More on Spam

In article <cjnp6k017n9@enews4.newsguy.com>,
Mike Turco <miketurco@yahoo-nospam4me.com> wrote:
>This argument has gone on too long, too far. It is one thing to dislike spam
>and not support those who send it. It is another thing to spend a
>disproportionate amount of your time fighting against it.
>
>The facts are this: the overwhelming majority of people don't like spam.
>Yes, it does, it annoys most people to some degree.
>
>Spam does cost the recipient, but it doesn't cost much.

Personally I don't care much about the cost of spam. There two things that
make e-mail spam very different from traditional direct marketing like
junk mail and telephone spam:

1) spam is easy to filter
2) the victims' ISPs are paid solely by the victims.

To start with the second point, any ISP who is mostly on the receiving end
of spam knows that customers don't like spam, and welcomes any kind of spam
filter. The easiest solution is to simply reject e-mail from spammy ISPs.

The net result is that most ISPs now have AUPs that prohibit spamming.

Because spam is so easy to filter, people started working together to create
distributed spam blocklists. You have to spam just one person who
contributes to a blocklist and a very large number of people no longer
accept you e-mails. This is of course very bad for ISPs who have customers
who spam.

We can recognize three groups of spammers:
1) There are spammers who will do anything to get their spam past filters.
Usually they are doing all kinds of illegal things to get their spam
through. Fighting those spammers is good, because it is not just a bit
money, they are simply criminals.
2) Then there are spammer who spam from their own netblocks. Those spammers
are no big deal for anyone who is using dnsbls to filter e-mail. Some
money is lost, but I doubt that it is a big deal.
3) Finally there are the one off spammers: they spam once, find themselves
blocked everywhere, try to get the blocks removed by promising to be
better, etc. That group is a nightmare. They cost a lot time (setting up
blocks, deleting blocks, etc) and they spam only because they are too
ignorant to know better. People and organisations who advocate spamming
are the real bad guys in this case, but unfortunately, there is not
much you can do to stop them.




--
This Monk had first gone wrong when it was [...] cross-connected to a video
recorder that was watching eleven TV channels simultaneously, [...] The video
recorder only had to watch them, of course. It didn't have to believe them all
as well. This is why instruction manuals are so important -- Douglas Adams

"Mike Turco" <miketurco@yahoo-nospam4me.com> wrote in message
news:cjnp6k017n9@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
>
> "McWebber" <mcwebber@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:cjmu4802qe9@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >
> > "George Demmer" <nwsgrps@realityNOSPAMassociates.com> wrote in message
> > news:cjl94j0oqc@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >>
> >> > They want an
> >> > advertiser to have their permission before sending ads. Why is that
> >> > concept so difficult for advertisers to grasp?
> >>
> >> You're kidding again, right? Perhaps the fact that advertising by
> > definition
> >> involves "giving notice" or "making known" could offer a hint. You do
> >> understand that advertising is generally delivered without asking
> > permission,
> >> right?
>
> McWebber,
>
> This argument has gone on too long, too far. It is one thing to dislike
spam
> and not support those who send it. It is another thing to spend a
> disproportionate amount of your time fighting against it.

How I choose to spend my free time is really nobody'd concern.

> Spam does cost the recipient, but it doesn't cost much.

A little bit of theft is still not OK.

> The cost is
> negligible when compared to the cost of the electricity to run a TV set,
or
> when compared to the value of the amount of property that a mailbox takes
> up, (especially here in Southern California).

Which has zero to do with spam. It costs money to pee because it costs money
to flush the toilet. It costs money to dispose of printed ads. Therefore
printed advertising is just like taking a pee. Is that the analogy? The fact
that two things have indirect costs associated with them does not make them
similar.

> I think you'd have a hard time
> showing that spam costs me more than one or two bucks a year on my cable
> internet bill.

Ask your ISP. They will tell you it costs a lot more than that. Even if it
only costs each user 5 cents a year that is 5 cents the senders are not
entitled to take from me and a billion other people.

> Is it right that I must pay a few extra bucks to my ISP so
> that they can maintain their spam filters? I am happy to pay that money to
> them so that they can continue to do whatever they need to do, and buy
> whatever software they have to buy, in order to keep their servers and
their
> service up to snuff, as they have continually and consistently done.

Add the costs of customers who leave because of spam, the costs of personnel
to answer spam complaints, etc., etc.

>
> > You're kidding, right? You don't understand we're talking about a form
of
> > advertising that has a direct cost to the recipient, unlike all other
> > forms
> > of advertising except junk faxes.
>
> That's bull. Compare the cost of spam to that of junk mail.

Wrong. You do not pay the sender to receive junk mail. The sender pays to
send it. It does not arrive postage due like spam or junk faxes. There is no
direct cost shifting by the sender to the recipient. The costs of postal
mail and all other forms of sender-pays advertising are self limiting.

<snip more nonsensical arguments comparing non-cost-shifting advertising to
spam>

>
>
> >> > Did you ever stop and
> >> > do the math on what would happen if every small business decided to
> >> > just send you one email per year?
> >>
> >> Why? Do you really think this is likely to happen in any known
universe?
> >
> > Why wouldn't it? Even if 10% of the businesses decided to send you UCE
you
> > would be getting thousands of messages you don't want.
>
> On what do you base these remarks? What if 10% of all businesses mailed
you
> a piece of junk mail? You'd have to rent a much bigger house.

Try to pay attention. The costs of postal mail are self-limitiing. All
businesses or even 10% of all the businesses in the US can't afford to send
me advertising by postal mail due to the costs.

>
> >> Why
> >> don't we figure out what would happen if every business called you?
> >
> > Obviously the costs to those businesses prevent that from happening,
> > unlike
> > with email where they can contact millions of people with the push of a
> > button. That is why there is no comparison with other forms of
> > advertising.
> > They all scale and the inherant costs to the businesses prevent the cost
> > shifting that is involved in spam.
>
> There are costs associated with both sides of all forms of advertising.

No advertising except spam and junk faxes require the recipient to pay
directly for the receipt of the advertising. I am talking about direct
costs. Not indirect costs. See my analogy above.

I
> think that, if you take everything into consideration, the spam you
receive
> costs you less than the ads you see on TV, read in the paper, see on
> billboards, or receive in the mail.

No, it does not. Your math if faulty. Most of those forms of advertising you
cite actually save me money. Try to buy a newspaper with no ads, watch TV
that has no ads. See what it costs. I have no problem when advertisiers
choose to subsidize my newspaper, magazines or entertainment.

>
> >> >> So why are
> >> >> you identifying me or Scott or others here as the enemy? Just
because
> >> >> we don't support those same ineffective arguments?
> >> >
> >> > Because you continue to argue in favor of theft of services,
violating
> >> > ISP terms of service and in favor of something the overwhelming
> >> > majority of the public is against.
> >>
> >> And you continue to misrepresent the words of others. It's gotten
really
> >> old. Not only have I not argued in favor of those things, but I have
said
> >> the opposite. Keep fighting those straw men...
> >
> > You have? You keep trying to compare spam, (which has a direct cost to
the
> > recipient like a junk fax or collect telephone call), to other forms of
> > advertising where the delivery costs limit the advertiser.
>
> I hope that, by now, you can see that's simply not true.

I see you are wrong as you keep trying to compare indirect costs of everyday
life to the direct cost shifting of spam and junk faxes. Please try to
defend junk faxes that have a more obvious cost the recipients as opposed to
the direct cost you and your ISP are paying. I am an ISP. I am paying
directly for the cost of spam sent to me and I pass those costs on to my
customers. Thank the spammers.

>
> > The other
> > moderator stated he has encouraged his clients to use spam.
>
> That is an outright lie.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:...s3.newsguy.com

Considering that they are his clients, I would say he is involved in sending
spam.

> > The "theft mantra" as you attempt to dismiss it, has been proven in
court.
>
> My suggestion is this: forget about the penny anty spam stuff. Just delete
> the crap and move on with your life. There are some things you can't
change,
> and better things to do with your time.

Why are some people so concerned with what I do with my time? Is it
interferring with you?

>
> Please note: I am really not trying to defend spam.

You just did. JHD as it's called
(http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...F-8&q=JHD+spam) is
what spammers whine all the time to anyone who complains about their spam.

>
> I have no problem leaving this whole thing alone and agreeing to the one
> point, only, that you and I do not agree.
>

That's obvious.


--
McWebber
No email replies read
If someone tells you to forward an email to all your friends
please forget that I'm your friend.

"George Demmer" <nwsgrps@realityNOSPAMassociates.com> wrote in message
news:cjnp6c0o0b@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> "McWebber" <mcwebber@my-deja.com> wrote in
> news:cjmu4802qe9@enews3.newsguy.com:
>
> > "George Demmer" <nwsgrps@realityNOSPAMassociates.com> wrote in message
> > news:cjl94j0oqc@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >>
> >> McWebber, there is no point in continuing this. Aside from your
> >> misrepresenting the words and positions of others, you simply keep
> >> repeating your theft mantra over and over like that will somehow
> >> prove something. Good luck with that in the future...I hope it brings
> >> you much happiness.
> >
> > The "theft mantra" as you attempt to dismiss it, has been proven in
> > court.
>
> And, have you noticed a dramatic reduction in the amount of spam? Because
I
> haven't. And that is the point you absolutely and painfully insist on
> missing.

What does that have to do with this thread? The fact that unethical people
persist on spamming has zero to do with what is being discussed. Spam is
theft. It's as plain as day.

>
> Maybe it's time to consider a second track instead of continuing to beat a
> dead horse?
>

Maybe it's time to stop defending theft.

--
McWebber
No email replies read
If someone tells you to forward an email to all your friends
please forget that I'm your friend.