People Becoming Resigned To Spam
from the broken-wills dept
Some new studies about spam suggest that there’s a bit of anti-spam backlash going on. First, fewer people now say spam is “very annoying”. The folks behind the study say that this suggests people are (a) using better tools to fight spam and (b) becoming resigned to the idea that spam is just a fact of life, like bad traffic. Still, more people are hoping that spam is declared illegal. In another study, a company found that the media has been overhyping (what a surprise) the amount of spam that is pornographic. The media often puts the number at 60 to 80%, when the actual number is closer to 20%.
Comments on “People Becoming Resigned To Spam”
Depends on how people feel about the viagra spams
I imagine that some people feel that the viagra spams are pornographic because of the vocabulary. And automatic spam analyzers would count them as porn for that reason.
Where's the consistency?
I find it inconsistent that many people who fight tooth and nail against an increase in government power, and an ill-considered one that will lead to interpretations and prosecution beyond the original intent, when it’s designed to cut down on real illegal activity (theft of copyright materials) favor an increase in government power to fight a minor inconvenience in unsolicited e-mail.
I’m not in favor of zealous government persecution in either case; some copyright theft will occur and some spam will happen, and our government law enforcement should recognize it has better things to do, like investigating and preventing assault, battery, murder, kidnapping, and other hard crimes.
Re: Where's the consistency?
Don’t know if that’s directed at me, but I’m not in favor of anti-spam legislation. I’ve stated that I doubt it will do any good. If anything, it will be misused, like the DMCA and will be used by someone to stop legitimate emails from being sent.
Re: Re: Where's the consistency?
The point of government is to follow the people’s wishes… therefore if we want legislation banning spam, which puts a severe overhead on e-traffic, fine. If we want government to stay out of every other facet of our lives, that’s fine too. The two ideas do not conflict.
It’s not a question of “more legislation” or “less legislation” than “Where do we want legislation to be judiciously used?”