If you're like me, you get about a hundred junk messages in your inbox a day. This is nothing new, of course, but after all our technological "advances", these scumbags still provide a giant thorn in the proverbial e-side. At the very least, these spammers can get rather creative with their subject lines from time to time, providing me with a genuine laugh for a moment before I blast their message into oblivion.
Perhaps the scariest thing about email marketing is that it works. I know it's hard to believe, but why would such efforts continue to be put into something that doesn't? Unfortunately, there exists a section of the population who weren't born with that ability to sense a deal that's "too good to be true." I suspect it's the same group who pays for groceries at the express checkout with pennies and then drives home doing 20 under the limit in the passing lane.
For the rest of us, it is mind boggling. A mysterious email shows up in our inbox by a guy we've never met, using a Hotmail or Gmail address, with no web site, offering us the best services money can buy. I like to compare this scenario to buying a home theater system, not at a department store but from a stranger, out of the trunk of his car in an empty parking lot under veil of night. No storefront, no credibility, no return policy, no guarantee that both parties wouldn't take your money and run.
So how does a spammer get your email address in the first place? The most common way is through purchased email lists. These lists are compiled from web sites that don't believe in a good privacy policy. By signing up for newsletters or creating an account to shop online, you're potentially giving out your email to people who sell it to spammers. Even adding your email link to your web site exposes it to email "scrapers." (scripts that crawl the web finding email addresses)
If your host or ISP offers disposable email addresses, use them. By creating an email unique to the service you sign up for (ie. john-newsletter@mydomain.com ) I can tell right away that if I get any spam in the future to that email, I know the newsletter I signed up for is sharing my email with others.
A recent report out of the UK says that small business owners lose an average of £2,000 (about $4000 USD) per year in fighting spam (businesszone.co.uk, April 2, 2008). McAfee has even gone so far as to give volunteers pre-paid credit cards, asking them to respond to unsolicited emails selling products and keep a diary of their experience. Their hope is to show the public the dangers of illegitimate email offers in an effort to raise awareness.
Spam is a real problem and will continue to be despite the genuine efforts of some to fight it. However, if the average email user was more informed and actually made a concerted effort to deal with it, the Web would be a far nicer place than it is today. The popular theory has been that if we all had to pay a fraction of a cent for each email we send out, it would eliminate spammers who get away with "email blasting", a practice where thousands of emails are all sent out at once. But until that happens, it's up to the general public to safeguard themselves and do their part in taking up the fight.
For future reference, the Federal Trade Commission offers an email address you can forward your spam to: spam@uce.gov - don't expect a reply; but yes, they assure you that your emails actually go somewhere.
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