When it comes to Spam, it’s OK to be a rat
SPAM: the enemy of every user looking to get on-line quick to do some work. It lurks in every Web browser waiting to attack. It fills up e-mail accounts with no mercy. It is annoying, cumbersome, and relentless. A victim of SPAM is not helpless to block it, though. With enough dilligence and effort, any user can play a role in policing the net for those nasty unsolicited e-mails.
SPAM comes in many shapes and sizes. Some accounts filter out any e-mails that have attachments, since SPAM often comes with attachments. When SPAM does get through, it’s often filled with all kinds of bogus promises. Advertisers using it tell you that you’ll get something for nothing. They’ll promise free laptops, new X-Box systems, tons of money if you work from home, etc.. Perhaps the most prevalent form of SPAM is used to advertise adult sites. Following closely are all those missives promising cheap prescription drugs. Needless to say, many of these senders are not from legitimate operations.
A site called www.spamhaus.org reports that an e-mail can be classified as SPAM if, “(1) the recipient’s personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent.”
The word SPAM was coined as the winning entry in a 1937 competition for Hormel Foods Corporation’s “spiced meat” (now officially known as “SPAM luncheon meat”). Some claim the internet’s version of the term came from a Monty Python Flying Circus episode in which the word was repeated incessantly. Correspondent Bob White claims the modern use of the term predates Monty Python by at least ten years. He pointed to an editor for the Dallas Times Herald describing Public Relations as “throwing a can of spam into an electric fan just to see if any of it would stick to the unwary passersby.”
Spam can also be referred to as: Unsolicited Bulk Email (”UBE”). UBE is banned by the vast majority of Internet service providers worldwide. It is against all the tenets of netiquette.
Spamhaus’ anti-spam blocklist is used by more than 260 million Internet users to reject emails identified as spam. The Spamhaus Web site reports that, “Anyone sending UBE on the Internet, whether the content is commercial or not, illegal or not, needs to be fully aware that (1) they will lose their Internet access if they send UBE, (2) they will be placed on the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) if they send UBE.” There are consequences for companies who abuse SPAM techniques.
The subject is so serious that legislation has even been passed to battle the aggravating tactic. The federal government formulated US S.877 (CANSPAM 2004) as an attempt to respond to consumers upset by how SPAM interfered with their daily computer use. So, if it’s so illegal and unethical, why does it persist? Well, maybe because some sites and Search Engine Optimization firms who use “black hat” tactics feel that the method is effective. Sometimes it can be, but is it worth pissing off a bunch of customers just to land a few? It is, but only if people continuously neglect to report their bulk mail messages as SPAM.
E-mail accounts like Yahoo have bulk folders that most SPAM is filtered to, but when that folder fills up with hundreds of messages a day, there isn’t always enough time to report every message. AOL mail accounts also feature an option of reporting SPAM that makes it to your inbox. Use these methods of reporting SPAM, and you might just be able to check your mail without having to delete so many unwanted messages. Still, even that is not enough to eliminate SPAM. This is why some experts continue to lay the reponsibility of staunching the plague on the growing number of “white hat” SEO firms operating in cyberspace.
SEO firms like Spidersplat Consulting, Inc use “white hat” techniques, following all the ethics of internet marketing and shying away from all forms of SPAM. When “white hat” consultants see SPAM, they do their best to eliminate it. “I just spam report it to Google, they don’t need to identify the e-mail address of the reporter,” says Spidersplat Consulting, Inc. SEO Expert Eric V. Melin “They only need search keywords, the exact google URL, and the site URL which is spamming.” He feels the effort involved is definitely his duty. Reporting Spam is aligned with all the professional principles Spidersplat Consulting has adopted for doing business on the internet.
Melin also points to a Google representative’s take: “If you’re a whitehat and don’t like to see spam at all, it’s good to report it. If you’re a blackhat and want to report spam so that your site can do better, it’s good to report it. If you’re of the species of blackhat that will do absolutely anything to try to rank, from blogspam to referrer spam, yet you shun the idea of reporting spam because of your belief system, power to you then, too, just don’t use the form.”
In a world where SEO firms operate on two polar opposite strategies of marketing, SPAM will always exist. It is simply impractical for anyone to expect the expert consultants at all the different firms who don’t use SPAM to adequately combat the epidemic. In the end, it is the user who must stand up and be counted. Protest. Fight. Don’t let up! The net was designed to facilitate the smooth flow of information between people throughout the world. Anything that muddles up that flow and makes your tasks tougher to accomplish on-line does not belong. Let’s banish this pest once and for all!
At http://www.bluesecurity.com/downloads/blue_frog.asp you can download free spam-blocking software from Blue Security, Inc.. The service is free. There are plenty of other programs you can purchase to keep your inbox SPAM free. Even so, picking up the most expensive blocking software won’t put you on the front lines eliminating the pesky problem. The key is keeping on top of all the proper reporting methods.
So, the bottom line is that we can all live comfortably without having to worry about SPAM if we all start policing it. Report as much of it as you can, and blow the whistle as loud as you can on all these crackerjack marketing fools! If you do report it, be sure that you’re not just blocking it. With resources like www.SPAMHAUS.org and search engines like Google offering an avenue to officially report SPAM, there is no excuse not to get involved in cleaning up the Web.