We're Spamming You To Tell You How Much We Respect Your Privacy
from the who-comes-out-looking-worse? dept
Yesterday there was the story of a startup that sent a marketing message that revealed all the email addresses of people on their list. While the company blamed it on a "technical error" rather than the very human error that it was, they also insisted that the addresses were "secure" despite not being able to really promise that. As if to drive that fact home, a competitor has now spammed the entire list, childishly claiming that they would do a better job "respecting your privacy." Of course, as theRegister points out, if that were true, they wouldn't have gone out and spammed that whole list, would they? In this case, both firms come out looking bad. The first one for not admitting how badly they screwed up, and the second one for exploiting the situation.
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That sucks.
The second firm needs to be shot.
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Of course, I threatened to do that to people that send me jokes via email with 200-300 email addresses forwarded with the joke.
It must be equivalent to rocket science to learn how to use the Bcc: function.
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The reason there is so much spam is because it is very easy to make lots of money doing it.
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:-)
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There's the rub:
What people hear:
you CAN make a lot of money from spam.However here's the catch that most low scrupled people don't hear (and is almost never said anyway):
you aren't likely to make a lot of money from spam.
Spam is a bit like the heyday of the dotcom boom in the nineties, during that time a lot of programmers and web designers were making 6 figures, big bucks and becoming millionaires. These successes were publicized a lot.
The result? A ton of morons who HATE computers but "heard you could make a lot of money doing this" taking courses and getting jobs in IT. I spent years with programmers who hated their jobs and were in it for the money. Ironically, those guys never got "the money" because they couldn't rise above the level of their own incompetence and are now in other fields or unemployed.
Spam's like that...you get TONS of idiots who sign up dubious stuff and send out their million spam, make zero bucks and quit or get caught by their ISP or whatever. Meanwhile the big boys and their operations DO make thousands and millions and get the spotlight, drawing in more suckers who also send out their shit...get nothing or very little and leave...and we ALL know there's an endless supply of losers who will try it.
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