The demonization of SPAM

[Lohman446]

Well, to be honest yo uare missing a lot. Business connectivity is not as simple as a line to an ISP. It's a complex issue.

Its not a simple thing, and you have me on the technicalities, I barely follow them when led through. That being said - let me give you a story...

Newspapers charge a lot for advertising, it is much cheaper if you are going to consistently advertise anything of any size to print your own inserts.

When companies started printing there own inserts the established newspapers resisted, refusing to carry them - arguing that the newspaper box was owned by them - they tried both tactical and legal responses to these advertisers going around them.

The advertisers would either hire there own delivery crew, or more often than not, work into the newspaper "sub-contractor" system. Remember your "newsboy" is not employed by the newspaper, they are a subcontractor. Either way these inserts were getting delivered and the companies were saving money.

Finally the newspapers, who could not stop the inserts, relented and put inserts into their paper at a much reduced cost - capitalizing as best they could off something that was, in theory, loosing them revenue for add space.

What does this all mean to this discussion.

Bulk mailers, spammers, whatever are going to find a way in. If the companies try to stop them entirely then they are just going to be more creative and more profitable. They are trying to set up a win / loose situation and both sides are fighting... it is the consumer who ultimately looses this.

I think, somewhere, there is a win / win situation. It is not simple. The computer industry did not get to where it is today by being less than cutting edge though, and as people start to think outside of the box we will come to a solution that 90% of the people on both sides will be satisfied with. This will marginalize, and eventually cause the elimination of, those that cannot work within a reasonable agreement.

[Rinaldo]

Don't take this as offensive, and I know I am making some assumptions. You were operating off a backwards business model (I assume). What I mean by this is that the major hosting companies (MSN / AOL) whose subscribers you "targetted" were forced to bear a large portion (or most) of the marketting costs. Your major costs involved trying to "sneak" in and avoid there newest blocking systems. You were also using very poorly targetted marketing. Because the cost was so low you could afford to have minimal "target" action. You needed a very very small percentage to reply so you really did not take into account any demographic considerations normally considered in advertising. You were mailing to as many addresses as possible with really no need to consider that the 78 year old grandmother really had no need for ________ insert product here.

If those sending bulk mail were forced to bear the burden of the costs that there activities imposed on the system of its users you would force it to be targetted. It would not be the super wildly profitable system that it was - and face it it likely never will be again. However, with targetted marketting, and sender imposed cost for bulk mail, it would legitimize the industry. Further think of the benefits of spam over like direct mail - the ecological benefits alone of not having the paper used must be noticeable.

I am not legitimazing what spam is. I'm merely making it clear that it isn't just the spammer that's doing this atrocity to you but also the email provider and the corporations which are ultimately for lack of a better phrase selling you out.

Sure spam saves trees, it also doesn't kill dolphins and it doesn't give you cancer.
Spam is a dying industry in the context of what my peers have been making money doing.
You cannot get away with spam and expect to reside in the United States.
There are ofcourse always ways around that... you can set up all your business offshore, hosting billing processing etc. etc.
That's another long conversation and frankly, I don't care enough to go into it because I'm not goign to show you how to do what you're saying you don't like being done to you.

Spam was in 2000, HUGE ! It was easy money yes, it was actually stupid money. Today you can still make a profit, however it isn't going to be a percenage of what the model proved three years ago. 2004 was the the year Spam officially died. Today what you see in your junk boxes is crap advertising. Try and WHOIS the sender and 77 percent of the time you can find them, shoot... show me the URL the email shoots to and in a two hour period I can give you the owner's house number. They aren't earning a profit and soon within a year spam as you know it will not exist.
What is going to royal piss you off is adware. I'm currently in the works to crush that bug now. It's funny I sent a virus ... trojan... to a colleague to see if he'd catch it, it was one of the new Jpeg embedded ones, he didn't and in retaliation sent me a nasty exploit, well in learning to remove it i became obsessed with preventing it from ever happening again.
so that's what I'm currently doing. (yeah I'm so tired I'm ranting and going on about nothing)

[hitech]

What is going to royally piss you off is adware.

That's not future tense for me. If you have any advice to keep that crap out I'm all ears.

[Rinaldo]

That's not future tense for me. If you have any advice to keep that crap out I'm all ears.

Hit me up I can show you some simple tricks. RUn FIrefox also and DL SP2 and SP3
that'll eliminate it from happening again

[Rinaldo]

Well, to be honest yo uare missing a lot. Business connectivity is not as simple as a line to an ISP. It's a complex issue.

You are correct sir.

[Miscue]

Hit me up I can show you some simple tricks. RUn FIrefox also and DL SP2 and SP3
that'll eliminate it from happening again

You think eh.