How to Eliminate Spam; Stop Businesses from Using Spammers.

Rant by Me: Definition from WiKipedia

Although there are number of variations of spam (excluding the ever-popular lunch meat), I would like to focus on email spam, which is defined as follows;

“E-mail spam, known as unsolicited bulk Email (UBE) or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.”

“E-mail is an extremely cheap mass medium, and professional spammers have automated their processes to the extent that millions of messages can be sent daily with little or no labor costs. Thus, spamming can be very profitable even at what would otherwise be considered extremely low response rates.”

If you notice the last part, in bold, implies there is good money to be made even though most spam email is not responded to. This means there are a small number of “idiots” who are responding to these spam emails. If we could address the small number of people who respond to these emails to stop - i.e. cut them off completely from an email account - we could stop spammers cold in their tracks. Likliehood of making this happen…nil.

However, if we could convince business owners from avoiding these criminals we may be able to make some headway. You see, the other part to this story is spammers make money from the businesses the advertise for through their spam email campaigns;

“…even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business.”

It is virtually impossible to stop the spammers as networks are now commonly setup in such a way they are not traceable - or very difficult to trace. For example, an undetected trojan horse could be sitting on your home computer right now, proliferating spam from your own network. And you are not the only one, as millions of unsuspecting people are being used as pawns in this very profitable game.

So the best way to address the problem may not be at the root. Nailing down the idiots who respond to these emails is just as far-fetched. But we may be able to make headway by confronting the business owners who use spam as an avenue to promote their products and services. Now, it is true many of these businesses may not know they are using a spammer to promote their products, but if we actively contact and pressure the businesses which are listed in the spam emails we receive, then perhaps we can make the point to enough of them to make a difference.