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March 18, 2008

A spam message made the rounds yesterday from a Frenchman promoting some sort of online multi-language dictionary. To prevent his hit counter from incrementing by one, I haven't visited the site to see what it's about; nor did I follow the link to a Google video (about an online dictionary?). In any case, I guess his dictionary couldn't handle the words in my earlier articles, Issuing a License to Email or More To: Field Inanity, because he sent his spam with hundreds of email addresses exposed in the To: field. His address collection is in alphabetical order of account name. The bunch in the message I received contained 443 addresses from cv-idione to dossiers.

The message body (in French) was brief and included an apology if the recipient did not like receiving the message. But no opt-out link or provision.

Yes, that was bad enough, but then one of the recipients had to reply with the French equivalent of "buzz off." He did so, however, by hitting Reply All in his email program. Thus, all 443 original recipients received yet another copy of the original email (of course, he quoted the entire thing). The jaw-dropping part of the matter is that the Reply All guy signed his message with the attribution:

High-Tech Consultant, Founder

The rest of his signature included his phone numbers (landline, cell, Skype, fax), URLs, and physical address. I can't tell if he is trying to piggyback on his countryman's stupidity to promote his service or if he is just an idiot. Either way, I wouldn't hire this guy to change a light bulb.