Anti-Spam

The Senate has just passed anti-spam legislation, an idea I wholeheartedly support, and not just because spam is a nuisance. Spam, as this article points out, now accounts for 60 percent of all e-mail traffic and is costing businesses and consumers roughly $10 billion per year. That’s a lot of dough. What’s more, a recent Pew Center study indicates that people are using the internet less because of spam. That’s a problem worthy of Congressional action.

On the other hand, I would like to point out the main culprits here are NOT the spammers. They’re just good capitalists who realized that because email is so efficient, you can make money with extraordinarily small response rates. The culprits are those that give them those responses, which the Pew Center study puts at 7% of email users. In fact, 33% of users have clicked a spam link to get more information.

It would be better if these folks could control their itchy mouse fingers, and stay away from those enlarge your penis pills, but since they won’t, Congress should get involved.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:12 AM