Ramblings and Rantings - Part II

Well, folks, it's 2011 and things haven't improved in the six plus years since I first wrote about useless email. Therefore, here is a second look at one of the reasons I have so little hair left (ok... it's a guy thing... but still, it seems to have disappeared in direct proportion to the amount of junk I have to wade through, every day!)

My email inbox is still overflowing - how come the good guys get sp@m warnings for one email and these guys dump on me over and over again and nobody's even slowing them down? I now have software on my main account that gets rid of a lot of junk, very effectively (Thank you, Netaddress... plug, plug, plug), but the junk in my inbox STILL wastes a lot of time, every day, and if I miss a day... ugh.

I think the programmers who are trying to control this pile of cyber litter should change their tactics. Why not let all email through with real return addresses and real people checking their email.

Hey - how hard can it be? At LEAST 80% of the junk would disappear instantly if all the ISPs just used a filter that autodumped email with phoney reply-to and from addresses! They're pinging all the time - how hard to ping back on every email and trash the ones that bounce?
Am I missing something here?? Is there one good programmer out there?

And to make it even better, create a little algorithm that checks for contact information in every email coming through - if there's no contact info in the email - TRASH IT!! It's doable, people!

How hard it that? Now we've dumped 75-90% of sp@m without breaking into a sweat.
But no - the dumb boneheads take the lazy approach and string up the people who DO use real addresses and real contact info, because they're easy to find.

And what do we get instead? A WHOLE LOT MORE anonymous garbage in our inbox!
Go figure!!

Now, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Feel better? Have a marvelous day!

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Big Brother AOL

AOL is watching you.... They want you to help them in their noble quest to become richer by quietly and joyfully accepting a whack of spam from advertisers they are giving guaranteed delivery to YOUR email box to, all for a very tiny fee.

It has been with much interest that I've been following the debate over AOL et al. My advice to anyone who is worried about AOL and friends charging advertisers for delivery of commercial email to their members is this - if you want to get your email, don't use AOL or anyone with similar policies. 

 For a long time, now, good lead companies have been excluding certain ISPs - especially AOL, as it has been virtually impossible to send commercial messages to AOL customers for a LONG time. 

 AOL has become so bad that children sending birthday greetings to their aunties are having their email bounce, simply because AOL has blacklisted their local ISP or because several innocuous words in the body of their email, like, perhaps, "Hi," have triggered AOL's draconian spam filters. 

This new pay-to-mail system is NOT the death knoll for email marketing - it opens up a HUGE market to those who want to pay a small fee to guarantee delivery of their mail to practically half the market (yes, AOL is that huge). 

 Remember that it has been virtually impossible for several years now to send commercial email to AOL users. Now, for a small fee, it is guaranteed! 

 However, for AOL users, this means that their spam holiday is over. Now, while Aunty may still not receive that cute e-card from her little nephew, Aunty will DEFINITELY receive plenty of junk mail, AKA AOL-approved spam. 

 In my opinion, it's high time people stopped fighting AOL and others like them, and started looking for smaller, freer, more open and user-friendly services. 

Rambling and Ranting - First Pitch

Well, here we are again! My email inbox is overflowing again - how come the good guys get sp@m warnings for one email and these guys dump on me over and over again and nobody's even slowing them down? 

I think they should change their attack and say, let all email through with real return addresses and real people checking their email. Hey - how hard can it be? 

At LEAST 50% of the junk would disappear instantly if all the ISPs just used a filter that autodumped email with phony reply-to and from addresses! 

They're pinging all the time - how hard is it to ping back on every email and trash the ones that bounce? Am I missing something here?? Is there one good programmer out there? 

 And further, create a little algorithm that checks for contact information in every email coming through - if there's no contact info in the email - TRASH IT!! How hard it that? Now we've dumped 75-90% of sp@m without breaking into a sweat. 

But no - the dumb boneheads take the lazy approach and string up the people who DO use real addresses and real contact info, because they're easy to find. And what do we get instead? A WHOLE LOT MORE anonymous garbage in our inbox! Go figure!!