Garrett's Homepage Garry Garrett's Homepage For information on various e-mail protocols such as SMTP, MIME, POP3, POP2, APOP, etc. see my page on networking.
ListServ's are e-mail mailing lists. They come in 3 flavors (this is terminology that I made up): broadcast, moderated, participatory. Broadcast is where one person (or group) sends out mail to a whole list of people. For example, someone who publishes an e-mail newsletter or "joke of the day" type of thing. Participatory is where everyone who receives the e-mail can also send e-mail to everyone else on the list. This is more like an e-mail discussion group. Moderated is like participatory only it has a moderator who decides what messages people post do and don't get sent out. For example, Virus-L is a list serve about computer virii; many people tend to send along the latest virus scare, so the moderator filters out all the message about bogus virii. Commonly, there is one e-mail address to send to in order to "subscribe" and/or "unsubscribe" to the listserv, and another e-mail address (in the case of participatory and moderated) to send messages to the list. It's a bit annoying to those on the list when others mistakenly send their "unsubscribe" message to the whole list rather than the special e-mail address that controls subscriptions. Some of the common listserv software automatically uses the username "majordomo" or "listserv" as the e-mail address that controls subscriptions. Generally, when you subscribe to a list, the first e-mail that you get from the list is some kind of "welcome" message that tells you how to unsubscribe from the list. Save this message.
Note: Unsolictied e-mail is so commonly (incorrectly) refered to as "spam" that many people think that that is the definition of "spam". Spam is not simply unsolicted messages, it refers to messages that are intentionally "off-topic". For example, if you participate in a discussion group (e-mail listserv, Usenet, IRC, whatever...) on say "bicycling" then posting a message to the discussion group about "does anyone want a free kitten" is spam. You know full well that the topic is bicycles not kittens. Commonly such spam messages attempt to sell you something (often in a "network marketing" kind of way), so people tended to lump "unsolicited e-mail that trys to sell you something" in with "spam". Your mailbox does not have a "topic", and therefore the message is not "off-topic". If you get a mail message that is unsolicited, unless it was sent to a listserv in which you particpate and does not pertain to the topic of that group, it is not spam, per see. It's just as bad, but strictly speaking, not "spam".
The term "spam" comes from the Usenet, where you would often see the same off-topic message posted to multiple discussion groups, and you would see it in each discussion group that you read. Consequently, it got repeatative to see the same unwanted message mutiple times, reminicent of an old Monty Python sketch where every option on the menu has mutiple portions of spam. (spam, eggs, bacon, spam and spam or spam, egg, spam, sausage and spam, etc.). I won't repeat the sketch, but the poor woman who does not like spam is trying to find something without any spam in it. That's how many of the Usenet population felt trying to wade through all the "spam" to get to the on-topic material that they came for, hence the messages were coined "spam".
I now have a separate page on spamming and similar network abuses. Never buy anything advertised to you in an unsolicited e-mail. Never. If no one ever bought anything from spammers, they would stop spamming us.
In theory, you should be able to contact the Direct Marketing Association and get on their lists. They have a "Do Not Call" list and a "Do Not Mail" list, which in theory will cut down on junk mail and telemarketing calls. Not all marketers belong to the DMA (thus not everyone will honor this list). Some marketers have even used the DMA's lists (violating the agreement they make with the DMA when they join) to add addresses and phone numbers to their lists. In the past, it has been questionable how much effort the DMA puts into catching and prosecuting those members who violate their policies, drawing many to question the value of the DMA's lists at all.
I have personally found the National Do Not Call Registry to cut down on telemarketing calls considerably.
