Yeah, you guessed it. It’s spam. I know I shouldn’t be putting my head in the sand, but I find myself unwilling or unable to follow every twist and turn of the anti-spam bill which has (finally) been passed by Congress.
Will it be the antidote to your flood of unwanted messages? Perhaps a partial panacea. Although some are saying it will be an invitation to spammers to work even harder.
I may not be the only one who feels this way. A recent survey of email marketers by Jupiter Media and EmailLabs revealed that 31% regard blacklists and potential filtering as their greatest concern when it comes to email delivery. Only 8% cite potential legislation as their biggest worry.
Thanks to Janet Roberts of Ezine-Tips for a pointer to a detailed article in CNET News about the Senate version of the anti-spam bill.
Finally, here’s an up-to-date article by Ralph F. Wilson on how to comply with the “CAN SPAM Act of 2003.”
Debbie says: “Some are saying [the anti-spam bill] will be an invitation to spammers to work even harder.”
Well, it would be no bad thing. My real beef against spam is not simply the deluge, but the pointless inanity, incomprehensibility and irrelevance. It would be more bearable if there was intelligence, cleverness and readability to it all, and even a modicum of relevance.
However, driving it even further into illegality will only stop some intelligent, far-sighted spammers coming up with spam that really works, stuff we genuinely want to read, something we actually want to buy. Once it’s actually illegal, there will be no incentive to develop a ‘Spam Marketing Assocation’.
My lateral-thinking view: Perhaps if Wal-Mart or some other marketing-savvy behemoth could get involved, it might raise the standard of spam, and thus drive out the amateurs!
No cause is so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
Art is vision, not expression.
Make sure you still have something worth wishing for.
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