Wired News might be a respected and well-read Web publication, but judging from the e-mail that flows into the inboxes here, the site has a serious image problem: People think Wired News has a small penis.
About once a week, on average, reporters and editors at WN receive offers to enlarge the site's penis by between one and four inches, usually through a safe, "natural" procedure that requires no more than seven minutes of work per day. More often than not, these methods are free of "pumps and pills," and are bolstered by a money-back guarantee.
Now, for obvious reasons, Wired News is not in need of a larger penis. And that's a big problem with spam. It's not just that every unsolicited message reeks of unseemliness -- it's that the messages aren't going just to the folks who need them, and they're instead flooding us all, with no apparent method to the madness.
Of course, you know this. Even if you've been online for just a wee amount of time, you're likely all-too-familiar with spam -- with the fact that many offers are scams, that some border on the obscene, and, worst of all, that there's just too much of it. Indeed, it seems like there isn't much to say about spam that hasn't already been said, or that most people don't already know.
Then what will they talk about at Spamcon, this year's big anti-spam conference that's being held in San Francisco on Thursday and Friday?
Tom Geller, the director of Spamcon, said he's intent on finding a new, more "collaborative" way of dealing with spam. Instead of focusing on the ISP side of things -- which was the case at previous spam conferences -- Geller is bringing in some e-mail marketing companies as well.
He's looking for a kind of third way of dealing with spam, one that would have the effect of routing the right messages to the right people, so that -- some time in the future -- Wired News will get fewer offers to enhance its endowment.
"Previous spam conferences have been very ISP-centric," Geller said. "They try to figure out how to stop the spam from coming. Then, at the same time, there were e-mail marketing conferences where they say, 'How can we get these messages through the ISPs?'"
It's a cold war, essentially, and consumers are stuck in the middle. At Spamcon, Geller hopes that the e-mail marketers and the ISPs will see that they can strike some kind of balance, which will leave each side better off.
"E-mail marketers have realized how important it is that their messages are wanted, and that they're received and read. The ones that are going to be here have realized they have to work things out with ISPs," Geller said.
Of course, not every spammer will be at Spamcon. Indeed, the marketers who will attend the event are already specializing in "opt-in" or "permission" e-mail, and they're probably not the ones trying to proselytize some fly-by-night weight loss regime, or to help men who "feel cheated by mother nature," as one penis-enlarging spam delicately put it.
These messages most often come from guerrilla marketers who buy hundred-million-address e-mail lists for $50 and send spam because they think it's a good way to pocket cash. Most of the e-mail addresses they provide are dead by the time the message goes out -- which is a good indication, spam experts say, that they don't know what they're doing.
Spamcon will address those people, too. Ted Gavin, a consultant at Nachman Hays Consulting and the author of a paper playfully entitled "How to Advertise Responsibly Using E-Mail and Newsgroups or How NOT to $$$$$ MAKE ENEMIES FAST! $$$$$," will discuss recent anti-spam measures from the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Gavin's message is that unsolicited mass-messaging does not work. "The possibility of income generation and market or business expansion are minuscule when compared to some of the risks," Gavin writes.
These risks include a loss of credibility for the spammer, a loss of his ISP and possible litigation. Considering all these pitfalls, it's easier to be responsible.
Apparently, though, some people haven't gotten that message. The spam keeps coming; by some measures, about half of the e-mail most people receive is spam. And with more people coming online everyday -- people who don't quite know the rules and regs of online behavior -- the problem is destined to get worse, at least in the near future.
Still, Geller and other anti-spammers remain hopeful that as the Internet grows up, spam will get solved. "The Internet is going to change a lot in the next 10 years," he said, citing some tough anti-spam laws that might come on the books in that time. "I'd guess that by then, this might be a small problem."
Perhaps. But it's going to be a long decade.
