The demonization of SPAM

[Lohman446]

Ok, we had a discussion in PB talk threaten to get derailed, because frankly it became a discussion about SPAM. Now I realize there are many views on this - but I decided to make the considerations below. Just curious if this is an topic of any interest, others thoughts on it, etc. This from the guy who brought you such threads as the miracle of mechanical engineering that is the stapler

Me either, nor am I involved in SPAM in any form, however as a marketting tool it is very effective and may have proven very very good for society as a whole if it were not for the fraud that some SPAM resulted in.

SPAM is very cheap to send and receive when compared to almost every other form of advertising - as such you need a VERY small percentage to respond to it to be profitable, a smaller percentage than any other form of traditional advertising.

SPAM (in its e-mail form) can be very good at communicating ideas, in fact the "small print" can be made more plain because you are paying so little per printed line - we are talking very miniscule amounts only worth even considering the cost of when considered in major quantities.

SPAM can give you the opportunity to compare and contrast products at your leasure, rather than trying to compare often misleading advertising on radio and television. Because it is relatively inexpensive much more detail can be giving than almost any other form of advertising - even brochures that you pick up from someone as there is no printing cost.

SPAM could have a lot of benefits, however scams and tricks have made it less useable than it could be... so have attempts to block it in services. We have, with some cause, demonized this form of communication. I turn off all SPAM guards - I am not paying AOL $20 + a month to filter my mail for me. I will grant that it can be annoying in your in box, but I personally find commercials at dramatic parts in shows much more annoying then having to press the delete button a dozen times on my mail box.

Do I think SPAM should be cheap / free to send. Not at all, I think that those sending it should burden the costs of sending it, and allow the ISPs to profit from it. However, the costs of sending it, and reasonable profits from that cost (to the ISP) could be had for much much less than traditional advertising.

You all do note that AOL blocks SPAM... but you cannot open your mailbox (under normal settings) without seeing a banner add across the bottom of it - AOL sends pop ups to its subscribers. The welcome window, that you cannot fully close, holds more adds. When AOL wants to communicate with you, they send mass e-mails. AOL knows the advantage of SPAM and its derivitives, they and there partners are just trying to control who can, with no sinister motive, use those same ideas to communicate with people.

[teufelhunden]

I agree that spam is a very effective marketing tool.. however, I'm still not a fan of it. At current, one of my emails is up to about 80-100 emails that I'd consider spam each day. Would you like to have 80-100 sales calls a day? Or 80-100 snail mails a day? Would make finding that credit card statement a bit of a pain..

[Lohman446]

I agree that spam is a very effective marketing tool.. however, I'm still not a fan of it. At current, one of my emails is up to about 80-100 emails that I'd consider spam each day. Would you like to have 80-100 sales calls a day? Or 80-100 snail mails a day? Would make finding that credit card statement a bit of a pain..

Ahh, an interesting point and one that is easily agreed upon. I would counter with the idea that the average 30 minute show has dwindled down to closer to 20 because of advertising, and that the "cut-outs" are always at points designed to get your attention. I love DVRs because it gives me the same "choice" I have with SPAM - skip over the commercials and walk away to get a sandwich, play with the kids, whatever. Which brings us to another interesting condsideration. If traditional (TV) advertising proves to be less and less effective due to inventions of things like TIVO and DVRs, as such getting less exposure to a semi-captive audience will we continue to see television shows as we have become used to seeing them, or will the producers be forced to look at ways to overcome what could be a loss in revenue?

Back to your point. I agree with the annoyance of it, and the accidental deletion of mail that you intended to get because of it. However, how much time would it take you to carefully delete 80-100 e-mails? It takes me like 15 seconds to do it not carefully. Is it possible that it would only take like a minute or two? Is that a big offset to the advantages of this form of communication? I go back to the problem with SPAM have been those that have used it with sinister intents. I don't have the solution to it but I think that is what we have been trying to avoid.

[teufelhunden]

Well, the problem with that specific account is that it's rare that I get something of importance [3-5x a week, I'd say] but due to the nature of the account, I need to keep it and check it regularly. Now, I have no problems at all sorting thru the mess, because I use Thunderbird with a powerful junk mail deleter, so if it's not spam it comes thru.

The difference with TV ads and spam, IMO, is that it actually costs something to buy airtime. I'm sure you've seen the ads for CDs with 16 million email addresses going for $30.. as such, TV ads are going to be more well done [ever wonder why commercials are funny?] and not joe schmo wanting to sell you penis enlargement pills.

And yeah, TV ads can be viewed as a break, which you can easily skip by getting up and grabbing a beer or fast forwarding on a DVR-- spam is the opposite. Spam needs to be actively dealt with, ignoring it just compounds the problem.

[Lohman446]

The difference with TV ads and spam, IMO, is that it actually costs something to buy airtime. I'm sure you've seen the ads for CDs with 16 million email addresses going for $30.. as such, TV ads are going to be more well done [ever wonder why commercials are funny?] and not joe schmo wanting to sell you penis enlargement pills.

Agreed, and I beleive it imperative to the legitimization of SPAM as a valid form of communication that the sender burden the costs created by sending (and receiving) SPAM. As well as a reasonable profit by the ISPs involved in sending.

[hitech]

[Hexis]

A good portion of my work is fighting Spam at work. I'm very familiar with the issues surrounding Spam.

First some termonolgy clarifiction.

SPAM is a lunch meat made by Hormel. You can eat SPAM, you can't eat Spam.

Spam or spam is broadly defined as Unsolicited Commericial/Bulk Email. The important word is "Unsolicited". That means it's not requested, not that it's trying to sell something (I have run into that confusion before).

Content is not the issue. The nastiest porn email could be solicited, and therefore would not be spam. The niceest message about something you like could be unrequested, and it would be spam.

Spam as an advertising method is cost shift advertising. Spam in the real world would be like somone sending you an advertisement in the mail (postal) that has postage due. It's quite similar to junk faxing, which is illegal (and still done heavily).

Spam is also theft of service in the same way as many denial of service attacks are. If you ping flood someone and cause unnecessary load on their server, you are partisipating in what most call a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. The only difference between that and spam is the protocol and port.

In a solicited (requested and confirmed) manner, marketing email is a great tool and completly valid. In an unsolicited manner, it's cost shift advertising, and theft of service.

[Lohman446]

SPAM is a lunch meat made by Hormel. You can eat SPAM,

Well now, I appreciate the knowledge you have shared with us. I would still debate that point

[Hexis]

I'll give you that. I should have said "It may be possible to eat SPAM".

[Lohman446]

Agreed, and I beleive it imperative to the legitimization of spam as a valid form of communication that the sender burden the costs created by sending (and receiving) SPAM. As well as a reasonable profit by the ISPs involved in sending.

I put this up here again. It is a fundamental basis of the viewpoint I am expressing. Let me tell you now that I frankly don't care about spam and am surely not as big a proponent of it as may be expressed here. I do agree that spam improperly shifts the cost, without recovery, to the ISPs or server owners. I do not fully understand server workloads etc. but I understand enough basics to understand this.

Those sending Spam, or advertising on the internet through whatever means, need to bear the burden of the costs, and they need to expect that those supplying the hardware that allows them to do it will take a reasonable profit.

I am not as sure that I agree with all the hardships expressed that people have to go through in dealing with it - I think there exagerated.

And keep in mind, that the viewpoint I have expressed does not deal with fraud, nor do I have any idea how to deal with it and keep "legitimate" spam and fraudulent spam seperate which would be a base need in legitimizing spam as a whole.

[Hexis]

There is no such thing as legitimate spam. There is plenty of legitimate marketing or advertising email. For example if I agree to get email from rei.com, then the advertising they send me is solicited, and not spam. The cost of accepting that mail is accepted by the signup (and confirmation). This is called an opt in. Opting in (when confirmed) makes the mail solicited. I personally get plenty of marketing email, the mail I have requested is in no way spam. The mail I have not requested is not spam. I have given my permission for it. I also need to be able to revoke that permission if my situation changes and I no longer want to get that mail. If I revoke that permission, and keep getting the mail, it then is spam (because it is unsolicited).

Consent, not content. That's the important bit.

[Lohman446]

There is no such thing as legitimate spam. There is plenty of legitimate marketing or advertising email. For example if I agree to get email from rei.com, then the advertising they send me is solicited, and not spam. The cost of accepting that mail is accepted by the signup (and confirmation). This is called an opt in. Opting in (when confirmed) makes the mail solicited. I personally get plenty of marketing email, the mail I have requested is in no way spam. The mail I have not requested is not spam. I have given my permission for it. I also need to be able to revoke that permission if my situation changes and I no longer want to get that mail. If I revoke that permission, and keep getting the mail, it then is spam (because it is unsolicited).

Consent, not content. That's the important bit.

I don't disagree with the fundamentals of what you are saying and understand where your differentiating well. When I say legitimate spam I meant non fraudulent spam - not "this is ebay..."

However - I have not "opted in" other than turning on or tuning in for advertising on radio or television. Consider the same with newspaper mailings or direct mailings. Why do we hold our internet mailboxes to a different standard?

[Eric Cartman]

[hitech]

I am not as sure that I agree with all the hardships expressed that people have to go through in dealing with it - I think there exagerated.

Try dealing with up to 100 spam emails a day, every day. I finally got rid of the email address. And it was my work email. I now do not have an email address that matches the standard email address here at work.

[Rinaldo]

Spam is of course unsolicited.
However heres where the problem comes from. Everytime you give your email out you are allowing a company access to use and sell that email address.
For instance, you check into the hospital and fill out the Emergency report... now there's a box that says "email " and you fill it out. I (company X) could very easily contact this hospital and offer then .50 cents for that email address and for all their email addresses. They have no idea why I want the email addresses and I won't tell them the truth anyways if they bothered to ask.

I now have access to 100k emails a year from one hospital. Imagine if I did that just with 50 hospitals a year.

Ok here's another way to get spam. You go to hotmail, you register an account and you don't uncheck the "recieve email notifications of online offers"
well now hotmail has you opted in... you opted to now check that box. Legally they can now send you all the emails they want, but they don' t stop there... no, they sell those emails too once they've emailed them, say, 40 times.

Another way to get spam is when you order a product online, I know several companies we bought emails off of. Now say Apple for instance has an non-sharing agreement. Fine so you offer Apple's technical support manager a nice check for $100k, He'll supply you with emails until he's caught and fired I assure you.

Lastly is the double opt-in. Porn for instance uses this daily and I know from experience that they generate between 10-30 million email addresses a day. Back in 2002 it was more in the range of 50-100 million. You opt in once and you get a confirmation email which basically serves two purposes: when you click "register" in the email it notifies the company that you opted into, that that specific email address is real and actively receiving emails, and two; that you have legally agreed to accept emails a second time (read the fine print).
Once someone has you opted in twice that's pure cash for them for several reasons. They may use your email to send you everything school book advertisements to paintball marker sales. Once you are deemed "spent" I could sell that email for upwards of $2. Imagine if I have 200 million double opt in emails... imagine what I could sell that list for... 20-50 million?


Email marketing is huge. Companies like Yahoo and hotmail do not make money if they just offer you 100 mb of storage space to use, the bandwidth is too expensive. They solicit adds on the right of the screen, they throw popup style adds at you, they used to even share the emails for what we call "revshare". This is basically revenue sharing. I give you an email address and if you make any profit off of it you share 30-50% of that revenue with me.

If you want to avoid spam all together, never ever register for anything online and use your real email address. Period. and guess waht that's impossible.

Look at this message board for instance... You register, they send you an email and you have to open that email and click a portal that sends you back to this forum and says" thankyou for completing your registration" or something to that effect... they now own your email and know it's working.

Emailing adult material unsolicited is currently illegal and the penalty is up to 10 years in prison. California is the only state that has completely banned Spam but uses a fine to thwart (or attempt to) Spammers.

* Notice *
I have not and do not condone these practices and was merely demonstrating how, if one wanted, could generate a list of emails. I did not ever take part in any of these practices.
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