>I have had many arguments with a woman who boldly admits she is an email >spammer who is on my HTML list --- she claims she is in a legitimate >business and that by sending out millions of emails daily, even if only >500 respond that is how they make their money. I wonder how much money >must be spent to defend themselves against the [EMAIL PROTECTED] people, who >seem to have helped me get less spam? I now report all spam to that >address and whenever there is a "unsubscribe" link THAT is the email I >enter! I figure that way, they will get the junk first hand and be able >to trace the ones I can't, and then I say, "Book 'em Dano!"
*DISCLAIMER: I Hate Spam As Much As Everyone Else!!!* This raises the question of course of WHY is the spammer blanketly wrong? Why exactly should spam email be outlawed when the same thing is legal to do via the postal service? I have heard the arguments that it costs money to receive spam, but that junk mail is paid for by the sender. But honestly, how much out of pocket is the average consumer over their spam. I would venture to say that in the long run, most people spend less time dumping spam than they do dumping junk mail. After all, most people have (or can easily setup) filters to dump the spam for them, yet they still have to look at and manually sort their junk mail. And when you move to the corporate level, where a company may be hosting its own mail servers, you might want to say that at that point, spam is costing real money. After all, it chews up bandwidth, and storage space. But again, in today's real world, storage space is practically free (80 gig HDs go for about $100, I'm not sure AOL even processes 80 gig worth of spam a day), and the bandwidth is going to be there and paid for, spam or no spam. So again, how much is the company really out of pocket for spam. And again, a company that this might be an issue to, chances are gets enough junk mail that it is chewing up at least one employee's time to sort and dispose of. Resulting in real hard dollars spent on wages to handle allegedly "prepaid" mail. (Lets not even get into the costs involved in sorting junk mail for large companies that have a dedicated mail room). If you remove the basically bogus cost issue (I'm not saying spam doesn't cost a company/person money, what I am saying is it doesn't cost significantly more than legal junk postal mail, and in fact can cost less), what is left to base spam being illegal on? That it's annoying? So is my neighbor's dog, that doesn't mean it has to be illegal. Annoying is part of everyday life. For that matter, junk postal mail is annoying as well... why hasn't that been banned? (I'll tell you why, because the post office moves significantly more junk mail than real mail in a given day, and outlawing it would take away a vast majority of their income... never tell the government they can't have money). So then really, I ask, on what grounds should spam be illegal? I hate it, you hate it, everyone hates it... but is it something that really should be illegal? I ask this simply because I actually fear the laws that will make spam illegal. I fear them because of the collateral damage they can cause. Where do you draw the line in what is spam and what isn't? Is it spam if my fire department sends out a yearly fund drive solicitation to the residents we cover? We do it via postal mail, why can't we do it via email? How about when a market research company invites you to participate in a survey? They do that via the telephone, mail, door to door, and mall intercept? Why can't they do it via email? How about when the little mom and pop shop sends out an email to residents of their area announcing a sale? They can do that via postal mail, why not email? I can see plenty of legit uses, even commercial ones, for bulk email. Personally, I don't think email should be regulated any more than a telephone number is. It isn't illegal for someone to cold call your phone number to try to sell you something. If you don't want phone calls, you take efforts to protect your phone number (unlisted, only give it to friends, get caller ID and an answering machine so you can screen calls). You can essentially do the same with your email address. Don't put it on web sites, or anywhere else, only give it to friends, set up filters to dump the spam before you see it. And with email, you always have the free option of getting more email addresses, and using a different one for things where you NEED to give it out but think the person will send you spam (unlike a telephone, where you have no option but to list it with your bank, and credit cards, who promptly go and sell it to other companies... getting a 2nd, 3rd or 4th number to help filter legit from crap is very expensive, prohibitively for most people). Now don't get me wrong, I hate spam, I hate spam very much. I also hate telemarketers, and I hate junk mail. I have caller ID, and an unlisted phone number to help reduce junk phone calls. Alas there is nothing I can really do about junk postal mail, I am stuck collecting it and throwing it away. And spam... well, I have multiple email addresses, all free. I use different addresses for different things. That makes it super easy to set up spam filters, so in a given day, I see maybe half a dozen junk emails, which are gone in a quick click (there are literally hundreds more that I never see... and 95% of those are never even downloaded, I use one email address for things I know will generate spam, then every once in a while, I log into the server, and issue a "DELE ALL" and purge the entire thing without downloading or looking at it). But despite my intense dislike of spam, junk mail, and especially telemarketers, I hesitate to just pass blanket laws blocking them. I fear the fallout they can cause. I fear cutting off legit uses, all in the name of stopping an annoyance. And, if you think about it, what good will anti-spam laws really be? They aren't enforceable across state lines in the US, so if a spammer sits in CA, and spams me in NJ, there is nothing I can do about it. So make the law federal? Ok, so the spammer will bounce his mail off a site in England, or worse China, have a blast enforcing that one. So if laws aren't going to stop the spam we want to get rid of... what are they going to stop? The only thing left is the legit uses that will get caught up in the middle of the fight. Do you really want to jail your mother (or fine her out of existence) because she emailed a coupon for her dress store to the local area buyers? -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
