Re: Spammers and web hosting

Jacqui C. Hooker wrote on Spam;

>It is a marketing tool, a communication pathway for businesses to publicize
their services.

I had thought that a website did that  :-)

The implication here is that the web is nothing more than a marketing
paradise for hucksters, advertisers, and marketers to fill our e-boxes
with unsolicited information in the same way our snailboxes are now.

By calling it a communication pathway as an attempt to legitimize its use,
especially when comparing it to Direct Mail,
and pointing to the assumption that it is free,
(previous posts have discussed the hidden costs)
and because I have an e-mail address, you have the 'right' to bombard me
with 'pathways to services'.

Nobody has that right.

> Spam is simply the internet/email version of commercials, magazine ads,
> direct mail.  Yes, they tend to be annoying and waste our time, but
without
> them we wouldn't find new products and solutions to solve existing
problems.

This statement implies that I have problems, that without intervention,
I will not solve,  that I am not smart enough to make my own decisions,
Nor should I to be trusted to seek out information by myself .

I  resent both of these implications.

E-mail is a legitimate marketing tool.
When I surf the web, and find a website which has a product or service in
which I am Interested,
there is a link for more information, whether it is a mailto link, a form,
or a shopping cart.

If UCE is a legitimate business tool,
why do so many sites have a
Privacy Policy linked on their Front Page.

http://www.ge.com/privacy.htm
It is my Choice to make.

I build websites for a living.
I have been doing this as my only source of income for 3 years.
My clients want to open their mailboxes, and respond to qualified leads,
not have to wade through Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail.

alan herrell - the head lemur
Buy a Site http://www.lemurzone.com
Help a Site http://domain-issues.org
Standards for Sites http://www.webstandards.org

HTML: hwg-business mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA