An Open Letter To Spammers

It seems to me that spammers aren’t too bright. While I recognize that the cost to send millions of emails is negligible compared to the cost to send a comparable amount of postal mail, there IS a certain cost involved. Hard disk space to store the addresses in your database, processor cycles to send mail to each address, bandwidth for each message, and even the cost of domain names, mail relays, and web hosting come into play here.

Marketing philosophies still apply, even in the digital world, as the people making the decision to respond to your ad or not are still, well, people. So, it still makes sense to maximize your marketing dollar by being efficient.

I get a lot of unsolicited messages that make no sense. Breast enlargement, for example. Hello? Duh? Look at the address, you idiots. Does that look like a feminine name? Get a clue, people. I’M A GUY! Breast enlargement is the last thing I need. And no guy with an IQ larger than his age would be going to his girlfriend saying, “I think your breasts need to be bigger” because he knows her reply will be something along the lines of “Oh, really? You don’t like my breasts, huh? Well, we’ll just see how much you like them when you haven’t had them for a couple of weeks!”

So… if you don’t have less on, you have _______? Right! Moron! Exactly! You didn’t check those addresses, did you? Even if only to make sure you weren’t sending out a breast enlargement ad to 50 million men. Try it. You’ll see your response percentage skyrocket.

I also get a lot of messages from the same company from 10-15 or more different domain names. For example: hotshopbargain.com, hotshop-bargain.com, hotshopbargains.com, hotshop-bargains.com, hotshopbuy.com, hotshop-buy.com, hotshopbuys.com, hotshop-buys.com, hotshoppingalerts.com, hsbargain.com, hs-bargain.com, hsbargains.com, hs-bargains.com, hs-buy.com, and hs-buys.com. Now, I understand why you’re doing this. You know darn well that I will block each domain as I get spam from it, so you change the name to dodge my filter.

This is the same philosophy that makes for all those unreadable messages like “D0 ¥0u n33d ¢Ì@ļ” instead of “Do you need Cialis.” These people know that I have filters running that block any message with “cialis” or “Viagra” or “enlarge your manhood,” so they deliberately misspell the words to bypass the filter. I call this theory the “I’m going to make myself look like an idiot so I can bypass your filter for the sole purpose of pissing you off.”

Let me make this absolutely clear: If I went to the trouble and effort of writing a filter to block your message, I DON’T WANT YOUR PRODUCT!! I have absolutely zero interest! Going to the great lengths that you are going to in a effort to invalidate my effort, bypass my filter, and throw your message in my face anyway, IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND!! All you are going to do is anger me because you have wasted the effort I already put in. This will not make me more likely to pay attention to your message. It will not increase the chance that I will read your mail. I will be even less likely to buy your product. It also means that any idiots out there who a) would do business with a spammer and b) would buy your product will be even less able to read the damn ad anyway.

Save yourself the expense of registering 20 domain names. Save yourself the effort of changing the spelling of key words in your message. Those techniques are not going to improve your chances of making a sale. They will not increase your response percentage. All they will do is piss people off and stir up opposition to your efforts (which will lead to legislation like the CAN Spam Act and, hopefully, even stricter laws and stiffer fines). Just accept that some people don’t want to hear your message (and they are the people on whom your message would be wasted anyway) and let them block your messages or, better yet, take them off your lists. Sharing or selling those addresses will have the same effect. If someone wants off of your list, then giving that address to your spammer buddies is only going to make them madder. Piss off enough people and your mass email campaigns acquire the label “harassment” and legislation is enacted against you. Is that what you want?

Further, if you send out a message with a spoofed “From” address and a dead link to a web page, how am I supposed to contact you? Even if my purpose is to buy your product? Maybe I want you to take my name off of your list… maybe I want to make a sale. If you include no way for me to contact you, I can’t do either. I’ll quote Christopher Walken from Suicide Kings: “You didn’t think this through too good, did you?” Personally, I think falsifying a “From” address should be considered fraud, which is a felony, and be punishable by a long vacation in the Grey Bar Hotel (i.e., the State Penitentiary). I also think ownership of my private information should be retained by me and I should be able to sue you (for 6-7 figures) for giving my address to others without my express written consent.

So. The summary… I don’t want to be in ANY marketing lists. You may consider this an opt-out of every commercial, marketing, or promotional list in existence, now and in the future. Take my name out of all of your lists. Do not share it with anyone. I do not do business with spammers. Period. Ever. For any reason. Under any circumstances. Sending commercial mail to me is a waste. A waste of your time, my time, Internet bandwidth, hard disk space, and processor cycles. Save us both the headaches.

Signed,
CanaryTrap@yahoo.com