Friday, November 19, 2004
No Spammin' Sympathy
I just spent 31/2 hours weeding out two weeks' worth of spam. Mixed in with the crap was e-mail from non-hackers who simply wanted to sell me something, rather than simply steal from me.0 comments
However, legit mass marketers need to know they are just as tossable in my e-mail as they are from my postal mailbox.
Crap is crap, no matter who is putting their hand in my pocket, or what medium is used to get my attention. I guess it'll take another 31/2 hours to shred all the identity theft-able paper crap!
This came across the wires.
Spammers Sabotage Email Marketing Efforts
October 2004 (Newstream) -- Spammers' antics are ruining brands' reputations on the web, according to a recent roundtable of leading industry experts and anti-spam campaigners hosted by e-security specialists Clearswift. The results of this month's spam index also support this, with healthcare suppliers' brands continuing to be hardest hit by spam peddling illicit medicinal offers.
Spammers are confusing consumers by intentionally blurring the boundaries between legitimate email and unsolicited communications selling counterfeit goods. This has infuriated the direct marketing industries, who are relied upon to maintain brands' online presence, yet find themselves tarred with the same brush as unscrupulous cybercriminals.
Clearswift's latest spam index reveals that healthcare spam has risen to account for 57.6% of all spam. In fact Pfizer, who manufacture the male impotency drug Viagra, have vowed to take legal action against spammers, after recently finding that 25% of men believed Pfizer themselves were responsible for sending Viagra spam. However spam is not only damaging to the health of consumers and pharmaceutical brands - scams related to other online retailers have also seen a dramatic increase.
posted by Gotham 3:36 PM
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