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The Continuing Rise of E-Mail Marketing
Mark Cantrell writes: "Yahoo is running a story from Reuters Internet Report that says that companies like Doubleclick are becoming more popular with online businesses because of the low price they charge. $25 for 1000 people spammed is the example given. They do mention that there is a threat that spam may get out of hand, however. May get? Obviously they haven't seen my mailbox or Usenet lately. My favorite quote from the article:
'I think spam is becoming a problem,' Bluefly's Seiff said. 'Any time you get clutter in your mailboxes, it is not beneficial to e-mail marketers like us.'" The article touches on true spam, but mostly talks about the much more benign stuff lumped under "direct marketing," like reminder updates from stores you cleared to send it to you.
I got my own domain and run my own email server. I only use those email addresses for business communication and exchanges with trusted friends and family. In a year and a half, no spam. My roadrunner account? Yup, spam flows in and I used it the exact same way. Three other ISPs, same thing. Makes me think that bulk emailers have help gathering valid email lists.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Go to http://www.overture.com and search for 'bulk email'. Then click on each of the links. Do this once every day. The amount this will cost each spammer is displayed on the search results page.
First, have a couple of universally available databases, one of email addresses which have expressed a wish not to receive any automated email, and another of sources which have been shown to violate this list.
If your email address is in the first database (and only you can put it there), your ISPs email system could be set to exclude any mail from the second list without affecting common carrier status.
The object is equivalent to blocking telemarketing numbers, but to be effective the consumer should be able to avoid having to block those spam sources one by one.
That's the basic idea. I'm sure the /. crowd can come up with a couple of dozen refinements in as many minutes.
I got a 3rd party spam a few weeks ago on behalf of a company that sells retail women's clothing. Needless to say, since I am not a woman there was no way I had signed up for mail from them. Just another spam, right? Well, it's a company that my mother is a huge fan of, and is actually on a friendly basis with the owners (though they're public now - she bought a healthy-sized chunk when they went public and has done nicely) going way back. So I mentioned it to her, and how I was disappointed that they had resorted to using a spamhaus.
A couple of days later, I got a very apologetic call at work from their head of marketing. It seems they really didn't understand the difference between opt-in mailing, self-managed lists, and spamhauses. We talked about how to manage a mail list for nearly an hour - I wound up answering a _lot_ of questions (I made some suggestions as well), and got a promise on her behalf that they would try to be good netizens going forward. We also talked about things like banner advertising, the best sites to do reciprocal banners as well as purchased ads, and a lot more.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I really think there are companies out there that are clueless about electronic marketing in general. So they listen to a spammer who can sound like a legitimate businessman, look at the numbers that get handed to them, and say, "why not", without realizing the damage that can get done to their reputations.
Then again, a lot of folks who get this crap in their inboxes don't even realize that it's wrong. Unfortunately, folks are starting to get accustomed to tons of junk mail, and only a relative few of us are vocal about it.
One interesting point in the article - one mailer supposedly had statistics showing that 70% of their e-mails were opened. Well, that means they were using webbugs - proof that everyone should use mailer agents that either can disable network access or refuse to display HTML.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The basic point I never seem to see mentioned is that SPAM does work.
How you ask? Quite simple, it's not supposed to make money for the people actually sending the email. It's supposed to make money for the people selling the mass email lists/services.
It's the same as the California Gold Rush days; the vast majority of people who made money were the ones selling shovels, not using them.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
As some people have started reloading the spammer-nailer page a lot, it seems, maybe I should clarify that the e-mail address is not unique as unique per pageload. Instead, it's an md5 sum created based on the details got from the client host, browser, time, and maybe something else. So, it's somewhat unique per spammer.
You're overestimating the spammer's sense of ethics. In the situation you describe, the spammers will get laid. Spammers would just ram the chicks' car off the road and rape them.
I mean, they asked for it, right? If they didn't wanna get banged, they shouldn't be on the informayshun s00perhighway with all the responsible murketers, right?
Spammer #1: "I looked out the window and held down my horn for 10 seconds, and she glanced at me for a second before flipping me the bird and driving off! But I got a good look at her! That's opt-in!"
Spammer #2: "My chick could have unsubscribed by just giving me a blowjob. But she didn't want to! It's her fault for not unsubscribing!"
Spammer #3: "I was just expressing my views on sexuality to her! Frea Speach is Garonteed by thuh First Amundmint!"
Spammer #4: "Just because she said '550 - fuck off, spammer' with every shafting didn't mean she might not change her mind a few seconds later!"