Klarinet Archive - Posting 000116.txt from 2006/02

From: Gary Smith <gary622@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Email 'postage'
Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:46:43 -0500

To both you and Roger - yes, you're right, in some respects. I mean,
we've never solved the equivalent problems with telephone
solicitation. Ormondtoby's experience with the distributor just shows
how pushy, idiotic, and BLIND some companies are. As if you will EVER
buy from them again after they've done this?!?

And so it is - if you have a means of communication, sometimes people
you don't want to have the address/number/whatever will get by.

But the major problem we're having with spam where it has become SO
enormous still gets back to the sheer volume of machine-generated
gibberish. Yes, there ARE people who want to send messages and conceal
their identity. You're assuming the purpose of spam is just to offer
and sell something. Spam is often a way to spread viruses, to verify
addresses, to implement Denial of Service attacks, and any number of
other things. Verification might stop this.

Meanwhile, if companies will send catalogs through the US mail
mindlessly and endlessly, why won't they spend fractions of a cent to
e-mail you mindlessly and endlessly? I'm really concerned that, like
paper junk mail, the fees will serve to "legitimize" certain types of
spam - that is clearly the model AOL is aiming at. AOL has been
spamming its own members with its own announcement both by e-mail and
infuriating pop-ups ever since they've been in existence - why would
you think "AOL certified mail" would be about anything BUT that?

So there is no magic bullet - the real cure, which unfortunately I
doubt will ever happen, would be for companies to give up already with
the idiocy of PUSH marketing where they strive to get in your face to
sell their product. The best companies do little advertising, much
less resort to spamming customers, but the rest never learn.

On 2/7/06, Ormondtoby Montoya <o4rmondtoby@-----.net> wrote:
> Gary Smith wrote:
>
> > So as I see it AOL and Yahoo will accept
> > money from people who want to bypass their
> > spam filters. And what kind of people want to
> > bypass spam filters?
>
> Gary, you have summarized a classic case of double-speak. Double-speak
> _does_ breed general public distrust in the long run. However:

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