For people who read the newsgroup on Google Groups

 Does it make any difference to report spam on the newsgroup to them?
On each message you can click on Options then Report Abuse.
I've tried it on a few.  I haven't heard anything back and I don't
think there has been any change.
I'm wondering if they actually act on our reports.
There doesn't seem to be any way of filtering out the spammers if you
use Google Groups, like you can on a regular newsreader.

 
Karen wrote:

I was wondering about that myself; but since I use the titles only view
it's easy enough to weed out the freebies.com posts.

 Karen wrote:

I have seen the accounts of extreme spammers cancelled
but it is not a rapid process.
Either Google has so much backlog that it takes a while to get to it
or (my belief) they are very tolerant
and only act after a very high threshold of complaints is reached.
The thing there is that they just cancel THAT account
and a spammer will simply open another account.


Don't hold your breath. (If I'm correct, it's just a counter bot.)
If you report ILLEGAL activity, you *will* get a response.
.
If you want to have a better chance of making an impact,
go to Show Original as Black said.
e.g., your post (with headers) looks like this:
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/msg/7bd14b21ac9d1506?dmode=source
Plug the number beside **NNTP-Posting-Host:**
into a reverse DNS utility[1]
e.g., http://www.dnsstuff.com
like this.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ipp.51.147.54

If I wanted to complain to your ISP about you,
I'd address it to abuse @ bell.ca.
As Black also said, the  abuse@ addresses of non-Google users
are (usually) even easier to spot in the headers of their posts.
.
..

That is a big downside
--along with the *marked as read* thing[2] for cross-posted stuff.
.
..
Karen wrote:
::I just copied one of that guy's posts including the headers
::and sent it to abuse@ bellsouth.net.

HOO-RAH!  Your *I hate spammers* pin awaits you.
.
..
[1] It doesn't always work.
Spam-friendly ISPs won't list a reverse-DNS.
In addition, some Webmasters are simply clueless.

[2] Google has made this even worse[3]; they have borked their links
such that if there are no new posts to a thread,
after a short while the link changes from xxxx/yyyy#yyyy to xxxx/yyyy#
.
This really screws up your browser history for Google Groups.

[3] It used to work perfectly
--then they tweaked something and broke this.

 "Karen" (karen.newton@gmail.com) writes:

I'm pretty sure that's only related to posts from google.  Whether
or not they'll do anything (it's not real clear) about spam posts,
that system is to report their users to them who are spamming.  

So you need to check to see if the post is coming from google; click
the link that "show original", and one of the headers there will
tell you where it's coming from.  Google isn't responsible for all
of Usenet, but they should be held responsible for how their
users act.  And that's what the abuse link is for, their
users.

And just checking one post from the freebie guy, he is not
posting from google.  But he is posting from Bellsouth, and
there's even an email address for complaints about posts
from their system:  abuse@ bellsouth.net

Since google is web-based, and nothing more, that's why there
is that abuse link there.

  Michael

 

I just copied one of that guy's posts including the headers and sent it
to
abuse@ bellsouth.net.