Garon and writer sent an appeal to SpamCop. The response from SpamCop's "deputy" included following:"..."If admin of this ezine would like to pursue punitive action against SpamCop user for filing a false complaint, we will need to see proof of opt-in confirmation. Otherwise, we will simply consider this matter closed..."

Now here's kicker. SpamCop did not reveal name and email address of complainant. Without identification, how can Garon prove that subscriber had opted-in? Worse, without email address, how can Garon remove subscriber from his list? What's to stop same subscriber from filing same complaint repeatedly? Again, it defies common sense.

As Garon wrote, 'To have to spend every day wondering if TODAY is day some creep is going to falsely accuse you of Spam and cost you and your entire family everything you have put years of hard work into is MORE than a little scary."

To make story even more bizarre, e-Crucible members state that they have reported real spammers to SpamCop with no results.

If you're an email publisher, shark attacks come from three sources: odious subscribers, vigilante organizations and ISPs and web hosts who shut you down without giving you a chance to defend yourself. As an individual, you can do little to change situation.

Please consider signing up for free e-Crucibles mailing list and help strengthen this little organization with big goals. Sign up at http://www.topica.com/lists/e-Crucible/ or send email to mailto:e-Crucible-subscribe@topica.com

Please note: e-Crucible is NOT pro-spam. They are opposed to spurious spam complaints that put legitimate marketers in jeopardy.

The script gives page a name, usually randomly picked from a database or made up somehow, and fills it with a few dozen (at most) email addresses. These email addresses are cleverly created to appear perfectly valid but actually are useless - they are just made up.

Links to other fake pages are created for spam harvester to follow. Any robot (or human being, for that matter) that follow these links will find similar pages, full of desirable email addresses.

Depending upon robot, it's possible spammer could gather tens of thousands of totally fake, unusable email addresses before his robot blows itself out of water. It's even better if robot survives, as spammer now wastes his time sending messages to nonexistent email addresses.

In meantime, harvester has been lured away from valid pages which may or may not contain email addresses.

My site, Internet Tips and Secrets, uses one of these poison pills. It is called wpoison and it really works well. If you want to see it, look at this page.

http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/guestlist.pl

If you want to get a copy for yourself, check out wpoison page.

http://www.monkeys.com/wpoison/

This is just another weapon in war against spam.

Is it effective?

I know from personal experience that it does trap spam robots, and it does seem to lure them away from real, useful email addresses.

Is it ethical?

I believe so, as long as you are careful to include meta tags to inform "good" robots to leave pages alone as well as some text to let your visitors know what's going on.

It's not as satisfying as spamcop.net, and there is no where near that pleasant glow of success upon learning that some scum spammer has had his ISP cancel his account, but poison pill is useful nonetheless. My advice is to include it in your arsenal along with other weapons and tools at your disposal.

To see a list of article available for reprint, you can send an email to: mailto:article-list@internet-tips.net?subject=send_article_list or visit http://internet-tips.net/requestarticles.htm