 Why Spam Is Bad
And What To Do About It
by Odin Wortman
As Seen in the Business Monthly, February
2000
I hate spam. I hate spammers. For those of you uninitiated in Internet culture, I have no issues with the canned meat product. No, I’m referring to unsolicited, junk email.
Many people have asked me where the expression “spam” originated. Interestingly, a plausible explanation comes from Hormel, the makers of SPAM lunchmeats. According to Hormel, use of the term “SPAM” was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM” in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE [unsolicited
email] was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.
“So what?” you might say, “If people get offers to see nude pictures of Monica Lewinsky or herbal
Viagra,’ who’s to worry? After all, that’s what the delete key is for and some people might want herbal
Viagra, pictures of Monica, or both.” Perhaps there is something to these arguments, but let me explain why I believe spam is so insidious.
It’s Bad for the Economy
Much like the issues with unsolicited faxes ten years ago, spam shifts the burden of cost to another party--Internet Service Providers (ISPs), web hosting firms and recipients. Much of the spam you receive is sent using stolen bandwidth. Not only do ISPs worry about filtering out incoming spam, they spend quite
a bit of time and energy preventing spammers from stealing resources to send
email. When spammers spew out their emails, they often cripple mail servers and slow down web access for everyone.
Spam interferes with legitimate commerce and communication.
With all the clever stealth spam in circulation, legitimate inquiries are sometimes filtered out accidentally either manually or by
anti-spam software. Legitimate emails go unanswered. Some folks have stopped posting to newsgroups or don’t include a real
email due to the problem of “email mining.” That’s spammers collecting
emails from postings in newsgroups. Every day, millions upon millions of unwanted
emails must be discarded. All this effort expended to insolate us from spam and to discard spam takes a toll on our nation’s productivity.
Most Spams are Porn or Scams
A survey performed by http://ChooseYourMail.com
indicates that 30 percent of all spam is pornographic and nearly 30 percent promotes a get-rich scheme. Phony healthcare products and
use-spam-to-get-rich offers abound. Much of the spam going to minors promotes pornography and illegal activities.
What to do About it
| 1. |
Never respond to spam. Don’t even respond to remove yourself from mailing lists. Removal will work for legitimate email lists but spammers may actually use this information to verify they are sending to an active
email account.
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| 2. |
Don’t buy anything from a spammer. In fact, boycott everyone who chooses to use spam as a promotional strategy.
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| 3. |
Don’t use spam to promote your business and be cautious not to be tricked into using
spam. A Nissan dealer in the state of Washington unwittingly purchased spam that was sent to some 60,000 area residents. The poor man had little idea what he had done when he found his dealership mobbed with protesters.
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| 4. |
Use a second email for the purpose of entering contests or posting comments online.
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| 5. |
Support legislation against spam. U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, D-N.M. has proposed legislation that would create a national registry of
email addresses to which it would be illegal to send
spam. In this way everyone would be free to choose to receive no spam at all. Representative Gary Miller,
R-Calif introduced a bill that would give ISPs the power to take civil action against
spammers. Under his bill, spammers would be liable for $50 per message up to $25,000 per day. I don’t buy the arguments from spam advocates that spam is an exercise of free speech. We can choose not to invite salespeople into our houses. It would be illegal for a salesman to sneak in the basement door in order to sell to you but that’s pretty much how spammers make their livings.
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Send your spam to the Spam Recycle Center (SRC) at spamrecycle@ChooseYourMail.com.
Include the abbreviation for your state in the subject and your spam will be forwarded to the appropriate legislators. The
SRC, chooseyourmail.com/spamindex.cfm, documents thousands of offending
emails that often begin with, “This is NOT
spam,” “I’m so sorry if this message was sent to you in error,” or use tricky subjects such as, “Re: Your Question.” The SRC has now forwarded over one million spam
emails to congress in an effort to push ahead legislation.
There is such a thing as legitimate, opt-in email. This type of email uses lists of people who request to be placed on specific mailing lists and can opt-out at any time. Opt-in
email can provide amazing results with very few of the drawbacks seen with other types of advertising. But now, opt-in
email is suffering since so much of the spam claims to be legitimate email. Ian Oxman of the Spam Recycling Center says that spam reduces the effectiveness of legitimate opt-in
email advertising and steals from the powerful potential of all email communication.
So now you know why I say the only good spam is the kind you can eat with creamy mustard, bell peppers and garlic on rye toast. And by the way, don’t worry about the good folks at Hormel--they say their canned meat product sales haven’t suffered one bit.
For more delicious recipes, see the Hormel SPAM web site at
http://www.spam.com. To learn more on how to combat the evils of
spam, visit The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email at
http://www.cauce.org.
____________________________________
Odin Wortman is president of Internet Marketing
Solutions, a firm that designs profit centered Web sites and helps
businesses use the Web strategically. He can be reached at 410-799-9283,
by email at ask@iMarketingSolutions.com
or on the Web at http://iMarketingSolutions.com.
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