On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, Jeff Chan wrote:
Regarding .edu I don't think we can give any TLD a free pass, except maybe things like .gov, .mil, or other similarly strictly-controlled domains.
Some folks felt that kaplan.edu spammed them, but given the potential for legitmate use and therefore collateral damage from false positives, we really can't list it.
Jeff C.
More to the point, Kaplan College hired a spamhaus (ie-express.com) (SBL #SBL15843)to do a spam campaign for them.
One of my spamtraps collected multiple hits from them. (The target address was only used in a 'mailto:' on a web page, spiders harvested it).
I was particularly amused by the rationalization paragraph in that message:
You have received this advertisement because you signed up to receive offers from ie-express.com and/or through one of our affiliate partners. You signed up at 10/08/03 14:26:54 on 216.116.242.73 with the following IP address 5106541715. Any correspondence about the products/services advertised should be directed to the company in the ad. Our privacy policy can be found here: http://ie-express.com/fa_privacypolicy.php
(full spam example available upon request ;)
Kaplan College -is- a legit business, but if they can resort to hiring spammers with impunity they will only add to the spam problem. (It is an economic issue, as long as spammers can do their 'biziness' with little cost and make money they will only increase).