Hi Phillip,

Yes, indeed we are being "trained" to act as filtering agents and it's true that we can do nothing about the hoards of spam that reaches our inbox. Those are major concerns. The plain and simple fact is that spamcop nor the FTC has stopped spam in any sense of the word or deed. They are just making issues of it and making lots of money. I would like nothing better than to see thousands of publishers use a non email service to send their newsletters however, they are constantly being hammered with emails saying EMAIL IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO and that EMAIL MUST WORK OR WHY ALL THE SPAM. They just can't seem to break away.

Well, someone has to break out of the rat race and I'd like it to be the Internet Press - Publishers! We'll see...

Hi Bobette,

I know exactly WHAT you mean ... I've been publishing an email ezine for 4 + years now.

We both have the same webhost ... I use his list server to send out my ezine and advertisements. His ISP IS being blacklisted by many of the ISPs and the 'anti spam' zealot, spam cop.

I've yet to receive ANY complaint PERSONALLY ... knock on wood :)

I truly wrestle with the choice of continuing to publish email ezines ... or not.

I enjoy publishing, and yes the work can be hard ... with meager rewards for the efforts. While I don't expect to command the income of a "guru", it'd be nice to cover expenses ... I'm not too proud to accept donations :)

I continue to publish on my Q channel, although it tends to be sporadic ....

Now think about this ... as ezine publishers that need to comply with FTC guidelines now ... aren't publishers becoming a 'spam filter' of sorts?

No, we can't control the Viagra, the mortgages, the lose weight or porn spam,

but we DO have to be VERY picky about what we CAN ... OR cannot advertise. From what I understand, the publisher is supposed to check IF the advertisers site (affiliate OR personal) has:

1.) ALL of the proper disclaimers
2.) Has ANY blatant OR implied claims in the advertisement AND/OR the site.
3.) Opinions vary as to WHAT is acceptable ... and what is NOT ... whatever happened to personal reponsibility for one's OWN decision??

Thanks,

Phillip