Years ago when the web was in its infancy, some people got the bright idea of sending out information about their business by email. Now understand that the web has its roots in the academic community, and they took great umbrage with these upstarts who were invading their world. They went to great lengths to punish them, and the term "spammers" was coined.
Then, most people thought of "spam" as a luncheon meat from Hormel, but today it has taken on the meaning of "unsolicited commercial email", and is considered by most as undesirable. Believe me - very few people hate spam more than I do, but let's step back and take a realistic view of this problem.
Some people have taken on the anti-spam campaign as their "Holy Grail", and spend hours trying to find ways to punish them.
In the beginning, an early form of retribution was to send the offender multiple copies of a lengthy document, which would then fill up their mailbox, so they couldn't receive email. As email became more sophisticated, they set up filters to automatically send a lengthy anti-spam complaint back to the originator. The real "diehards" would complain to the spammers Internet Service Provider (ISP) in an attempt to get the offenders account cancelled.
Let's examine each of these strategies. Understand that spam is here to stay. While some States have passed anti-spam legislation, the web is an international community. It will be very difficult for anyone to legally pursue someone in another country.
If people are paying extra to receive and send email, and in some parts of the world they still do, this is a valid consideration. No one wants to pay to receive email they didn't ask to receive. But the majority of people don't. This then is not a personal economic issue, but falls into the category of an "irritant".
But there is a more serious issue here. Spam uses available bandwidth on the Internet, which affects everyone, and will ultimately result in higher fees charged by those providing the mail servers. Those who respond to this spam, by sending a lengthy message back in retaliation, are simply adding to the problem. Those that set up automatic responses are doing likewise - they are just as guilty of "hogging" bandwidth as the spammers themselves.
Face it - if you set up an automatic response to someone, and hit their autoresponder address, the two of you could exchange thousands of emails in a very short period of time. This could effectively bring the mail server to its knees, and deny service to all other legitimate people who use that service. This is a quick way to lose your ISP. Denial of service is also punishable by law, and you could be held accountable to clean up the mess you created.
The other alternative of complaining to their ISP can also be dangerous. There is software that will parse an email and automatically send a complaint to the ISP of every email address, or web site that it finds in the email. Now if this is done to someone who sends out a valid newsletter or ezine such as this, there could be dozens of people falsely accused. If someone loses their ISP because of a false accusation, the person who made the complaint could be held legally liable.
Today, the spammers are more sophisticated. Many use "forged" addresses to send out their email, and complaining to, or about them is a waste of time. All it will result in is undeliverable mail. Now do this automatically, and for every spam message you receive, you will most likely receive a response back that your mail was undeliverable.
So how can you protect yourself? You can email is from a legitimate source or not. If it is legitimate, follow their unsubscribe instructions to be removed from their mailing list. But use your head. If you sign up under one email address, and forward the email to another, you must ask to be removed by sending an email from the one you signed up under. List owners have no crystal balls which gives them the address you are enrolled with, if you ask to be removed using another.
You can easily tell if an email is not from a legitimate source. Any that simply enclose a form to fill out, or give a telephone number to call are probably not. What do you do here? Delete it. Better yet, set up a filter with your email package to do it automatically.
Don't even bother trying to filter the email using the senders address. If you receive multiple copies of the same email, the odds are they were all sent from a different forged address. Pick out a "key phrase" in the email and automatically delete any message that contains that phrase.
Above all, keep your anger in check, and deal with this problem realistically. While it might not go way, in your attempt to punish the spammers, make sure you're not hurting the innocent in the process.
About The Author: Bob publishes the free weekly "Your Business" Newsletter Visit his Web Site at http://adv-marketing.com/business to subscribe. As a bonus, get 40,000 FREE E-Books from Larry Dotson, when you visit http://www.ldpublishing.com
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