Sponsored Content WEBINAR: ELECTION 2008: E-mail Tips from a Political Insider   WEBINAR: Becoming the Illusionist: The Magic of Using "Brand" to Drive Response without Results Disappearing in the Process   WEBINAR: Score and Win Through Cooperation   TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Holiday's are prime-time for email marketing - maximize your ROI by getting to the inbox   ON DEMAND WEBINAR--MASTER CLASS: High Performance Online and Off-line Strategies for Large Scale Customer Acquisition   FREE WHITE PAPER - Direct Mail and the Internet Find any supplier you need - agencies, CRM, fulfillment, lists, e-commerce, paper, printers, telemarketing, and more. Featured Categories Lists and Data Telemarketing Database Marketing E-commerce Web Marketing Agency & Creative Services Print, Production & Paper Lists and Data Processing :: view all categories Get free access to more than 50,000 list data cards - one of the most comprehensive databases in the industry. >> Search Now DIRECT Buzz Blog Webinars Buyer's Guide Calculators JobZone ListFinder Promo Calendar Research Store E-Newsletters Print Magazine This Month in Direct Magazine Deal With It Direct had a full house for this year's list roundtable. Considering all the additional responsibilities on brokers' plates, that's impressive... See Full July Issue

As the primaries chugged along in February, some pranksters apparently found their own path to change by signing up anti-spammers' e-mail addresses and fake, insulting names on Barack Obama's e-mail list.

As a result, people received personalized messages from the Democratic presidential candidate that addressed them in a rude manner.

For example, anti-spammer Edward Falk recently got an unsolicited e-mail from Obama's campaign calling him StupidSpamSucker SlutFace, according to a post on his Spam Diaries blog.

And while the messages are probably the result of a childish prank, they also have the potential to threaten Obama's ability to communicate with supporters by e-mail.

Those on the receiving end of this prank are on the front lines of the war against spam and are involved to some degree or another with the Internet's various anti-spam blacklists.

The snafu apparently came about because Obama's e-mail registration process has no verification mechanism and allows any first and last name to be registered with any address. Other candidates also don't have a verification e-mail that warns people they've been added to a list, but their sign-up processes are a bit more complicated and less vulnerable to similar antics.

Though Obama's IP addresses aren't showing up on any of the major blacklists yet, his e-mail efforts are in danger of being blocked as long as his e-mail opt-in process is unconfirmed, especially now that anti-spammers have become aware of his loose e-mail policy.

“If the spam continues, they do risk having their mail filtered,” says Deirdre Baird, chief executive of e-mail deliverability consultancyPivotal Veracity.