Re: Making Email Spam Free

From: Trevor Johnson <bpfsa_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue 14 Nov 2000 15:59:24 -0500

BRAD JENSEN <brad_at_elstore.com> WROTE:
> Speaking of which, you realize it is possible to
> create a totally spam-proof email client.
> Just add an option not to receive any email message
> from anyone who is not already in your address book.

TO WHICH ENDRE ENEYDY <e_enyedy_at_netside.net> REPLIED:
> Say I am a freelance professional, advertising heavily
> on the Internet, and just for the sake of argument, I
> get around 60% of my new business through my website.
>
> According to your scheme, I would not receive the
> e-mail from my prospective clients because they are not
> in my address book - and of course they are not,
> because we never before exchanged e-mail before.

That is *not* spam. That is legitimate, one-to-one,
personal, relevant, specifc communication. Not even
that most ardent anti-spammer (and there are few more
ardent than myself) would suggest for a moment that
such a diect, specific, personalized, one-to-one
communication is spam.

> Give me spam anytime.

Gladly. You can have mine. Average 700 per *day* of
them. None of which I requested. None of which are
specifically for me. None of which I want. None of
which interest me at all.

I'm a one-person business.

Don't tell me to just delete them. At 700 per day,
allow maybe 20 seconds each for a quick glance to make
sure I'm not deleting legitimate communications, and
those of you who condone spamming have just cost me 4
hours a day, every day, 7 days per week, just to do
nothing but delete them. To take a relatively small
random sample of offenders, trace their origins and
report their abusive behaviour to their ISP's and
hosting services now takes an average of TWELVE hours
per day. Every day. Seven days per week. The spam flood
is unrelenting. Unless I fight back, it just grows.
Recent figures show that spam volumes worldwide have
risen 400% in the past 12 months. At that rate, I don't
want 3,500 spams *DAILY* hitting me a year from now.

Don't tell me to filter them. That doesn't stop
unsolicited, non-specific, non-personalized,
self-serving junk clogging bandwidth around the world.
It doesn't stop my bandwidth costs rising to pay for
*YOUR* marketing. It still slows down the entire
operation of *my* server and my PC. It still consumes
gigabytes of *my* hard disk space where a filter dumps
them.

Don't tell me that I should get a more powerful server
and PC and larger disk space. Not unless *YOU* are
prepared to pay me per unwanted email you send me.

Don't tell me that unsolicited mass-emailing is
"cost-effective advertising". Not when it has utterly
destroyed an otherwise prosperous small business, Not
when the unrelenting nature of it is impinging on both
my physical and mental health. Not when the damage to
my business means damage to my finances. Not when all
that adds up to damage to my marriage.

Don't go telling me the unsolicited bulk email is OK if
it is "targeted". Murder isn't legitimate just because
it is targeted, and not random. Nor is assault. Nor is
torture. Yet they are exactly the effects YOUR email
behaviour is having on MY business and MY life - and
that of millions of other victims around the world.

Let me explain basic courtesy and manners to you in a
way that your grandparents understood - and which
stands the test of time no matter what your selfish
vested interest may contend.

*YOU* don't want 700 door-to-door salespersons on YOUR
doorstep every day.

*YOU* don't want 700 telemarketers phoning YOU every
day.

So if I don't want YOUR email, don't send it to me.
Period.

And if you do, you *WILL* be paying. It WON'T be
"cost-effective" advertising when the Court awards
damages against you in the series of Civil suits my
attornies are about to launch.

Trevor Johnson
http://bestprac.com
bpfsa_at_yahoo.com





Received on Tue Nov 14 2000 - 14:59:24 CST