By George Anderson
The more effort and dollars are spent on trying to rid the Internet of spam, the bigger the problem becomes.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, "Efforts to kill spam have had the unfortunate effect of making the rogue e-mails stronger. As Federal Trade Commission spam expert Brian Huseman noted in a recent interview, all those fancy blocking systems sometimes create a 'perverse result, that spammers send out even more messages to make sure a certain number are received.' By some estimates, spam represents more than half of all e-mail traffic, and its mailbox-chomping appetite seems limitless."
The answer to how to put an end to spam may not be in more sophisticated and expensive blocking systems but in public education that reduces the number of responses to these e-mails.
Dennis Berman, the author of the WSJ piece, suggests "Maybe all the companies losing millions to process and block spam could contribute to a new public-service campaign warning of the perils of responding to spam. Such a campaign could push the spam problem into some kind of economic equilibrium, where the returns from sending 20 million e-mails are no greater than sending 10 million, or five million."
Moderator's Comment: How do we determine which represents legitimate email marketing and that which is spam? Does the answer for ending spam lay in legislation, blocking technology or in a just say no public education program as suggested in The Wall Street Journal?
We're intrigued by Mr. Berman's recommendation for a public education approach to the problem. Of course, this will only help to reduce the problem. We know from past experience attempting to educate the public on important health issues does not mean that every individual will actually learn something. [George Anderson - Moderator]