Slashdot Mirror
MSNBC: Offices Remain Spam Free Zones
Makarand writes "Thanks to a good job done by the tech staff and filtering software, office
workers in the US are not bothered by spam mail and the value of email
communications has not eroded. A survey conducted by Pew Internet & American
Life Project, whose findings are reported in this article by MSNBC.com, found that spam is certainly a problem for personal email accounts but not
for company provided email accounts. This is contrary to the
perception that American workers are wasting too much time battling spam." YMMV.
See, I get about five times as much spam as real mail on most days. Do I care? No. I spend less than 30 seconds deleting spam on any given day.
So.. let's see.
By NOT spending hours bitching about spam
NOT spending hours tweaking an anti-spam system
and just pressing delete... I figure I save myself a good 20 hours anually, at least.
People waste more time whining about spam and fighting spam than they would fighting it with the most simple method: the delete key.
yes, I disagree with spam. I think it's rude, wrong, and a waste of time. If I had 20x the amount of spam I get, I would probably speak differently.... but as it is, I get 20 or 30 spams a day, and it's not worth the effort to complain.
We could pretend it eats up valuable resources, or we could get real, and realize that the total disk space eaten by all the spam is really very small, relatively speaking. Even if it's 4 or 5x the amount of legitimate mail, it's still nothing.
The ability to SPAM places the power of the mass media in the hands of the individual. Although SPAM can be extrememly annoying, I think the price to pay is well worth it because it can be used as a powerful force for the democritization of information. By quashing SPAM, the common person is cut off from the ability to reach a mass audience (they could start a web page but people must be AWARE of it in order that their message gets out). In other words, quashing SPAM has the effect of helping to silence dissent. Then the power of the mass media is held only by the corporate elite.