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How to Get Rid of the 4-letter S-Word
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By Darryl Graham
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Now don't get all upset, as we are going to talk about the otherS-word and that would be S*P*A*M. The * is in between theletters because just the use of this S-word can cause your emailto not be delivered. The S-word is considered to have happenedwhen you send an unsolicited email to someone. Unsolicited meansthey did not specifically request your information and this iswhere things get a little dicey. People subscribe to free offersonline, but they forget to read the small print and that smallprint will tell them they are agreeing to receive offers fromthird parties. Their email is then sold to dozens of people whoin turn might sell it to dozens of other people. The result isthe person who wanted to get a free coupon to a restaurant willnow start receiving offers for a variety of products andservices. Now, most of these people who buy these leads arehonest and caring people and if someone asks to be removed fromtheir list, they will be removed. The problem comes from thereal S-worders who buy large number of leads and will neverremove an email address. Plus, if you click on the remove link,not only does it not remove you, but it confirms to these peoplethat your email address is valid and they will start sendingmore junk to you. In addition, there is software that is readilyavailable on the Internet that will allow someone to harvestmillions of email addresses. Harvesting emails for those of youwho do not know is the ability for this software to pick up youremail from your webpage, a blog, an article, heck I would not besurprised if they can't get my email address off my businesscard! So who do we blame for S-word?
1) We can blame the greedy people who subscribe to offers to getsomething free and do not read the fine print.
2) We can blame the greedy people who purchase these lists ofgreedy people who want to get something free and do not read thefine print and then these people who purchased the lists startblasting emails selling everything under the sun at rock bottomprices.
3) We can blame the greedy people who buy from the greedy peoplewho purchase these lists of greedy people who want to getsomething free and do not read the fine print and then thesepeople who purchased the lists start blasting emails sellingeverything under the sun at rock bottom prices.
4) We can blame the politicians and media who keep the S-word inthe newspapers and on the front of everyone's mind.
5) We can blame the Internet for being such an economical andpractical marketing source.
6) We can blame the ISP's who send the emails to their membersand subscribers.
7) We can blame the Autoresponder companies. After all theirservices allow people to send lots of mail.
8) We can blame ourselves. Tough call isn't it? The point is, weall have something to do with the S-word and we are allresponsible for getting rid of it. When I first started inmarketing, the Internet had not been invented yet and the way wepromoted our company was to send direct mail. This was harmlessbecause if someone did not want it, they could simply throw itaway, but boy did we catch it from people who wanted toliterally remove parts of our body that we had become quite fondof. You don't hear much about direct mail anymore because theS-word has taken over the news. The problem is the S-word cannotbe stopped by legislation or politicians or rules because thepeople who are really abusing the email system are usingtechniques so they cannot be tracked. The S-Cop site is out toget rid of the S-word and while I applaud their effort, goingafter the little guy is not going to get rid of the problem. Theonly way to get rid of the S-word outside of charging a fee tosend and receive email is to educate people. We need to educatethe greedy people who still think they can get something forfree on the Internet. We need to educate the people who arepurchasing lists of names in small quantities and sendingmultiple emails without giving the receiver a chance to breathein between messages. We need to educate the Autoresponderproviders to just say no to someone who wants to send bunches ofemail with purchased lists. We need to educate the people whocontinue to buy from the big S-worders because lets face it, ifbulk email did not work, people would not send it. Someone isbuying something from these people and whether they are doing itbecause they get a good price or because they are naive andbelieve the message, does not matter. The illegal drug tradewould dry up if people did not continue to buy illegal drugs.Terrorism would stop being a way to change policies if the mediadid not give these people mention in their newspapers and ontelevision and radio. The S-word is working for some people andit will continue to work and be a problem for all of us untileveryone stops buying from them. The purpose of this article isto help educate people. If one person reads this article andavoids subscribing to get a free restaurant voucher, because heknows that he is going to get hit with bunches of emails, thenwe will have accomplished our goal. We, those of us workingonline need to make the S-word go away, because if we leave upto the politicians and lawyers, we the people who most depend onthe Internet and email will be paying to send our email in thevery near future. Personally, I do not want this to happen. Iwant the government and the lawyers as far away from theInternet as we can keep them because all in all the Internetworks very well. However if we get the government involved, wemight as well get prepared to start paying to send emails andalso get use to 28k modems because they would take us back thatfar if they are allowed to interfere. S-word is not coming fromthe reputable companies and people online. S-word is coming frompeople that do not care about laws or what is right or wrong.They only care about the dollar and they won't stop as long asthey are making dollars, and they are only going to make dollarsif people keep supporting them!
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