Reporters, why pay?

[sporkman]

With IronPort and now Cisco, a company with billions in revenue, now owning spamcop, what is the rationale for users that simply want to report spam paying for the privilege of reporting?

I know spamcop has been around for a very long time, and I saw the sense in paying way back when, but at this point I feel like reporting is doing Cisco a favor really - providing data needed for their mail filtering products. I would think in return for this service, it would be in Cisco's best interest to remove any paid reporting options.

Am I looking at this completely the wrong way?

[turetzsr]

...(Almost) all the following is IMHO.

...The fact that Cisco is "a company with billions in revenue" is irrelevant; billion-dollar companies are no less entitled to revenue from providing their services than are "micro-companies" that make hundreds of dollars of revenue.

...The value of a service has two sides -- supply and demand. Cisco is the supplier and we, the users, are the demand side. You are arguing that the cost to Cisco of providing the service may be negative and is certainly not significantly greater than zero and therefore arguing that their price of providing the service to us should be about $0 and that is a reasonable argument (I make no judgment as to whether it is correct, merely that it is a reasonable line of thought). I don't see what Cisco would gain by "remov[ing] any paid reporting options," other than the small transaction costs of collecting the fee and the relatively small cost of maintaining and managing the paying accounts. The question is, how much is the service worth to you (and how much would your conscience be bothered by not contributing up to that amount -- I suspect your conscience is where it may matter that Cisco is a multi-billion dollar company; that makes no difference to me [in fact, I am more inclined to want to support profitable companies because I think that their profits tend to indicate that they provide products and services of greater value to their customers than they use up in producing their products or services and the greater their profits the greater their value to their customers])?

...Not IMHO: note that there are two "SpamCop" services that are major subjects of this Forum -- the parsing service, for which we users have the option of, but are not required to, purchase "fuel," and the e-mail service which carries a fixed priced at $30 per year per individual customer. The former is paid to SpamCop/ Cisco but the latter is not -- it is a product of and its revenue goes to CES, which is neither SpamCop nor Cisco!

[Geek]

Unlike other mail/web filters, Cisco isn't politically motivated. I'll happily toss them a couple of quid.

[petzl]

Unlike other mail/web filters, Cisco isn't politically motivated. I'll happily toss them a couple of quid.

I also are quite happy to pay

But I thought SpamCop was still available at no charge?

Paying give a few more features

I believe by reporting you alert an ISP of security problems usually works

Although not with Belarus

[turetzsr]

<snip>

But I thought SpamCop was still available at no charge?

<snip>

...Yes, it is -- the purchase of fuel is optional.

[Lking]

I assume that there is no real argument that if you are receiving a service you should pay for it, whether you receive that service from a micro-start-up or a Microsoft.

Back to the OP how do you use the reporting? Many people here use the SpamCop parsing as a "front end" to their personal efforts to fight spam, taking the parser information and moving on from there. Others use the result to improve their own spam filtering. Others still, just report every spam that hits their inbox and never look at the results. (I guess Bob is a common name because he gets lots of mail at my domain.)

As noted, you don't have to buy fuel to use the parser. So it depends on your use of the "service" and your conscience. In addition to fuel you could also donate MX records for a spamtrap. Depending on you host, generating a domain or sub-domain for witch you do not expect to ever need email, may or may not cost money. There is no question that you don't receive any real value in return. Fortunately MX records are donated because, valid spamtraps are an important part of the process.

[dra007]

I still report every piece of junk mail I get, even when I am away on vacation. Every time I do it opens a release valve and I let off some steam...so it simply makes me feel good!

[stumped]

I had a 'pay' account that just expired. I will not be renewing it. After one year, I still get the same amount of spam. Maybe someone gets some benefit from my reporting efforts, but not me. noc[at]ncserv.com is constantly listed as a source of my spam and they haven't slowed down one bit. In one year. Nada.

[petzl]

I had a 'pay' account that just expired. I will not be renewing it. After one year, I still get the same amount of spam. Maybe someone gets some benefit from my reporting efforts, but not me. noc[at]ncserv.com is constantly listed as a source of my spam and they haven't slowed down one bit. In one year. Nada.

Sounds like your email provider is useless

Better off with a Gmail account better still a SpamCop email account

NEVER automatically accept an ISP's email address they are usually near useless

[stumped]

Sounds like your email provider is useless

Better off with a Gmail account better still a SpamCop email account

NEVER automatically accept an ISP's email address they are usually near useless

Ok...I am going to get a SpamCop email account and give that a shot. Thanks