[pmmail-list] Spam -- your definition

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 30 May 2002 12:26:32 -0300, PMMail OS/2 Support wrote:

>On Thu, 30 May 2002 16:04:56 +0100, Brian Morrison wrote:

>>high. That is a self-limiting mechanism that email just doesn't have.
>
>Not completely true. It is a self-limiting mechanism that email
>suffers from *less*. But there is still a cost to sending unsolicited
>email, just like regular junk mail. It's just lower.

It's so low as to be practically unmeasurable, especially as if sending
to a large list via an ISP's smart host (but of course no one can do
this any more) the expansion is done by that MTA and the cost of upload
is a single mail.

>I could have shown them logical and statistical
>proof of it.
>
>Do we outlaw it because it bothers us? Will it harm us more to have
>it or not have it? I'm not sure.

If someone calls me, I simply tell them I'm not interested thank you.
If they don't hang up at that point, but start to argue or tell me I
really do need to listen, then the gamma-ray generator goes on and they
get a piece of my mind. You can't do that with spam, especially because
the spammers ensure that the reply-to a) doesn't work and b) would be
an address verifying device if it did.

>
>>number of things I have bought that I found out about in this way. If I
>>had as many unsolicited commercial phone calls as I get individual
>>unsolicited email (50 a day on bad days) then I would have blown an
>>artery by now, every call would be met with a torrent of anger and
>
>True, but emails are MUCH easier to deal with than a phone call. You
>don't need to get up to answer them, you can delete them in much less
>time than it takes to extricate yourself from a phone call (even if
>that's only 3 seconds). So a higher frequency of email, but easier to
>deal with each.

Disagree, I *never* get 50 phone calls of this type in a day, 1 is
exceptional. But every day I have to deal with spam, collectively it
wastes a lot more of my life.

>
>>spam defences bin 95% of it sight unseen). Most of it is clearly
>>violating the laws of physics, natural law or the law of the land, and
>>I get even angrier knowing that the remove addresses are not that but
>>an address-verification mechanism.
>
>Agreed. I don't know if I've ever even done the 'remove me' thing.
>And I especially dislike the morons who try to sell me something that
>is clearly fraudulent.

If you ever had done the remove me thing, you'd know by now ;-)

-- 
Brian Morrison                                       bdm@fenrir.org.uk
              do you know how far this has gone?
               just how damaged have I become?
                                      'Even Deeper' by Nine Inch Nails

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