Ethical posturing about "spam"

[thinkingsmall]

You switch on the TV, and you get unsolicited ads that waste your time, your electricity and poison your kids minds.

You switch on radio, you get lots of unsolicited messages.

The only difference between what you call 'spam' and the real spam that you are accepting on your knees from your TV everyday is that the spam from TV comes from companies with enough money and assets to buy you like you were a widget at walmart, whereas the ads you get online, also unsolicited usually come from small companies or individuals who are easily targeted and labelled as villains.

I see lots of new posts ranting against 'spam' If you are that gutsy, why dont you write to your legislator and tell them to do something about unsolicited spam on TV that is wasting billions of dollars of electricity and time.

Anti-"spam" law is basically just another illegal law that removes from the little guy the ability to use technology to get a level playing ground with the mega corporations. The mega corps have ways of making you sit up and listen to whatever 'message' they have with your mouth open, all it takes is lots of money, and no one is going to squeak about 'he talked to me without any solicitation, my feelings are hurt, i want some compensation for pain and suffering from his unsolicited message..'

Just thought i would present an alternate viewpoint, sick of seeing the same witchhunt rants from individuals who dont have the ability to think for themselves a little bit beyond what they have been trained to 'think' by Tv and the selfdeclared prophets of righteousness.

[katherine]

Not a good comparison really. First of all I can turn the TV off and not be bombarded by incessant 'advertising'.
I seldom watch TV btw.
Also I find it crazy that spam accounts for most of E-mail traffic. That's the price of complacency.

[Raider]

By your definition, all paid and unpaid advertising is SPAM? And SPAMMERS are in the same category as businesses and corporations that pay for advertising?.... LMAO.

I think the OP is having trouble distinguishing between unsolicited bulk messages (SPAM) to that of advertisements that PAY for the programming we watch on TV, listen on the Radio and read in newspapers and Magazines.

Anti-"spam" law is basically just another illegal law that removes from the little guy the ability to use technology to get a level playing ground with the mega corporations. The mega corps have ways of making you sit up and listen to whatever 'message' they have with your mouth open, all it takes is lots of money, and no one is going to squeak about 'he talked to me without any solicitation, my feelings are hurt, i want some compensation for pain and suffering from his unsolicited message...

These mega-corporations you so dislike reached the ladder of success with a lot of investment, devotion and hard work, They didn't get where they are Forging headers, Evading email filters and sending out MILLIONS of unsolicited emails.

But if you know of one that did, please let me know.

[tetrapak]

Not a good comparison really. First of all I can turn the TV off and not be bombarded by incessant 'advertising'.
I seldom watch TV btw.
Also I find it crazy that spam accounts for most of E-mail traffic. That's the price of complacency.

TV is there to make your brainwashed. Don't watch it since 2 years, only use my TV to watch DVD's.

[Raider]

TV is there to make your brainwashed. Don't watch it since 2 years, only use my TV to watch DVD's.

That would certainly explain your ignorance on current and world affairs.

[draggar]

Those commercials that you see on TV and hear on the radio pay for the shows that you are watching.

eMail and phone spammers are contacting you at little to no cost to them. It's the same with junk mail and junk faxes (junk faxes are illegal in many parts of the USA, BTW).

That's a very poor comparison.

[Raider]

Those commercials that you see on TV and hear on the radio pay for the shows that you are watching.

Exactly... Many people just don't get that.

[JuniperPark]

OP, you are indeed "thinking small".

Have a look at my thread on Rick Latona, the more recent spammer. Notice that all of his "defenders" had to post lies to cover his wrongdoings.

Some posted the spam would stop "if only Rick knew", then there was the "it was only 1 time" yet 4 people were cc'd on the spam and I've received 3 more since starting that thread... then it was "you must have done business with him" (never) and so on and so on.

The fact is spam is illegal, intelligent people don't send spam (or buy from) it, and it's a "last resort" for failing companies.

[bwhhisc]

That would certainly explain your ignorance on current and world affairs.

LOL, I saw that zinger coming his way.

[Tom K.]

SPAM that aggravates me meets the following criteria:

1. Is not targeted. I.e. nothing I indicated I'm interested in.
2. Is automated or uses a standard text with few changed strings.
3. Is sent repeatedly, even when I did not respond the first, second, or third time.

I don't mind getting an unsolicited email written directly to me that is obviously written by someone personally to me and that someone has done their homework. I strongly object to emails that are obviously sent via some bulk email script en masse and even more so when it is done repeatedly.

The TV ad comparison is way way off base. TV ads are passive advertising, whereas email ads is intrusive advertising. Email eats bandwidth and time which costs more money. TV costs the same whether it is on or off. Email spam is stealing productivity from the recipient. You can compare email spam to getting regular garbage mail, but instead of being able to simply throw it away before opening, you are forced to open each garbage mail and then throw it away. How much time would that take you each day?

Illegal law is an oxymoron. A spammer is just a moron.

You switch on the TV, and you get unsolicited ads that waste your time, your electricity and poison your kids minds.

You switch on radio, you get lots of unsolicited messages.

The only difference between what you call 'spam' and the real spam that you are accepting on your knees from your TV everyday is that the spam from TV comes from companies with enough money and assets to buy you like you were a widget at walmart, whereas the ads you get online, also unsolicited usually come from small companies or individuals who are easily targeted and labelled as villains.

I see lots of new posts ranting against 'spam' If you are that gutsy, why dont you write to your legislator and tell them to do something about unsolicited spam on TV that is wasting billions of dollars of electricity and time.

Anti-"spam" law is basically just another illegal law that removes from the little guy the ability to use technology to get a level playing ground with the mega corporations. The mega corps have ways of making you sit up and listen to whatever 'message' they have with your mouth open, all it takes is lots of money, and no one is going to squeak about 'he talked to me without any solicitation, my feelings are hurt, i want some compensation for pain and suffering from his unsolicited message..'

Just thought i would present an alternate viewpoint, sick of seeing the same witchhunt rants from individuals who dont have the ability to think for themselves a little bit beyond what they have been trained to 'think' by Tv and the selfdeclared prophets of righteousness.

[thinkingsmall]

Just as TV advertisers pay for the ads which the viewer did not solicit for, the email spammers also pay for their spamming, those servers and other gizmos they use for pumping out millions of emails don't come cheap. So just because the TV spammer or the email spammer spends or does not spend money does not by itself mean that the message itself is intrusive or not intrusive. It is intrusive if the recipient does not want it and did not ask for it regardless of whether it cost a dime or a million. And especially if the content of those intrusive messages is offensive to the recipient.

And yes indeed there is something called illegal laws, that is not an oxymoron. For example, the laws of the Reich that said anyone Jewish had to show up at the railway station to get on the train to Auschwitz, and of course if you were Jewish and broke that 'law of the land' you were a criminal. Yet another example, the laws of the USSR said that prayer in public was not allowed. Laws that attempt to take away God-given rights are defined as illegal laws. And for a more contemporary example, the laws of the USA which give some thug with a badge and a gun more authority over your child than you the parents (i hope that no one here tries to defend that, and if you do, you are a sick individual and a pseudo-patriot who has no idea what Freedom is or what God-given rights mean), these laws give unprecedented rights to the above mentioned thug the right to zap your child with 50,000 v, and no one will raise a finger, but if you slap your child's behind for throwing rocks at the neighbor's cat, you are a criminal. So yes there are illegal laws, and it is not an oxymoron. Sometimes to understand right and wrong, you need a frame of reference, you have to have something to compare against, if you always compare yourself against yourself, you eventually get yourself into state of mind where you are incapable of seeing the truth anymore.

[tetrapak]

That would certainly explain your ignorance on current and world affairs.

Coming from the person who believes Fox News is not an entertaining fiction channel for the braindead.

[Area52]

Coming from the person who believes Fox News is not an entertaining fiction channel for the braindead.

How do you know what's on Fox? You said you haven't watched tv for two years.
Sounds like "spam" to me.

[draggar]

Just as TV advertisers pay for the ads which the viewer did not solicit for, the email spammers also pay for their spamming, those servers and other gizmos they use for pumping out millions of emails don't come cheap. So just because the TV spammer or the email spammer spends or does not spend money does not by itself mean that the message itself is intrusive or not intrusive. It is intrusive if the recipient does not want it and did not ask for it regardless of whether it cost a dime or a million. And especially if the content of those intrusive messages is offensive to the recipient.

Still, apples and oranges.

TV and radio advertisements help fund the TV and radio programs that you are enjoying. plus, the ads are usually targeted for the people who watch the shows. You generally won't see a commercial (non-infomercial) for a Time-Life WWII DVD collection on VH1 or MTV but you would most likely see it on the History Channel or maybe even Discovery.

A spammer paying for an email server isn't funding anything you are enjoying - they are using a very cheap (as in cheap per email / contact) method to contact millions of (random?) people. If they weren't doing anything wrong then why do they usually use newly registered domains with WhoIs privacy and/or free email services to spam people? Obviously they're trying to hide something.

Do you also defend telemarketers? They do cold calling (either though a list, an auto-dialer, etc.) trying to get people to buy products that chances are they have no interest in. Just like junk mail. Every day I get pamphlets on car sales in my area in the mail - it is the same thing.

Personally, I think you're a little too passionate about defending spammers.

[tetrapak]

How do you know what's on Fox? You said you haven't watched tv for two years.
Sounds like "spam" to me.

There is a thing called Youtube, you can find amazing number of hilarious videos by Fox Entertainment, I mean Fox News there.

[Tom K.]

You have to look up the definition of legal and illegal. Illegal is not synonymous with immoral, offensive, or even criminal (which has non-legislative meaning as well.) Law is the law as long as it is enforceable. It becomes illegal when a higher court makes it a crime in which case it ceases to become law and is now a crime. Or a law in one land is a crime in another, in which case it is not a law at all. So you can't have an illegal law, those are two opposites which is what an oxymoron is. You can have a legal crime but you can't have an illegal law.

To use the TV ad comparison for spammers is utterly ridiculous. As is using these extreme examples in history to defend spammers.

As mentioned in my earlier post, not all unsolicited email is spam, but the vast majority is.

This is my last post here. I have to get some real work done.

Just as TV advertisers pay for the ads which the viewer did not solicit for, the email spammers also pay for their spamming, those servers and other gizmos they use for pumping out millions of emails don't come cheap. So just because the TV spammer or the email spammer spends or does not spend money does not by itself mean that the message itself is intrusive or not intrusive. It is intrusive if the recipient does not want it and did not ask for it regardless of whether it cost a dime or a million. And especially if the content of those intrusive messages is offensive to the recipient.

And yes indeed there is something called illegal laws, that is not an oxymoron. For example, the laws of the Reich that said anyone Jewish had to show up at the railway station to get on the train to Auschwitz, and of course if you were Jewish and broke that 'law of the land' you were a criminal. Yet another example, the laws of the USSR said that prayer in public was not allowed. Laws that attempt to take away God-given rights are defined as illegal laws. And for a more contemporary example, the laws of the USA which give some thug with a badge and a gun more authority over your child than you the parents (i hope that no one here tries to defend that, and if you do, you are a sick individual and a pseudo-patriot who has no idea what Freedom is or what God-given rights mean), these laws give unprecedented rights to the above mentioned thug the right to zap your child with 50,000 v, and no one will raise a finger, but if you slap your child's behind for throwing rocks at the neighbor's cat, you are a criminal. So yes there are illegal laws, and it is not an oxymoron. Sometimes to understand right and wrong, you need a frame of reference, you have to have something to compare against, if you always compare yourself against yourself, you eventually get yourself into state of mind where you are incapable of seeing the truth anymore.

[katherine]

Just as TV advertisers pay for the ads which the viewer did not solicit for, the email spammers also pay for their spamming, those servers and other gizmos they use for pumping out millions of emails don't come cheap.

Sure, there is a cost, but most of it is borne by the victims: waste of bandwidth and server resources for ISPs, waste of time and productivity for end users.

Spammers do spam because it's cost effective for them.

[Mike Cruz]

LOL threads are LOL