I'm not sure I grasp what you're saying here, but I think you're wrong. If you're comparing spam to TV advertising, you're wrong. Spam is not like a "15 or 20 min. row of commercials"; it's a fundamentally different thing. TV viewers do not pay for the commercials, but spam recipients (and of course intermediate mail servers) DO pay for spam. The cost is borne entirely by the recipient, not the advertiser. This defeats the market analogy completely.
I think you're trying to say that market forces will eventually make commercial email work effectively, making spam not a problem. However, this cannot happen, because spam is a perversion of the market; it is taking advantage of a loophole in the way email is accounted for, and shifting the cost onto the recipient. There is NO market pressure on spammers to market more effectively, because they don't see the cost. We do. A catalog producer, or a company doing a mass mailing, has an incentive to make sure that their catalogs or flyers don't end up in a bucket in front of the building, since it costs money to print flyers and catalogs and it costs money to mail them. It costs nothing to spam. The lack of market pressure to target spam more effectively basically acts as an incentive to the spammer to spam as heavily as he can. That, and the fact that only a tiny fraction of the businesses out there, even US businesses, is going to ensure that gradually spam will grow to the point where it makes email completely unusable. Spam is obviously getting worse all the time now; it's increasing exponentially. What happens when every email user receives 100 spams a day, or a 1,000, or 10,000? The spammers don't care, because there's no pressure to increase their "hit rate" of recipients who actually want their message. They just keep spamming more and more, joined by more and more of their fellow business people, until the email system collapses completely. This is ultimately the real argument against spam: it doesn't scale. The very nature of email means that as spamming increases, the load on individual email accounts eventually surpasses the capacity of the system to handle it, no matter how good your filters are, and the load on mail servers eventually surpasses the capacity of the system to handle it. Realistically, this won't happen, simply because mail administrators will start to utilize blocking systems. If these blocking systems are successful, they will force spam-friendly systems to amend their ways; if they are NOT successful, they will merely achieve the balkanization of the internet. Obviously I prefer the former, but there's no guarantee. I think the power of the marketing industry has just barely started to make itself felt, and the more successful they are, the worse things will become in email. It is imperative that mail administrators use THEIR power effectively in opposition, and don't let the direct marketers win. We can expect no help from legislation; not only can one country's legislators not legislate for other countries, but the legislature of the number one spammer nation, the United States, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DMA. See my own senator, Maria Cantwell -- one of the founders of the spam industry. The real answer is to force those costs onto the spammer by hurting their businesses and making it clear that it's spam that is causing the hurt. It is already something of a commonplace that "sending spam sends a signal that you're going out of business soon". Let's hope that idea takes hold. Maybe we'll get lucky and Compaq and Yahoo and Sprint will do an Enron soon. But until then, all we can do is keep up the pressure on spammers by blocking their mail servers and pounding their ISPs with abuse reports. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alfredo G�mez > Grande > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:52 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [spamcon-general] Here's a funky idea > > > I know all of you don't put up SPAM, but there are some > points that I would > like to discuss with you: > > 1) SPAM is not publicity. Publicity is a responsible act, done with > education, to sell and to provide us a job (our company > sells, they pay us). > > 2) As SPAM, Publicity w/o control is abusive. It's abusive a > 15 or 20 min > row of commercials in the TV for instance. > > 3) If you regulate the Market, you get poor. US is rich > because the market > rules itself. For instance, if you limit the publicity to all > companies (and > there're going to be more and more involved in electronic > business), you > will lose your job. > > 4) To protect the rights of individuals: That's right. There > are programs > antispam that avoid incoming messages from anywhere. The same > would happen > if a TV channel begins to bomb you with publicity. What would > you do? To > change all the TV schemas in your country or to see another > channel. For > instance, in Spain there was a time we were receiving a lot > of SPAM via > snail mail. What have people had done? They didn't make a new > law, people > just bought a bucket and placed it in the main gate of the > building. The > bucket says: "Publicity: Put here your publicity". The boys put the > publicity there and the people while entering their building take the > publicity they want from the bucket. > > 5) CONCLUSION: Publicity is necessary, but must be conducted > with education > to the proper segment of customers. > > The Market wins!!!! > > > > ----- Mensaje original ----- > De: "J.D. Falk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Para: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Enviado: martes, 16 de abril de 2002 1:13 > Asunto: [spamcon-general] Here's a funky idea > > > http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html > > Personally, I can't get behind anything which involves a total > revamp of all mail servers everywhere 'cause of what my friend > Dean Gaudet calls "the ten year rule" -- I don't want to have > to put up with spam for the next ten years while waiting for > this to be implemented. But it's still a cute idea. > > -- > J.D. Falk "say your peace" -- > Scott Nelson > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (probably a > typo, but I like > it) > _______________________________________________ > spamcon-general mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers > Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body > of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > _______________________________________________ > spamcon-general mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers > Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body > of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _______________________________________________ spamcon-general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
