SPAM

If you or your company is involved in unsolicited e-mail, in any way, do not attempt to use USFamily.Net for any reason.  We aggressively pursue spammers.

Spam is the Internet term for unsolicited e-mail to many people.

Sending SPAM

Sending unsolicited e-mail violates the USFamily.Net acceptable use contract and will result in immediate disconnection of your Internet service without notice or rebate of any remaining months of service.  All information related to this activity will be immediately forwarded to the FEDERAL authorities.   This is often not fun, so please don't do it.

SPAM on the Internet is in very many cases Illegal and almost universally despised by Internet users.  We are doing everything possible to keep our Internet service free of this insidious practice.  Do not be lured in by "this is completely legal".  New laws covering new areas of SPAM are being written every day.

Receiving SPAM

If you receive SPAM, let us know at abuse@usfamily.net .  You must include all the headers (turn on view headers, then copy and paste the entire email into a new email and send it to this address).  We will do our best to report the originator to the authorities.  Many cooperative ISP's, like us, will track down and  immediately discontinue the originators service.

If you would like to help pursue spammers yourself checkout:

http://spamcop.net/

http://www.cauce.org

http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/antispam.html

To Report Spam

To report spam you must turn on headers and forward the email to abuse@usfamily.net.  We will notify the appropriate authorities.
Better yet you may wish to do it yourself at http://spamcop.net/

**** In Netscape click view,headers,all and forward the message.

**** In Outlook Express 5.0 for the PC, you can select or view a message, then select "Properties" under the File menu, and click the Details tab. You can then copy the header information, close the window, forward the message and paste the header information into your message.

**** To turn on headers in Outlook Express 5.0 for the Mac, open the message, then select "Internet Headers" in the View menu and you can view them. To actually copy them, you can select "Source" in the View menu and then copy them to your clipboard. Then just forward the message to USFamily.net and paste the header info into your message.

**** In Eudora click  the "blah-blah-blah" button. (yes there is such a button) and then forward the message.

USFamily.Net Spam Filter Features

Free and automatic to all USFamily.Net Users

While the Spam Filter has been activated for everyone, anyone
can turn the Spam Filter On or Off as desired at
http://www.usfamily.net/usr-spamfilter.html

You can view your mailbox including all Spam from the last 30
days at http://webmail.usfamily.net in the "Bulk" folder.

Any rare legitimate email sender who may be inadvertently
screened by the Spam Filter is notified immediately and
automatically by return email and instructed how to contact
us regarding the block. We respond personally to these
inquiries..

Sample Spam Filter Reply
The following is a sample of the email returned upon receipt of any email that the USFamily.Net SPAM filer suspects as being a potential SPAM email.  Generally there is no human to receive this reply and that is the end of it. Occasionally the email is not spam and the originator may follow the instruction in the email to cause their original email to be delivered and potentially have their server reviewed and any spam block removed.  On rare occasion someone takes offense to this notice  but almost always they eventually appreciate being notified their server is being blocked, often because their server was compromised or hacked by a spammer without their knowledge. The following email is strictly technical and not accusatory in any way.

Subject:  USFamily.net Spam Filter
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 16:15:16 -0500
From: SpamNotifyDoNotReply@USFamily.net
To: xxx@abc.net

This is an automated message, do not reply (replies will be ignored).

This is to notify you that your email:

To: xxx@usfamily.net
Re: Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs - The REAL

has been detained by the USFamily.net spam filtering system,
most probably because at least one of the email servers your
email passed through has been a source of spam in the past.

If you are not a spammer, we apologize for the inconvenience,
but, please don't panic (if you are a spammer, you are welcome
to panic now).

If you click on the following link (or, if you are gun-shy
about clicking on links in emails, you can accomplish the
same thing by forwarding a copy of this email to
abuse@usfamily.net):

http://mail.usfamily.net/cgi-bin/spamappeal?resurrection@usfamily.net+x.302899668

We will then review the most recent traffic from the email
servers in question. If, after reviewing the traffic, we
find no evidence of recent spam, we will remove the block.

If you are still confused or have any questions or comments
regarding our policies, please forward a copy of this email
along with your thoughts to:

abuse@usfamily.net

Thank you for helping to keep the Net free of spam pollution.