Are you sick and tired of getting unsolicited bulk email (UBE, usually called spam), most of which is either outright fraud or advertising web sites of dubious value?
How did these people get your private email address in the first place? There are many ways:
Once your email address has been compromised, it will be added to one of the growing number email databases that are used by spammers. Then it's just a matter of sending the junk emails. This may be done through the spammer's own internet service provider (ISP) or through a third-party mail server or relay that has been configured to accept and transmit email to and from anyone. Sometimes the spammer will hijack an insecure formmail or other contact script sitting at someone's web site. Often times home computers are compromised and form one node of a botnet which is used to send spam or even host the advertised web site, all without the owner of the PC knowing about it.
Before you know it, you start getting more rubbish than you bargained for.
Whilst we have no objection to free trade on the Internet, we do not wish to pay for advertising that we did not ask to receive. Would you pay for a collect call from a telemarketer? Would you pay the postage due on junk mail coming through the letter box? No, neither would we, but one way or another, you do pay for all of those UBEs in your electronic mailbox.
Why are we being forced to pay someone else's advertising costs? And why should we allow these people to use our private email addresses without our consent?
No, but spammers forge our domain name almost continuously on their rubbish.
These pages are a log of the UBEs sent to us at any or all of our private email addresses since October 1998 when Obliquity went online. For all messages that manage to evade our filters, we present header information, along with details of the complaints made to and responses received from those involved. If we believe that the goods or services advertised in the message are illegal, then we alert the relevant law enforcement agencies. We offer no other comment or opinion regarding the contents of the UBEs.
Since UBEs are broadcast indiscriminately to thousands of people all over the world in order to reach the largest possible audience, they are neither private nor confidential and we regard the contents as being in the public domain.
If you spam us, you will be listed on these pages.
Some of the email addresses in these pages have been distorted to protect the innocent and their beleaguered mail servers. Many of the headers contain forged lines, so inclusion of a particular domain name on these pages does not necessarily imply that they are responsible for the accompanying UBEs. Messages are sent to most of the domains appearing in the headers and bodies so that innocent parties will be alerted to the fact that their email addresses and domain names are being abused by another.
We do not contact the spammers directly, except in the very rare instances in which we believe the sender to be a reputable businessperson who simply has made an unfortunate mistake in sending a one-off UBE. We do not regard serial spammers as innocent.
We have managed to get the plug pulled on a number of spammers and so can you. The situation so far:
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1998 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 16 | |||||||||
1999 | 4 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 59 |
2000 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 17 | 13 | 10 | 82 |
2001 | 16 | 16 | 19 | 17 | 11 | 35 | 50 | 88 | 119 | 126 | 179 | 226 | 902 |
2002 | 305 | 276 | 466 | 530 | 525 | 923 | 1664 | 991 | 1076 | 1171 | 855 | 1189 | 9971 |
2003 | 1564 | 1504 | 2852 | 4022 | 4798 | 4761 | 36 | 95 | 15 | 24 | 24 | 36 | 19731 |
2004 | 50 | 54 | 57 | 82 | 71 | 111 | 74 | 80 | 55 | 73 | 139 | 157 | 1003 |
2005 | 162 | 121 | 205 | 152 | 195 | 210 | 263 | 277 | 234 | 394 | 259 | 437 | 2909 |
2006 | 460 | 391 | 291 | 170 | 261 | 210 | 227 | 201 | 234 | 343 | 478 | 455 | 3721 |
2007 | 159 | 148 | 112 | 91 | 58 | 99 | 181 | 277 | 618 | 187 | 300 | 576 | 2806 |
2008 | 594 | 644 | 643 | 220 | 127 | 115 | 99 | 64 | 104 | 52 | 15 | 8 | 2685 |
2009 | 18 | 42 | 14 | 6 | 17 | 56 | 15 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 200 |
2010 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 51 |
2011 | 17 | 10 | 23 | 24 | 20 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 136 |
2012 | 24 | 9 | 10 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 13 | 17 | 18 | 8 | 4 | 129 |
2013 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 39 | 111 | 85 | 76 | 47 | 53 | 441 |
2014 | 64 | 103 | 21 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 218 |
2015 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 19 | 40 |
2016 | 1 | 4 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 |
2017 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
2018 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 20 | 4 | 4 | 57 |
2019 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 44 |
2020 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 44 |
2021 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 25 |
2022 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 9 | 61 |
2023 | 15 | 15 | 12 | 6 | 11 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 10 | 5 | 102 |
2024 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 9 | TBA | 53 |
Occasionally, we receive a complaint from someone who has spammed us and who is aggrieved that we have listed them on these pages. If you are such a person, we advise you to read our standard response to such complaints before threatening us with legal action or demanding compensation.
Coined by Roger Ebert in 1996 during the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado:
Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.