Copyright © 2004
When e-mailing first became popular during the early 1990s, it was seen by many as a quick, convenient and easy way to send a message or image to friends and acquaintances. After all, this is what it was intended to do. On
the up side, it eliminated trips to the post office and stationery store. Unfortunately, there was also a down side -it was easily exploited by some as a cheap, simple way to send unsolicited advertisements to lots and lots of people.
Since 1994, the sending of unwanted, unsolicited e-mail, otherwise known as spam (a term borrowed from an old Monty Python satire) has escalated exponentially. Some professional spammers send as many as ten million messages daily. But even if only one in 10,000 people respond, spam can obviously be profitable - otherwise, no one would bother to send it.
For those such as authors, who legitimately want to put their
articles into the hands of publishers, there are services such
as the phantom writers (
thephantomwriters.com), who
send to their lists of thousands of sources. However, this is
all opt-in and perfectly appropriate. And in most cases, services
such as this actually deliver their email to double opt-in lists.
One British spam tracking service, Spamhaus, estimates that more
than 80% of all e-mails sent in the U.S. are spam, and in Europe,
the number exceeds 50%. This is expensive, costing billions of
dollars in lost business and taking u.computing capacity that
spammers use for free. In addition.computer security is
compromised.
This has long been recognized as a critical problem, and a
variety of solutions have been proposed. It has been suggested
that perhaps there should be a small charge for sending and/or
receiving e-mail to cut down on traffic The problem with that
suggestion is that the spammers won't end up paying, but instead
will post using a fraudulent account.
The U.S. Government even came up with its own bright solution
to create a "do not spam" list, modeled on the "do not call"
registry that has been so successful. The problem there is that
this isn't going to stop spammers, many of whom are located
outside the U.S. It will simply confirm live e-mail addresses,
providing more incentive to send the stuff. This suggestion
was quickly scrapped.
Currently, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and AOL are working to find
an acceptable solution. It's going to be a very difficult task
and may take a lot o.compromise among thes.companies. However,
from this vantage point, it looks as though whatever is proposed,
the spammers are going to be one step ahead.
About the author:
Rosalyn Bronstein, for more than 20 years an author and
consultant, has been an advisor to numerous multinational
corporations and international organizations. Understanding
the value of maintaining relationships,
ntouchnrat.com' target='_blank' class='navigation'
ntouchnrat.comwas created. It's a unique and secure way to never lose touch
again with the people who have brought meaning to you life,
without having to use e-mail.
