Are you longing for high-quality DM email?
 

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Interesting point, ThreeDee.

Like many people I experience my email a bit more like the telephone, and not so much a digital version of my physical mail box. And unwelcome email feels really invasive. It’s a bit like calls from an overly friendly salesman who mispronounces my name, then beats around the bush before making her/his uninteresting point.

Invasive
The point is that I usually don’t let them get that far. Unwelcome telemarketers are just as invasive as encyclopedia salesmen with a key to your front door!

And furthermore, at least my homephone is "reserved" against those sales efforts. That’s easy here, and I believe in the USA and other countries you can register onto a list of people who say "no thanks". As far as I know, telemarketers and Gallup pollsters aren’t even allowed to call cell phones!

This reminds me of an old cartoon. It showed a befuddled mailman delivering post to a house that had two mail boxes. One was marked "The Smiths". The other had "Occupant" written on it in big letters.

A new dialog box
I think most of us would be ecstatic if we could open up a Dialog Box for each email address, and check off "No spam, please". Or "No DM email", if you prefer...


High quality DM email?
Come to think of it, if the senders had to pay a penny per addressee, we would not only see spam slow to a trickle. The remaining "DM email" might be of such high quality, and so well-targeted, that it might actually be worth reading!

It’s a bit like production of TV commercials, and I’ve written a few. The good producers really go out of their way to make ’em good, to catch your attention. Saying "Palmolive" twelve times in the space of 30 seconds, or claiming "It’s the king of beers", no longer does the trick for everybody.

-- ArcticStones

Any resemblance to legitimate marketing is coincidental. It is a legitimate advertising form when done through the postal system because direct marketers pay to send the mail. Spammers are not legitimate because they force the rest of us to pay for the enormous bandwidth used by junk email. Stealing computer time from unaware PC users is also criminal.

I would argue that direct marketing via e-mail ("spam") and direct marketing via postal-mail ("junk mail") are in essence the same. True, the specifics of the two are different, but we can draw many parallels between them.

Just one example:

cwtnospam says that "spam" uses lots of bandwidth, and I would agree in most cases. It is burdensome on networks, etc.

On the other hand, imagine the stress placed on the postal system by very large magazine-style catalogs from companies like Best, JC Penny, and others. Postal delivery men hate sending those out because they are back-breaking to have to carry around. The companies sending the magazines have paid money to the postal service, but even so, it has a burdensome effect on every stage of delivery, and slows down delivery of regular mail too. In the end everybody ends up paying for it.

One might even argue that the postal service would not even exist if it were not for junk mail since it has provided so much revenue over the years. Certainly there would be many fewer postal carriers, vehicles, and processing centers if we only ever received "useful" mail.

I'm not trying to make an argument for or against spam, but we should to realize that this is not a new phenomenon.

Another thought:

Charging money per e-mail or per spam will eventually turn the e-mail system into a revenue monster. It will become an industry dependent on spam for it's own survival.

People's jobs and the futures of certain companies will rely on a steady stream of spam. (just like the postal system depends on junk-mail) If spam were to stop, then these people and companies would all of a sudden have to be scaled back to adjust. Generally speaking, people don't like to lose their source of income.

Don’t throw the phone book at me!
 

One of Norway’s environmental organizations recently made the point that the paper telephone catalog is obsolete. Most people search for phone numbers online, or send sms queries to your equivalent of 411. They convinced the phone company to create a simple web form where people can say "no thanks" to the upcoming catalog(s).

That initiative saves paper and printing costs, and decreases the burden on the environment. The digital age does bring some blessings. :)

That's good thinking, (and slightly off topic :) ) but the users not getting the book must have an internet connection. Another solution might be to distribute the contents of the book on CD or other cheap, light, disposable media. Of course, this solution only works if we assume the user has a computer.

There is a biodegradable CD which Sanyo has developed.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,11...1/article.html
The article is from 2003, and I don't know if it was ever produced.

Perhaps a tiny RFID chip is all that's needed to store the entire phone directory.
That would be the perfect size for sending via post.
(…and now I'm off topic.)

How about this? For every unsolicited mail I get in my box, I receive $.05 from the sender that goes toward my DSL bill. After that, it accumulates into an account. For opt-in mails that I want to receive, I supply a number code within the subject or email text that allows a "free pass" to my inbox.

Difficult to administer, I know. But at least I will be happy to see those stupid Cialis/Viagra ads.

complain or...
 

1) get a good client side email filter such as spamsieve.
2) get good server side spam tools such as spamassassin.
3) pay a service to filter your email. There are services that will do this for one email account and services that will do this for thousands of email accounts.
4) insist that your ISP do 2) or 3)
5) change your email account to another provider that does good email filtering.

Those are your short term options

For the long term, you can get involved with spamhaus or some other organization that is fighting spam on a global level.

http://www.spamhaus.org/

mclbruce - Problem with Spam filtering is that I still need to administer it. It's not like I can turn it on and feel free. I have a business and cannot chance missing a "want to purchase" or "need support" email. I constantly have to check my Spam folder to make sure a personal email has not fallen through the cracks. There are measures I have taken that have greatly reduced my Spam mail, but again, it requires almost a daily maintenance.

I'm not for junk mail of any kind, but there's a world of difference between paying a business send to people and forcing a business to pass on virtually 100% of the cost to the recipients. Junk mail through the postal system adds to their economies of scale, thereby lowering the cost of sending a letter. Junk email adds significantly to the costs for all ISPs while providing no extra income.

I agree that if you could implement paid e-mail/paid spam it might stifle the current incarnation of spam, but that's in the short-term.

In the long-term, as soon as you attach a dollar sign to spam it basically guarantees that it will live on forever. Spam will change its form, laws will be laxed, and the revenue machine will be in effect. What organization is going to want to fight against spam or outlaw it if companies are paying good money to make sure it gets into your inbox?

If the desired effect is to stop spam, then charging for it is not the way to go. If the desired effect is to offset the cost of maintenance and bandwidth, then paid e-mail may be the way to go.

Pretty fascinating stuff.
Especially the part about the world’s 200 worst spammers being responsible for 80% of the world’s email spam. Wow!

But it is going to live on, as long as we have any kind of mail! The solution is to control it, much the way the postal system does. There's a minimum cost that anyone sending bulk mail must pay if they're going to use the postal system, and that limits the amount of junk mail that gets sent. Email essentially has no limits, and that's it's biggest problem.

I think that's what is most annoying about spam. It was never requested and there is no way to opt-out. In most cases the spam I receive seem to be trying to profit from criminal acts such as phishing for banking details or stock pump & dumps. This is a long way from a catalog in your letter box.

No, it was not, not even close. Where did you get that idea?

Which is it? A burden, or profitable? Do we all pay for it, or does it help create more profit? If the sending of junk mail wasn't profitable, then the USPS, a private corporation, would stop it.

Sigh. Around here it seems people still use that thing. I get a couple every year, which go directly to the recycle bin. I haven't opened a phone book in...probably 6-8 years. Same with newspapers of course.

I loathe spam/direct marketing mail. What a waste of energy, really. But like most people here I wouldn't pay for an email service. Also I believe any company setting up a paid service with advanced mail filters wouldn't be competitive because there will always be free email options like hotmail etc which despite poor spam filtering are very usable. Freedom is sweet.


I think internet access for starters should be free for every individual especially at risk groups like low income families or families close to the poverty line and for every student. Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child are a true blessing and its good that at least within the IT industry there are responsible social entrepreneurs like the Gates, Omidyar of eBay and some Yahoo execs.

Rather more effort should be put by r&d teams to bolster their spam filters. Is it really that difficult? We need innovation, hopefully some kid from MIT will come up with a solution that will make us all gasp.

I don't have an answer to that question, just guesses. Maybe I was trying to give two different ways of looking at the situation, and thinking out loud. Can not junk mail be burdensome and also be a source of revenue at the same time?

Not for a business. It's either profitable, or it's not. ;)


:D My in-laws are visiting, so we have newspapers in the house for the first time since I don't know when! It definitely has a different feel from a web site. It's funny though, that I tend to see the news paper as limited - fragile, easily lost, and hard to search, and they see the web as being even more difficult! :D

I suppose as a business person I can consider certain customer requests "burdensome," but if they make me a profit, that's what matters. If they make enough profit, I shift the burden to an employee.

Sounds great, but who should be forced to pay their way?

I wonder how good spam filtering can get. From what I read Postini is one of the best at it. They announced a deal with Google today. One of my clients also signed up with them today. It will be interesting to see how much management is involved.