Finally, some consequences for spamming.
Nigeria-based International Research Journals is being cut off by its United States-based Internet service provider for spamming, a violation of the provider’s terms of service.
The publisher’s old domain name was http://interesjournals.org. The new domain name is http://interesjournal.org, but it is unclear who the publisher’s new ISP is. At this time, both domains are active, as the old ISP gives the company time to transfer its files.
The company that expelled International Research Journals appears to be IXwebhosting, based in Columbus, Ohio.
This information comes via an email that the publisher sent to one of its authors, who then forwarded the email to me.
In the email, the publisher blames competitors in the U.S. and Canada, who he says had enough influence with the ISP to get them to cut off International Research Journals. He claims this was done to dampen competition.
Here is the letter the publisher is sending out to its authors:
Dear [deleted]
Thanks for the submission of paper(s) to our journal (Educational Research, ER).
I want to inform you that we are having a downtime in our site: interesjournals.org. The reason is that our webhost are a small hosting company based in the USA. They are about to be blacklisted because of complaints of mails coming out of our mailboxes. These complaints are from some group of people who are also journal publishers that are afraid of our strength in journal publication. These people are based in USA and Canada. They have access to our webhost, they just contact them and our site is suspended. However, our previous webhost suggested we look for a bigger webhost to host our site because the pressure is too much on them and they promise to transfer the domain interesjournals.org to our new webhost within the next seven days. The transfer is currently ongoing. All of our contents are still intact.
In our effort to serve you better, so that our clients will not be worried, our new webhost suggested we should use this new website: interesjournal.org pending the transfer of the previous site.
Therefore, all of our contents and papers are now located in interesjournal.org. Therein, you will find your published and incoming papers. We do apologize for the inconveniences.
Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.
Kind Regards,
Ame Obobaifo,
Editorial Assistant,
NB: All contacts and correspondences should be forwarded to support.eduresearch@gmail.com
This may open up a new method of shutting down predatory publishers — complaining to their ISPs about the UCE (unsolicited commercial email) they send out. Perhaps we’ll give this a try.
The following speaks more than what can be described in words.
A faculty member of Koneru Lakshmaiah University (aka Knowledge Leadership University), Vijayawada, india, proudly discloses the following letter in the university’s website.
I don’t think a faculty member in the Dept. of Biotechnology of a University would be unaware of the facts about interesjournal(s). But what made him boldly disclose it in the website? In case he is genuinely unaware, that raises lot more questions!
The letter is as seen in the university’s website http://www.kluniversity.in/rnews.aspx?id=2071
However, I have withdrawn his name below not to embarass him in this forum. Faculty members might get some points for such reviewership in journals and possibly help overtake his colleague during performance evaluation. When it comes to promotions colleagues are often considered rivals.
=================================
Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, China
Sri [deleted], Assistant Professor in Biotechnology Department was selected as Potential Reviewer for Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, China.
The letter from the authorities intimating his selection is given below:
Dear colleague,
I am Prof. Wei Wang, acting editor-in-chief, Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (JMMS)
A manuscript titled: SEVERE TISSUE DAMAGE AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF ENDOTRACHEAL TUBE FIRE DURING CO2 LASER SURGERY: HISTOPATHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF LARYNX SPECIMEN was sent to us for publication.
We will be highly obliged if you could find time to review the manuscript.
Kindly email us to acknowledge the receipt of this mail and I will be most grateful to hear from you.
You can view our August publication at: http://www.interesjournals.org/JMMS/Contents/2010%20content/August.htm
Best regards,
Ame Obobaifo,
Editorial Assistant,
For,
Prof. Wei Wang
Acting editor-in-chief
Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences(JMMS)
E-mail: jmms.research@gmail.com , jmms.review@interesjournals.org or articles.jmms@gmail.com
Web: http://www.interesjournals.org/
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That’s hardly surprising given that the main page of that university’s web site has a “Research bulletin” section containing a list of announcements of the type “X and Y, Dept. Z, have authored a paper and was (sic) published in International Journal J”. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these journals are gold OA. Are the university’s management unaware that his kind of competition will obviously have disastrous effects on the quality of research, or do they simply not care?
If a new publishers starts new journals, then how is the publisher supposed to advertise about his journals in ethically correct manner/ without spamming, so that other readers/researchers will come to know about the journals?