Slashdot Mirror
How To Convince My Boss Not To Spam?
An anonymous reader writes "The small travel agent that I work for recently received an email from one of our competitors with several thousand of their potential customers in the 'To:' and 'Cc:' fields. My boss now wants to use these addresses to send unsolicited advertisements. I would like to convince him not to do this, as I believe that this practice is morally wrong and legally dubious. However, morals don't go very far in the business world, so I'm asking Slashdot: what business-oriented arguments can I use to dissuade my boss from spamming?"
I think you left out the most obvious. Post his private mail address here and the Slashdot mob will tell him.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I was trying to be as constructive as possible. That said - I do like your style.
Given the number of dumbarse "reply all" mails I get, I doubt there is any legislation which prevents you from doing a reply all. "Dear Competitor, Not sure why you sent us an email. We happen to be a similar business as you and offer far better services and cheaper rates than your business. Please unsubscribe us from your mailing list, as the specials that you've offered had us rolling in the aisles. Signed, Pointy Haired Boss"
I do believe you meant '//./'
also, get out
That email address has already been submitted!
I guess I'm not too popular.. (Luckily I use gmail for my domain, and out of ~2000 monthly spam, only 2 hit my inbox. And only 1 false positive to date)
better still, post your question to slashdot with enough information that anyone with half a brain could know you were talking about them, and get fired.
Problem solved....
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
In the rare event of success the result is more likely to be ... a less than satisfactory arrangement (e.g. ugly woman, one night stand, STDs, etc.)
So you're saying there's a chance it might work?
Hmmm..
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Let him send the spam, and then:
* Your mail server will be added to blacklists.
Make sure this happens
* Complaints may reach your web site's hosting provider, who may take it offline.
Make sure this happens
* Some recipients are likely to be annoyed and may decide to never do business with your company.
Make sure he receives some email telling him why customers are upset
* Depending on where you're based, this could be illegal under either protection of privacy laws (e.g. the UK's Data Protection Act) or anti-spam laws (e.g. several state laws in the U.S.). Your company may receive a hefty fine because of it.
Make sure someone grasses him up to the appropriate authorities.
Oh, and make sure your CV is up to date.
Aren't we the personal swiss army knife of social engineered DoS attacks? (Post it, we slash it down.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team