Denise Howell's Bag and Baggage has an extended post covering the issue of spam and spam removal lists, including discussion of efforts by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to go after Remove.org for deceptive trade practices in connection with its claim that it can add your e-mail address to a purported national "opt-out" directory for $9.95 per year.   She links to the following news accounts: Internet.com, Direct Marketing News, and InformationWeek.   Denise shares the consensus view that such a list would never work, and that view underlies the AG's efforts against Remove.org.

Not mentioned by Denise or anyone she links is the fact that there is no national opt-out listing, and that the site appears to be deliberately confusing its listing with the national opt-out phone solicitation list in an effort to suggest to the public that a similar such list exists for e-mail addresses.  Remove.org will, when challenged, undoubtedly claim that its listings are "national in scope" and thus that its representation is not false.  But the insinuation that its purported "opt-out" list is also government-sponsored is hanging in the air. 

A somewhat similar scam is the company that operates the National Star Registry which offers to "name a star" for someone for $49 and promises that the naming will be "registered in the U.S. Copyright office". 

11:08:21 AM