Heads in the sand: Out of sight, out of mind.

Marketers use anti-spam opinion to sell product

Apple is aggressively promoting their new Address Book and the new Jaguar mail features. Yes, both do have knock-out features, however, one should also consider some of the downsides.
      One feature they're promoting is the Address Book's ability to link into MapQuest. Sure, it's nice to quickly access an addressee's physical location. However, since MapQuest employs stalker/predator technology from DoubleClick and other known online trackers, one should ask if it really is a good idea to link directly into such a site with your email client_ Hmmmmmm.
      You are much better off just copying the address, quitting the email client and launching your browser with the cookies turned OFF. Now go to MapQuest.com and find the address. It will take a moment or two longer, but will save having to rid your mail box of dozens of new UCE messages (aka: "spam") from now on. That little convenience may cost you as much as 12 hours throughout the next twelve months.

Delivering a One-Two Punch to Spammers

Apple is also promoting the new Mac OS X mail program, with the above "One-Two Punch" line. That's what it is, a "punch line" since bouncing a UCE really doesn't take your name off any email lists. Two years ago, perhaps it did. However it seems Apple is running about that long behind the technology curve. The UCE industry no longer even looks at the bounce logs. In fact, 99% of today's "bounce" messages go to an innocent third party server administrator who has no idea who the spammer is nor who is sending the bounce. Because of the UCE-bounce glut, more and more system operators are ignoring (or worse, turning off) their bounce logs. More and more legitimate bounces are no longer heeded. Apple's "bounce" message is actually adding to the UCE (spam) problem online rather than curing anything. They falsely advertise that Jaguar is (quote) "eliminating spam at its source." Which is totally untrue. Nothing eliminates spam at its source except eliminating the source. Period.
      Most of today's spam is delivered to your email address via relay servers. Innocent bystanders in the chain from the spammer to you. So, choosing "Bounce to Sender" from the Message menu certainly doesn't drop you or 'hurt' the spammer, it hurts us all -- and serves to keep you in the "Heads in the sand" mentality.

Out of sight, out of mind

Taking the "heads-in-the-sand" attitude is not the best attitude even though it's what the software hawkers, web hawkers and now, even the hardware hawkers want you to do. As one news caster on CNN recently commented: "It wouldn't be a good idea to assume that because you don't see any nerve gas, it isn't there." Hiding, blocking or bouncing UCE doesn't stop it. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
      UCE continues to soak up hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of IP resources and corporate man hours.
      Matt Cain, an analyst with the Meta Group, said " the crisis is on; 40 percent of e-mail that comes in to enterprises from the Internet is spam. Enterprises average about $20 per user per year fighting spam; that's about 10 percent of the overall e-mail budget for running Microsoft Exchange. ( InternetWeek 12/19/2002)
      If you want to see the effect of UCE on the general online population in the past year just visit the Harris Poll web site. Ask yourself if you want to be one of those with your head in the sand, or if you'd rather help put a stop to it once and for all. It's not rocket science, but it will require a unified voice -- a very loud unified voice -- from the entire computer using community.

 

---

Info Index  |  AACUG Front Page  |  Submit Article  |  Subscribe  |  Contact us

---