Genius, Inc.
We all get too much e-mail. This goes double, triple, and quadruple for me, since I get e-mail for a living.
If you're going to run a P.R. agency, and send me even more e-mail (in this case, an e-Christmas card -- most annoying -- to which I responded, "Thanks! Same to you!" on the off chance I actually knew the sender) do not, do fucking not, have a spam filter that e-mails me back for authorization.
Subject line: RE: Re: WISH (verification)
Kenn, from Aline Media, you are an idiot. There! You've been verified!
Heh. I feel your pain, Amy. These days, it seems the cost of doing business includes dealing with this kind of crap. I've only got a few decades more to live, and it galls me to spend even one minute of every irreplaceable day messing with spam-related nonsense.
At least with junk snail-mail, it costs the sender something. Spam is essentially free, unless the recipients complain, which can eventually lead to a PR cost. But typically complaints are used by the spammer to verify an active e-mail address, making that address more valuable as a marketable commodity. Gag.
A solution to the spam problem would be a boon to office productivity and also crimp the most common virus delivery pipeline. Solutions are out there, but each would require cooperation between several huge competitors (MS, Yahoo, Google, etc.), and the morons running these companies are more concerned with short-term corporate interests than the long-term cost to the world at large and the long-suffering individuals who deal with spam daily. Hope springs eternal, but I expect we'll still be suffering with spam when my fingers are too arthritic to type.
Splashman at December 21, 2007 10:58 AM
Somewhat related is this link. A professional comedian gets the drop on a telemarketer.
here
doombuggy at December 21, 2007 2:53 PM
Doombuggy, that's awesome! Hadn't heard that one.
Similar is Jim Florentine's stuff, like this one: "No, No"
It's kinda mean, but it makes me laugh. I guess that qualifies as a guilty pleasure.
Here's another: "Lemonade Stand"
If only there were a way to do that to spammers, eh?
Splashman at December 21, 2007 10:10 PM
Good stuff, Splashman. I like the elegance of turning the tables.
And, yeah, we need a way to zing the spammers.
doombuggy at December 22, 2007 1:10 AM
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