NO SPAM POLICY

Now don't get all upset, as we are going to talk about the other S-word and that would be SPAM.

The S-word is considered to have happened when you send an unsolicited email to someone. Unsolicited means they did not specifically request your information and this is where things get a little dicey.

People subscribe to free offers online, but they forget to read the small print and that small print will tell them they are agreeing to receive offers from third parties. Their email is then sold to dozens of people who in turn might sell it to dozens of other people. The result is the person who wanted to get a free coupon to a restaurant will now start receiving offers for a variety of products and services.

Now, most of these people who buy these leads are honest and caring people and if someone asks to be removed from their list, they will be removed. The problem comes from the real S-worders who buy large number of leads and will never remove an email address. Plus, if you click on the remove link, not only does it not remove you, but it confirms to these people that your email address is valid and they will start sending more junk to you.

In addition, there is software that is readily available on the Internet that will allow someone to harvest millions of email addresses. Harvesting emails for those of you who do not know is the ability for this software to pick up your email from your webpage, a blog, an article, heck I would not be surprised if they can't get my email address off my business card!

So who do we blame for S-word?

• We can blame the greedy people who subscribe to offers to get something free and do not read the fine print.

• We can blame the greedy people who purchase these lists of greedy people who want to get something free and do not read the fine print and then these people who purchased the lists start blasting emails selling everything under the sun at rock bottom prices.

• We can blame the greedy people who buy from the greedy people who purchase these lists of greedy people who want to get something free and do not read the fine print and then these people who purchased the lists start blasting emails selling everything under the sun at rock bottom prices.

• We can blame the politicians and media who keep the S-word in the newspapers and on the front of everyone's mind.

• We can blame the Internet for being such an economical and practical marketing source.

• We can blame the ISP's who send the emails to their members and subscribers.

• We can blame the Autoresponder companies. After all their services allow people to send lots of mail.

• We can blame ourselves.

Tough call isn't it? The point is, we all have something to do with the S-word and we are all responsible for getting rid of it. When I first started in marketing, the Internet had not been invented yet and the way we promoted our company was to send direct mail. This was harmless because if someone did not want it, they could simply throw it away, but boy did we catch it from people who wanted to literally remove parts of our body that we had become quite fond of.

You don't hear much about direct mail anymore because the S-word has taken over the news. The problem is the S-word cannot be stopped by legislation or politicians or rules because the people who are really abusing the email system are using techniques so they cannot be tracked. The S-Cop site is out to get rid of the S-word and while I applaud their effort, going after the little guy is not going to get rid of the problem.

The only way to get rid of the S-word outside of charging a fee to send and receive email is to educate people. We need to educate the greedy people who still think they can get something for free on the Internet. We need to educate the people who are purchasing lists of names in small quantities and sending multiple emails without giving the receiver a chance to breathe in between messages. We need to educate the Autoresponder providers to just say no to someone who wants to send bunches of email with purchased lists. We need to educate the people who continue to buy from the big S-worders because lets face it, if bulk email did not work, people would not send it.

Someone is buying something from these people and whether they are doing it because they get a good price or because they are naive and believe the message, does not matter. The illegal drug trade would dry up if people did not continue to buy illegal drugs. Terrorism would stop being a way to change policies if the media did not give these people mention in their newspapers and on television and radio. The S-word is working for some people and it will continue to work and be a problem for all of us until everyone stops buying from them.

The purpose of this article is to help educate people. If one person reads this article and avoids subscribing to get a free restaurant voucher, because he knows that he is going to get hit with bunches of emails, then we will have accomplished our goal. We, those of us working online need to make the S-word go away, because if we leave up to the politicians and lawyers, we the people who most depend on the Internet and email will be paying to send our email in the very near future.

Personally, I do not want this to happen. I want the government and the lawyers as far away from the Internet as we can keep them because all in all the Internet works very well. However if we get the government involved, we might as well get prepared to start paying to send emails and also get use to 28k modems because they would take us back that far if they are allowed to interfere.

S-word is not coming from the reputable companies and people online. S-word is coming from people that do not care about laws or what is right or wrong. They only care about the dollar and they won't stop as long as they are making dollars, and they are only going to make dollars if people keep supporting them!

Ah, the great political machine is alive and well and at some point, some hot shot politician wanting to make a name for himself is going to bring up Spamming on the Internet and tell you that he can solve this issue. Guess what? He cannot!

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not advocating Spam and I am as much opposed to Spamming as you are, but the problem we are facing is that the Internet is the World Wide Web--WWW. The United States does not control the Internet. Nor I am being unpatriotic--I love America. Statistically speaking, 99.999% of all Internet users are honest and trusting and do not Spam, but if there are over 1 billion people using the Internet, this leaves about 1,000 people who can do serious damage with Spam.

Mail Servers can be setup in any country in the world and Spammers can send messages from any country in the world to anyone in the world in a matter of seconds. The United States can pass all the anti-Spam laws it wants, but people can simply go off-shore and setup a mail server and start sending emails--totally ignoring the laws that that the United States has established.

Autoresponders get a bad rap because people use Autoresponders to stay in touch with their clients and prospects and since Autoresponders send mail, they must be the problem. Wrong again! Autoresponders are not the problem, the problem is those 1,000 bad apples who can send millions of emails daily selling every scam potion, pill and size enhancer you can think of.

The other problem is the people who open and read and then purchase these scam products. If people were not responding and buying, the Spammers would stop sending. Even if a very small percentage of people purchased a $100 product, the Spammers can make money. 1% of 1% of 1 million people is 100. If 100 people purchased a $100 product, the Spammer makes $10,000. His cost is probably less than $100 to send those emails, so he nets $9,900. Not bad for a days work--or lack thereof.

Spammers are not going to stop Spamming, regardless of how many laws are passed by the United States. The only outcome of the laws passed by the United States is putting small companies who send ezines and newsletters out of business. These companies rely on email to promote legitimate offers and to educate consumers on a variety of topics, but due to the anti-Spam laws, many of these businesses just shut down rather than jump through hoops and hope their email gets delivered. Meanwhile, the Spammers continue to send their emails without any regard for any laws passed by the United States.

If you want to get rid of the Spammers, stop buying from Spammers. The government has no business trying to regulate the Internet and all this is going to do is create more headaches for everyone on the Internet. They cannot stop these big Spammers because they are not on US soil. They might catch one on occassion, but the majority of these people continue to Spam and break the rules setup by the US government and they will continue doing so and if we continue to ask the government to intervene all that is going to happen is the end of free email and the Internet as we know it.

We the people of the Internet need to deal with the Spam issue and not allow the government to start regulating this industry. Politicians have no control over this issue, but Spam is a hot button that will allow them to gather votes, so they make their promises and then they will pass some silly law that will have zero effect on Spam. The best way to deal with Spam is to hit your delete button and go about your business.

All The Best,
Darryl Graham
ISORegister, Inc.
703-560-1057

Darryl Graham is President of ISORegister, Inc. ISORegister has been online since 1999 and is committed to helping people better utilize the Internet in an efficient, effective and affordable manner while also teaching responsible marketing.

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