I don’t always agree with the “mainstream” opinions, and this is one that will probably drive people crazy, but I don’t think email spam is such a big deal. We waste more time complaining about it and trying to avoid it than we would if we just shut up and hit the delete key.
Why do we view it as such a different thing than the junk we get in our physical mail boxes, or the newspaper? With, of course, the exception of course of the “adult” items that are fairly easily filtered out.
If we stop and think about it for a moment and consider a few points, we might just put less effort into it and actually cut the volume of junk mail that is sent in the long run. Consider this:
If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t do it. So, if you don’t like it, don’t respond to it. Let market forces take over.
Filtering: we spend so much time and money filtering, that spammers will send 1000 emails, just to get 1 into your inbox. If we didn’t make so much hype and try so hard to block it, they would be able to send 1 email to get 1 email into your inbox. Then, you have the choice to either delete it or respond to it. So, we’re actually spending valuable time, lots of money and other resources, to encourage them to send more!
At the end of the day, email marketing works. Some percentage of people respond to it. So, marketers are going to do it. I can tell you that I’ve had many conversations with customers who are in one breath complaining about spam email they receive, and in the next asking me where they can buy a list of email addresses so they can market their business! So, maybe we’re all hypocrites to one degree or another.
When anyone complains to me about their spam, the first thing I ask them is “have you ever bought something as a result of an email special offer?” Almost 100% of the time the answer is “actually yeah, now that you mention it”.
So, just like anything else. We want the spam that we want, and we want to reserve our right to complain. As long as we respond to it, they will send it, no matter how many times they have to send the same email to get into your inbox.
If you really want to cut down on spam, just quit responding to it.