Have you noticed how junk e-mail -- or spam -- has crept into our lives to the extent that the complaining about it is waning? This is a bad thing. It means we are beginning to let spam become part of the societal and Web fabric.
There has to be a way to eliminate spam without resorting to manual e-mail filtering.
Spam is worse than ever. The spammers are not only continuing to send the same crummy spam over and over, but even when you create a filter for the spam, these jokers bypass the filters by changing everything that is filterable, including the message subject name. Why do I have to see the same spam duplicated in my mailbox two or three times? It's very annoying.
This week, I decided to open my spam records and see if anything has changed in the past two years. In short, nothing has changed. Most spam is the same as it has always been, although there are certain types of spam that seem to be increasing, while other types are decreasing. Out and out MLM (multi-level marketing) schemes seem to have stalled, for example. Let's look at the current top five spam categories:
- Make Money from Home. The get-rich-quick scheme or the "make money in your spare time" scam seems to be the most ubiquitous type of spam. These messages are typically variations on the old fashioned mail-order offer to "lick envelopes and make $$$$$" that used to be found in the backs of magazines. The headlines include: "Serious about Making a Large Income?" and "Work from the Comfort of Your Home!!!!" The "comfort of your home" crowd of spammers is relentless, as they change the number of exclamation points to defeat filters. They also send the exact same offer using the subject line "Earn a Serious Income from Home!!" with variable exclamation points and sometimes a gibberish code at the end of the message. This group should be tarred and feathered.
- I Spy Scam. These operations are also relentless. The headline is a variation of "Find out ANYTHING about ANYONE!!" Recently these spammers have been adding dashes to the beginning of the e-mail subject line to thwart filters. I filtered this message years ago because I didn't want to see it. But apparently these spammers are under the impression that I must have made an error in judgment, and they continue to hound me with offers. Hey, I'm NOT INTERESTED in finding out anything about anyone! I wonder if I can find out who the guy is who is trying to sell me this crap.
- Viagra. The amount of spam I'm getting regarding Viagra is overwhelming. Maybe I'm a special target for this as some sort of insult. I'm not sure. But there are numerous seemingly Australian-based spammers sending out an offer for Viagra. The typical subject header is "Get Viagra Online Now !!!" There is always some sort of numerical code at the end to thwart filters. The Viagra offers seem seasonal.
- Offshore Banking. There seems to be an inordinate number of offers to open a bank account on some island I've never heard of. While there are plenty of legitimate banks offshore where people like to hide money, I can't picture any of the legitimate ones spamming to get business. I suppose the spammers imagine there are a lot of dummies who recently got rich and who are too stupid to know what to do with their new wealth. It's weird.
- Hot Stock Tip. These tips come in a variety of flavors, but mostly in the form of an unknown newsletter that you never quite recall subscribing to. The stock is always some hopeless company that someone is obviously pumping in an attempt to get out of the stock before they lose all their money. I would look at any of these recommendations as potential short-selling opportunities, but the stocks are usually OTC-BB stocks that you can't even sell short.
There are all kinds of new types of spam categories emerging as challengers to my top five categories. Look for a rise in spam offering refinancing for homes and debt consolidation. This is a function of the market crash I guess. I'm also starting to see an inordinate number of offers for cheaper long distance calls and unified messaging.
Though it appears that the top five spam categories are the most annoying and redundant, more and more e-commerce operations and even legitimate stores are turning to spam to make a sale or get attention. I expect the noise level of spam to increase with more and more of these offers. The problem with spam from legitimate stores is that the messages are hard to filter since they are usually not redundant. So they have to be hand deleted. I see no evidence that spam is going away any time soon. Now I'm simply resigned to spending perhaps a half hour per day deleting the stuff.
This brings me to what I think is a great business concept. Pre-filter my mail for me, please. Set up an ASP operation, which takes all my incoming mail and routes it through an anti-spam system, then feeds the real mail to my inbox. Want to make money on the Internet? I'd pay for that service!
