Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Spammers back at it

It's a bit disheartening to see this story in the New York Times with the headline "Spam Back to 94% of all E-Mail." Though this story is about malicious spammers who have found a way around the McColo take down last fall that cut off spam traffic, it lumps in opt-in email messages as if they're unwanted as well. Not all commercial emails are spam!

2 comments:

Sherry Heyl said...

trying REALLY hard to clean out my inbox of emails that I do not want. Many lists I am on I "opted-in" because I was downloading a whitepaper or something like that. I have been VERY diligent about seeking out the opt-out links because, as you say, it should not be categorized as Spam. What is happening though is in many cases I can not find the opt-out link OR I opt-out but keep receiving the emails - which I then click th spam button...and that may be some of the situations adding to these high percentages of reported spam.

Sandi K. Solow said...

Sherry, thanks for your comment. I share your pain of an overloaded inbox. And agree that many messages I originally wanted become difficult to opt-out of. There should be a category of messages called "Started out on the right foot but quickly became a nuisance."