I had spoken about spam here and there in True, but in this issue I published the first installment of what would become my Spam Primer — a warning that unsolicited email advertising was now officially a serious problem on the net.
It may well have been my first “rant” (of many more to come).
“Spam very often advertises fraudulent or low-quality service or merchandise, and you pay (with your fees to your service provider) to receive it; anyone who would use ‘spam’ advertising to promote a business is either completely out of touch with his customers or, by definition, underhanded,” I rote.
An astounding number of readers shrugged it off, saying it just wasn’t a problem — they could “just hit delete.”
I told them to just wait; they ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s sad just how correct that was….
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By the end of 2006, it was estimated that more than 90% of all email was spam.
I hate spam, personally. I don’t want to refinance my mortgage, since I rent, and I don’t use credit cards, so I don’t need to apply for five every day, nor do I have any student loans to pay off, or to borrow, since I chose to have my family instead of going to school, and my oldest is only in kindergarten. But, every day, at least two offers for some of the above make it through my spam filter (which isn’t bad, since I get on average 60 legitimate emails daily, either from friends,or from mailing lists, or e-catalogs I’ve honestly subscribed to). I make sure to report them every time I see them, since I don’t want to have to delete the same ones every day! Now if only I had a spam filter for my phone . . .
Spam is getting totally out of hand. Every day, when I arrive at work, there are 20-25 emails in my in box. . . 3 of these are legitimate. Deleting these wastes 2 minutes of my work time each day, 10 minutes a week and almost an hour a year, so it is costing my employer 1 hour @ my hourly rate of pay each year, multiply by 100 employees in my company. (Some make more that me and some make less, but it would be roughly $2,000 cdn that it costs my employer)
And by the way, in addition to not wanting to refinance my mortgage, not wanting credit cards, and not wanting loans, I am also very happy with my penis size, and Viagra is not something I am needing anytime soon.
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Wow: only 20ish spams per day? I wish that were the case for me. I tend to get 40-80 per day — and that’s in addition to the 600-800 that my filters block. PER DAY. And that’s just for my two email addresses. It’s pathetic. -rc