Consumer responsibility and spam
Moved from my old blog. Originally published December 11, 2006. This rant is as true today as the day I first wrote it.
I saw a piece on Fox News a day or so ago about spam that frustrated me. Supposedly, 90% of email world wide is the unsolicited advertising and scams that were dubbed spam in the earliest days of email. When I open my Yahoo mail, I know that I got spam, because I see the number of messages in my spam folder. Yahoo is very good at flagging spam, so I hardly ever see it in my inbox. So, unlike the newscaster I saw, spam does not bother me. What few unwanted messages that make it passed the filter, I just hit the little flame button – no harm done.
What bothers me is the idea that obviously someone out there in cyberspace is indeed opening those messages about a low cost home loan or natural penis enlargement. Not only are they being opened by someone, someone is buying these products and services based on the spam they receive. I've never known anyone to admit to it, but they are out there.
How do I know this? It's simple economics. If in the last ten years – if we consider only the time this writer has been online – no one had responded to or spent money based on a piece of spam, then spam would have ceased to exist.
As hard as it is to imagine, much time, money and thought goes into sending out mass email with the subject line "hot barely legal nude girls" or "shampoo for hair loss." If spammers had gotten no incentive from the beginning, then we would again be able to think of Spam as a canned meat product.
Whoever you are, stop, okay? Just because it's in your email doesn't mean you need to open it. If you need a dating service, mortgage, or herbal supplement, Google it. For one thing, the service you find will be much more reputable. Most important, you will help stop one of the time wasting nuisances of the modern world.
Remember, it is everyone's responsibility to stop Spam.
I saw a piece on Fox News a day or so ago about spam that frustrated me. Supposedly, 90% of email world wide is the unsolicited advertising and scams that were dubbed spam in the earliest days of email. When I open my Yahoo mail, I know that I got spam, because I see the number of messages in my spam folder. Yahoo is very good at flagging spam, so I hardly ever see it in my inbox. So, unlike the newscaster I saw, spam does not bother me. What few unwanted messages that make it passed the filter, I just hit the little flame button – no harm done.
What bothers me is the idea that obviously someone out there in cyberspace is indeed opening those messages about a low cost home loan or natural penis enlargement. Not only are they being opened by someone, someone is buying these products and services based on the spam they receive. I've never known anyone to admit to it, but they are out there.
How do I know this? It's simple economics. If in the last ten years – if we consider only the time this writer has been online – no one had responded to or spent money based on a piece of spam, then spam would have ceased to exist.
As hard as it is to imagine, much time, money and thought goes into sending out mass email with the subject line "hot barely legal nude girls" or "shampoo for hair loss." If spammers had gotten no incentive from the beginning, then we would again be able to think of Spam as a canned meat product.
Whoever you are, stop, okay? Just because it's in your email doesn't mean you need to open it. If you need a dating service, mortgage, or herbal supplement, Google it. For one thing, the service you find will be much more reputable. Most important, you will help stop one of the time wasting nuisances of the modern world.
Remember, it is everyone's responsibility to stop Spam.
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