SPAM Galore
By Marques • Sep 13th, 2007 • Category: Internet, SecurityIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
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SPAM emails count for 83% of all emails sent around.
I’m sure that everyone is afflicted by this sickness that spreads around mailboxes nowadays. Emails wanting to sell you “organ” enlargement pills, helping you find the perfect date or pills to prevent baldness are the most common ones (at least for me). But it’s not only in your inbox that you’ll find these pearls of marketing copywriting: blog comments and forums are also targeted for unsolicited marketing campaigns.
In 2004, Bill Gates announced that “two years from now, spam will be solved”. Guess again Mr. Gates. Spam is not solved. As a matter of fact is thriving and it costs the global economy around $50 billion annually.
Let’s face it, with more than 8 out of 10 emails being spam, serious measures need to be taken in a near future. Geeksaresexy.com recently opened a discussion on how SMTP needs a replacement to avoid the easiness at which these unsolicited emails are sent. I’m not so sure if simply replacing the SMTP would solve the problem. In the time needed for mail servers to change their way of dealing with sending email, spammers would not be just looking around and throwing the towel. As in any other technology, someone is ahead of the game and willing to sell the research to the highest bidder.
The cause
The main problem is naivety. Spam methods only work because someone is making money out of it. If one person in a thousand reads the emails and follows the links, then it’s profit for the spammer. Better than changing protocols, a deep educational campaign might prove more effective. But still, it’s a big might…
What makes it so attractive for people to actually follow the links? It’s not the copywriting for sure. Half The majority of those emails aren’t even written in good english, not to mention the absurd amounts of unrelated text pasted into them to avoid spam filters. So, again, why do people click on it? No idea… common sense as taken a vacation. Same goes for blogs and forums. Sometimes you hear bloggers or webmasters complaining that they were not being targeted so much and then one day bang thousands of the little buggers showing up? Do I smell a click by the administrator?
Spam solutions
Anyway, people’s minds need to change before spammers ever will. Until then, MobileFreak shares 5 ways to reduce spam emails (nicely splogged from citing WebProNews.com).
If you feel you’re getting invaded (or at least you mailbox) and want to do something about it, know that you can actually report spam. I have no idea how effective this is, but might be worthy to try it.
And what are the main products your inbox gets targeted with?
You have any other solutions to prevent spam? Share them in the comments bellow.
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If you are a webmaster and have access to Spam Assassin, activate it on your email accounts.
If you use web based email that offers an option to mark something as spam use it rather than just deleting the mail.
Report all spam using the free service at SpamCop.net
The more people who follow these simple steps, the better the odds against reducing email spam for everyone.
Thanks for your comment.
Spam Assassin does wonders on my websites accounts.
Actually I never used SpamCop but I’ll start for sure.
SPAM Galore…
In 2004, Bill Gates announced that two years from now, spam will be solved. Guess again Mr. Gates. Spam is not solved. As a matter of fact is thriving and it costs the global economy around $50 billion annually. Spam accounts for 83% of all the email c…
i doubt you can stop spam just like you cant stop computer viruses or worms
Hi gabe, thanks for stopping by.
Viruses and Spam are released with different objectives although you can consider that some viruses are only programmed to “capture” computers to be used to send spam emails.
Spam only exists because it’s profitable. If one can stop the profit, them there is no reason for spam to exist. And that only occurs after a change in mentality of internet users.
Until then, all the solutions mentioned above are a little help.
Very naive for Gates to say this. We definitely have come leaps in bounds in having technology available to effectively reduce spam, but people will always find a way around it.