However, since these annoying messages are usually sent to large numbers of people, it is generally safe to assume that some people who are expert in the job will be complaining. If you are confident that you have identified the true originator, then you may wish to email them a polite complaint. If the sender was acting out of ignorance of Net conventions, then you may get an apology. Unfortunately, it is also possible that you may get a reply consisting mainly of profanities or, even worse, provoke further Net abuse aimed specifically at you.

It is probably safer to report the abuse to the originator's ISP, if you can identify it. In the case of news abuse, the report should include all the headers. For email abuse it should include the complete message, including the headers. Reports without the headers are almost useless. Most ISPs take a serious view of abuse by their customers (though there are a handful of rogue ISPs). Many, but not all, ISPs have adopted a specific address for reporting abuse, of the form abuse@isp.net (replacing isp.net by the address of the ISP). If that does not get a response or "bounces", then try postmaster@isp.net.