Thoughtful Thursday – I spam because I am

Image courtesy of Microft Word Clip ArtToday’s Thoughtful Thursday is about spam. No, not that canned spiced ham that Hawaiians seem to love so much (did you know that Junk Food News notes “Hawaii leads the way with 6.7 million cans sold annually, which amounts to 5.5 cans per year per Hawaiian.”)

I’m talking about those annoying e-mails that seem to slip past all our best efforts to catch them, flooding our e-mail boxes with dozens of messages about buying Viagra, getting bigger penises or receiving a check for 5555 bazillion dollars if we would only be so kind as to send them all our banking information.

Sex and money are clearly on the minds of these spammers and their intended targets.

I asked one of our techs, “Why do they do this?”

His answer was simple. Not only because they can, but because they send out so many millions of e-mails, even a low percentage of response is a good thing. According to CNET News “the Web site trustedsource.org, (reported that) there were a total of 154.3 billion mail messages sent around the world Sunday and 117.4 billion of them were spam.”

And the spam isn’t just limited to e-mail boxes. The blogs get hit as well with all kinds of fake comments that need to be caught and purged.

Recently there have been efforts made to establish laws to prosecute spammers. The U.S. Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003. (Notice how much less spam you’ve been getting since then — NOT!)

The one thing that the CAN-SPAM Act has done is make it harder for legimate businesses to send bulk e-mails to willing participants. Or at least, that’s been my personal experience.

So what can we do about the spammers? Well, the Internet Service Providers and software companies continue to develop products to battle the spammers. You can download a spam blocker and try to keep it current. Try being the operative word because the spammers seem to find ways around the software almost as soon as it’s updated.

What else can you do? I don’t know about you, but maybe I need to explore whether any of my heroes needs that Viagra or a bigger penis . . . No wait . . . I think we like our heroes ready, willing and able.

So I guess I have no choice but to hit that delete button, again and again and again and again.

Copyright 2008 Caridad Pineiro Scordato www.caridad.com

10 Replies to “Thoughtful Thursday – I spam because I am”

  1. spam blockers are always needed these days because of the growing number of spammers online.`,

  2. spam blockers are really needed these days because you will always get spam from e-mails and on your facebook account too.–“

  3. The government was going to help control spam. But the spammer can always come up with new ideas, to send us “junK”

  4. The spam is so frustrating, Pat. So are the e-mail warnings that are hoaxes. They take a lot of time as well.

    I am feeling much better thanks and hope you’re feeling better soon. It took me nearly a month to get over the flu. I’d be sick and congested, then feel better, but tired. Then I’d get sick all over again, feel better.

    I hope you’re in the last part of it and feeling better for good soon.

  5. Definitely ridiculous and time-consuming. When you think about the time you spent trying to block it and delete it, it takes a lot of valuable hours away from our already too busy lives.

  6. The newest spam to hit my computer is
    connected with a supposed email message, sent by me to someone else. It has not reached that person and is being returned to me for more information.
    Then there are the “bazillion” dollar messages filled with all sorts of errors! Wouldn’t you think that if you were
    trying to scam someone, that you would at least send grammatically correct messages!! As you probably can tell,
    this does upset me!

    How are you feeling? When last we met
    on the ‘net, you were in the midst of
    the flu. I’m finding that the cough is
    what I cannot seem to leave behind.
    I guess that calls for another trip to the
    doctor’s office! Take care……..

    Pat Cochran

  7. Spammers are as old as…well, the internet. Okay, not really since the internet started in 1965. But since it went public in the late 80s, there has been spammers. I’ve been surfing the internet since 1990, and there were spammers too. One of those spammers was Amazon.com. *lol* But then again, back then “spam” came from those young blooming companies. (How else would they get people to know about their products?) Now it’s all about sex, nudity, size of private parts, sex, nudity, viagra… it’s ridiculous!

  8. You know that would be a fun topic to explore. What if your heroine worked for a company that manufactured some of those products? Or if your Hero took it personally and went on a rampage against the spammers(or the companies they advertised). What if your hero was tempted and accepted the offer. -hmmm that one might be something for EC. What about a scifi where the products actually worked – maybe too well, or unpredictably? Has anyone ever published studies about er…human sexual response in zero gravity/outer space?

    The opportunities are limitless.

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