Junk E-mail
My dislike of junk E-mail is not just a visceral reaction to waste but a rational rejection of the philosophy of it. Receiving daily offers of on-line gambling, or cheap “replicas” of brand name goods like Cartier, Rolex, Tag Heuer, Hermes and Cartier watches, brand name handbags and pens, or Viagra (not even real Viagra, but replica Viagra which is a lot cheaper than the authentic product) has the effect of turning me off not only the replica goods, but the real ones themselves. That’s not good for the authentic brand names. Spammers are damaging their reputation and, maybe, their business. So the effect is the opposite of what is expected from an advertising campaign. So why do spammers continue with this kind of junk advertising? Obviously there must be enough people who respond to make it profitable, if even only slightly so. The amount of junk mail in my inbox has slowly been increasing over the last couple of years. Currently it is about a dozen pieces a day - not much, really, and far below the hundreds per day that professional businesspeople report. It is not enough yet, though, for me to take drastic action like changing my E-mail address, or programming my computer only to receive mail from pre-selected senders. I think the former is really no solution at all, because it is only temporary. In time the spam would catch up with me again at my new address. And, if I did the latter I risk losing out in other ways. I anticipate tolerating a lot more spam before finally taking action, and that action will probably be a change of address. The questions are, how fast will the spam worsen, and what amount, or number of daily junk E-mails will be my limit?