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Hi all, The Agenet used the free Aureate Group Mail program. Below I post there anti-spam policy. I have sent an email to the agenet webmaster with some questions. Hans. Aureate Group Mail, Anti-Spam History Aureate Group Mail is not intended to be used as a tool for sending unsolicited email, often referred to as "UCE" or "spam". Unfortunately, with the release of our Free Edition, a small number of groups have abused the product, and have used it to send these unsolicited messages, often to deliver hoaxes and scams. If you are a user of Aureate Group Mail (both the Free Edition and the registered version), be aware that IT IS ILLEGAL AND A VIOLATION OF THE LICENSE AGREEMENT TO SEND UNSOLICITED EMAIL WITH AUREATE GROUP MAIL. Consult Section 7 of the license agreement (available in the "help" menu of Aureate Group Mail) for more information. If you violate the license agreement, but continue to use the product, you are doing so ILLEGALLY. We will deny technical support, refuse product upgrades, report your actions to anti-spam agencies, and may pursue legal action. When the first Free Edition of Aureate Group Mail was released, it contained a simple tag line "This message sent using Aureate Group Mail" and contained a link to http://software.aureate.com. It also inserted "X-Mailer: Aureate Group Mail" into the headers of the messages. A few people abused the product, and there was quite a bit of confusion with people believing that we were the ones sending these messages. Because of this, we removed the "X-Mailer" tag from the headers. In addition, the tag line was changed to point to a new domain dedicated to Aureate Group Mail, http://www.group-mail.com. Although this helped, it was not enough. We then decided to change the tag line that the Free Edition includes to the following format: ------------------------------- This message sent to you by: Name: USERS NAME Email: [log in to unmask] IP address: USER.SENDINGIP.COM ------------------------------- In addition, we changed the URL contained in the tag lines to http://www.group-mail.com/1/, which helps to direct people to our anti-spam policies. We also established a relationship with SpamCop.net in which we assist with the reporting and tracking of known spammers. The license agreement was also made more clear, stating specifically that Aureate Group Mail could not be used to send unsolicited email (in addition to other illegal activities), and we ensure that users are aware of this by displaying that agreement during installation, and then also bringing it to their attention each time they send a message with the Free Edition. This cut the amount of UCE sent using Group Mail down to almost nothing. Almost all of the reports that were coming in were the result of spammers using the older versions of the product that did not include the additional information in the tag line. Unfortunately, we then received a report that a well known supplier of mailing lists to spammers was offering a 'free' copy of Aureate Group Mail (the free edition) to those who purchased his mailing lists. This is a glaring violation of our license agreement, and we have contacted the sender with a request to cease and desist. We have also asked them to inform their customers that it is illegal for them to use Aureate Group Mail in conjunction with those mailing lists, and that they are to stop sending such messages using the program immediately. The bad news, however, is that an unknown number of people purchased these mailing lists and began using Aureate Group Mail to send UCE before we were even aware that such a practice was going on. This has caused us to take several more anti-spam measures which we hope will work to eliminate this continued mis-use of the product. In the newest build of the product the following measures will be in place: We have improved the IP address detection. There was a problem with some people trying to 'spoof' the program to detect a false IP address which was then displayed in the new tag line. The new method should make the reported IP address more reliable. The tag line has been modified, so as not to include a link back to the Group-Mail.com web site. There was some confusion where we were believed to have been sending the messages or were somehow associated with the spammers. We believe that we have made some good progress in eliminating this misuse of our software, and we will continue to do so. Releasing the Free Edition of Aureate Group Mail has allowed a lot of legitimate individuals, schools, and non-profit enterprises to enjoy the product where they couldn't have done so before. We now have thousands and thousands of smaller users, who happily use the product to run subscriber-based mailing lists (subscribe/unsubscribe functionality is built in to Aureate Group Mail). These lists may have just a handful of subscribers, and these users couldn't afford to purchase software for such a small list previously. If you do receive spam, please forward the message with full headers (very important) to [log in to unmask], so that we can report them the various anti-spam agencies, and black-list them from receiving future products and technical support from us (also, please be aware that the email address [log in to unmask] contains an auto-responder message, but is also forwarded to our abuse team). If you have any questions about our anti-spam policies, please contact us by email at [log in to unmask] [Start] [News] [Download] [Purchase] [Support] [Plug-Ins] [Awards] [Anti-Spam] [Contact] © 1998 - 1999 Aureate Media Corporation. All Rights Reserved.