Eradicating spam is like trying to cure the flu. A strain appears. A vaccine is developed. The bug mutates. A nastier, more resistant strain appears the next time. Repeat It’s annoying. But inevitable. If you spend time around people, eventually you’re going to get the flu. And if you spend time around the Internet, eventually you’re going to get spammed.
Spam is the Net-savvy term for junk email. Unsolicited promotional messages sent in bulk to the unsuspecting. As obnoxious as those telemarketing calls that interrupt your dinner. And greeted with about as much enthusiasm.
The most notorious spammer is the infamous Cyber Promotions, which has tangled with CompuServe and America Online in legal battles. The company has been banned from 20 Internet service providers (ISPs) in three years. And earned the ire of spam- haters everywhere. Still it finds new ways to penetrate a hostile environment. Most recently, it created its own ISP to host its junk you to identify most junk email and automatically put it in a special folder (perhaps called ‘Trash?”). An easy-to-link-to list of known spammers could dynamically update a spam-blocking filter in your email program. Like automatically-updating anti-virus software.
The second will make it a less attractive marketing device. If you don’t respond to a spammer’s junk mail, economies would argue eventually you’d be dropped from the list. (Fingers crossed. How do you feel about spam? What do you suggest to avoid the junk-mail plague? Thrash it out mail business. And other people’s, with your peers in the Jesse’s Berst too, for a fee. What’s a motherboard to do? There are several Web sites dedicated to eliminating unwanted email.
According to John Funk, chairman of email publisher Mercury Mail, two key factors are working against spam: technology and the marketplace. The first will make it less effective to infiltrate your mailbox. For instance better filters in your email program would allow Alerts forum. Or talk back to me directly, ZDDNet Anchor Desk – http://www.anchordesk.com
In the end, we can’t cure the flu because viruses are protected from antibiotics. And we can’t cure spam because unwanted emailers are protected by law. (At least in the United States.) For now, the smartest thing you can do in each case is take reasonable precautions. And if you can’t escape, treat the symptoms.
