Slicing
up spam
Page 4
No
new law will fix this situation -- it's already quite illegal to
break into someone else's computer and subvert it for your own purposes.
So spam is here to stay, at least for
a while. Smarter and more focused legislation could force the spam
business offshore; technical advances like better filtering and
databases of known spammers are already making it harder to spam.
But this is an arms race between motivated opponents, and after
nine years in the business, I still see continued innovation and
escalation on both sides.
Maybe the solution will involve not technology or regulation, but
supply and demand. The next time you find a spam subject line intriguing,
think hard before you open it. A single sale can motivate (and pay
for) a million unwanted and annoying email messages. Do you want
to be the one-in-a-million sucker? Maybe if no one bought magic
erection drugs or acne medicine from spamming sellers, maybe if
customers asked legitimate marketers to repudiate such wrong-headed
tactics, spam might eventually find itself out of a job. r
illustration by joshua love |
