Banning Free Email Accounts-Is AudioVideoForums' Webmaster Crazy?

[kelticwizard]

Came across this forum while browsing the internet yesterday:
http://www.audiovideoforum.com/forum...php?forumid=10

While I would not question a Webmaster's decision to fight spammers, don't most people have free Email accounts? Judging by his Members list, (7 pages, 30 members per page) he presently has barely over 200 members. So he decides to tell the majority of people on the internet to go away?

Can anyone see how this could possibly be a legit attempt to fight spammers? Maybe there is an angle here I haven't figured. My first impression is that it is an excuse for snobbery-since cable, DSL and AOL have their own Email accounts, he basically just wants those people on his forum. If you don't have cable, DSL, or AOL, you don't fit the "profile" of the members he wants.

Perhaps I am being unfair to this guy. But considering that most people have free Email accounts-at least the people who use dialup-it looks like he is preventing most people from joining his forum.

Am I off-base in decrying this move as thinly disguised snobbery?

[peranders]

Banning Free Email Accounts-Is AudioVideoForums' Webmaster Crazy?

Probely

I can't see what members email addresses have got to do with hotmail etc. All of my spam comes mostly from Yahoo, little from Hotmail. Is it some cross connection I'm not aware of?

What is the difference between "free" and "unfree"? Is spray.se "free" for expample? Is free if it costs you nothing?

[Elso Kwak]

Hi Kelticwizard,
Well that forum is so tame, nothing interesting happening, that I won't bother to register.....

[Max Peck]

Not so fast.......

Free Email and Proxy Servers make it hard to trace abuse on a forum. Shouldn't a user be forced to be able prove he is who he says he is? The multiple indentity problems with Fred Dieckmann come to mind when pondering this issue.

Max

[kelticwizard]

First, in fairness to the Webmaster there, I would point out that in the thread title's small print, he puts (from 1-07-2002 to 2-07-2003). However, nowhere in the body of the post is any time limit announced.

Peranders, the way Internet Service Providers work, (in the USA anyway), is that cable and DSL providers give you a limited amount of Email addresses thay you can use. It is "free" with the service, that is true, but you have to get that pay service to get those Email accounts. Therefore, those Email accounts are not free to the general public. They are free only to those who have paid for that internet service. I would imagine they are fairly traceable.

Such sites as Excite, MSN Hotmail, and others provide free Email accounts to anyone who wishes to sign up for them, under any false name ir address they wish to fill in. These Email accounts are not as traceable as the accounts that are available only to paid customers of a service.

The thing is, the restricted Email accounts-cable, DSL, and AOL-all have a certain "premium" ambience attached to them. Cable and DSL have higher income customers, and AOL probably does too.

I am not doubting that the Webmaster might have spam trouuble. However, many more people have dialup than high speed service, and AOL, big as it is, is still only one sixth of the US dialup market. I do not know if it has any non-North American market at all. It seems to me that most people have free Email accounts.

Perhaps the Webmaster there is so overwhelmed with spam that he hopes to slap this ban on temporarily until the Spammasters find some other place to play. If so, I must say he is taking a gamble. With only 200 members, he is telling most people to keep away from his forum. I am beginning to suspect that the Webmaster there is using legit spam problems as a means to discourage people who might not meet his "profile".

[pinkmouse]

Free Email and Proxy Servers make it hard to trace abuse on a forum. Shouldn't a user be forced to be able prove he is who he says he is? The multiple indentity problems with Fred Dieckmann come to mind when pondering this issue.

Such sites as Excite, MSN Hotmail, and others provide free Email accounts to anyone who wishes to sign up for them, under any false name ir address they wish to fill in.

There are many other ways to stop people with false identities from posting to forums, some of which will be coming online here soon, not that we have a major problem in DIYAudio.

[planet10]

Originally posted by pinkmouse
not that we have a major problem in DIYAudio.

Our only real problem seems to Fred D/HH/ and all his sock-puppets. Maybe we should just merge all the IDs together and then everyone can see him talking to himself.

dave

[mbroker]

Originally posted by planet10
Our only real problem seems to Fred D/HH/ and all his sock-puppets. Maybe we should just merge all the IDs together and then everyone can see him talking to himself.

Not sure that's such a good idea - too many people may hurt themselves from laughing too hard or much!

I have never heard of a dialup service that does not also offer an email address, at least in the US. One of the reasons for the popularity of "free" email accounts is the ability to access them anywhere from any computer. In addition the people who don't have a computer or internet access from home can still send and recieve email from their friends' places or work.

The problem with spam will continue to get worse until Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc stop selling their member lists to the spammers!

I would tend to think the webmaster's agenda is to decrease sick-puppets since one is less likely to have multiple "pay" email accounts.

Cheers,

Mark Broker

[kelticwizard]

Originally posted by mbroker
I have never heard of a dialup service that does not also offer an email address, at least in the US....

But many, if not most, of those Email addresses are also usable by people who do not have that dialup service. Anybody can use my Internet Service Provider's Email service for free, and that is also the case for many others.

By that Webmaster's definition those are "free" Email addresses, and therefore the user would not qualify for his forum.

[JBL]

Well you can also pay 12 000 dollars a year to get a university's e-mail adress. I get a lot more reply from company when using this adress(and also I receive alot less junk).

But banning free e-mail adress is kind of useless.

On the side of identity on the internet well we got to live with it.

Where not getting alot of spam on this forum. And I think that it's one of the best in the world in term of S/N ratio so maybe their is a lesson to learn from the way it work.