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THE GREAT SPAM DEBATE

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:23 pm
by JPlush76
What do you guys think about "spam"?

There is legislature currently being put together to make it illegal.

I can defnately say how much I hate seeing "HOT RUSSIAN BRIDES" or "ENLARGE YOUR PENIS NOW!" but I think it could hurt honest retailers using it as another promotion tool.

The future of free internet seems its coming to its demise. In reality why should people put their efforts into making something free all the time? If legitimate retailers can't use email for promotions it will hurt ecommerce online even more in my opinion.

What do you think?

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 4:40 pm
by mydimension
should be made illegal. i get enough advertising on TV, radio and on webpages and at least the vast majority of it is non-offensive. if i want soliciation to my email address ill ask for it.

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 8:45 pm
by Kriek
Spam should be made illegal. Have you ever read the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001 or the Anti-Spamming Act of 2001? I do not tolerate spam of any kind through e-mail. The subject matter rarely peaks my interest and its repetitive garbage ninety percent of the time. I however do not mind sifting through a minute amount of spam on forums or communities that I post on. Free publicity and self promotion in this setting can never be avoided; only moderated.

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:06 am
by twigletmac
The problem with spam is that they seem to consider you have opted into their list simply by making your e-mail address publicly available, either on your (or another) web site or by buying a domain name. 90% of my spam is through the e-mail address that I use when registering domains so it's blatantly obvious where it was harvested from (thanks whois database).

If spam was illegal it shouldn't hurt legitimate retailers who use legitimate opt in mailing lists. There is a problem for those retailers who have an affiliate system where an affiliate might decide to buy a mailing list and try and up their commission by p'ing off a few hundred thousand people (already happened to a client of my husband's).

In the end though, illegal or not, they won't be able to do (and can't do) much about the majority of spammers - most of the spam I get is from countries other than the UK or USA, normally it's from China, Korea, India, various African countries...

Mac