The Future of E-mail Marketing - Part 3
by Gary B. Smith
The final word is from Richard Seltzer, who recognizes that no amount
of legislation and technology tricks can completely stop spamming.
"What can stop this madness? Certainly not laws and regulations. Certainly
not technology gimmicks. As long as people are stupid enough to click
on the links in spam and some people even spend money doing business
with spamming companies, spam will continue to proliferate. The perpetrators
will only stop when there's no profit in it."
Richard Seltzer's articles and views can be accessed at www.samizdat.com;
his marketing site is at www.samizdat.com/consult.htm.
He also has an online store at store.yahoo.com/samizdat.
Richard is the author of Web Business Bootcamp (Wiley); Take Charge
of Your Web Site (MightyWords), Shop Online the Lazy Way (Macmillan)
and The AltaVista Search Revolution (Osborne/McGraw-Hill).
Richard Seltzer, author and Internet Consultant, has a number of tips
for dealing with spam:
1. Use a service like anonymizer (www.anomyizer.com),
which acts as a go-between, enabling you to send e-mail without revealing
your return address.
2. Set up multiple accounts (e.g. use free accounts at hotmail and
yahoo and identify yourself whenever you fill out a form at an online
store; Give out your personal/private e-mail address only to friends
and close business associates).
3. For your personal/private e-mail address do not use your real name,
rather pick some random assemblage of letters and numbers (like a
password).
4. Use Web mail (Web-based e-mail applications) to take a first look
at your mail (from anywhere, with a browser) and eliminate all unwanted
messages; only then should you open mail in Outlook, Outlook Express,
Eudora, etc.
5. Use Instant Messenger for exchanges with close friends that previously
you would have done with e-mail.
6. Use p2p sites (like Kazaa) for exchanging files that you don't
need to keep secret (instead of using e-mail attachments).
7. For exchanging files you need to protect, use password-protected
ftp.
8. Use personal Web pages to deliver non-secret messages.
9. Among a circle of friends or business associates, use of personal
code in subject line (one that you change each day, e.g., including
today's date) so they can immediately know what messages are really
from you.
10. Set your e-mail filter so you only receive e-mail from known addresses.
Unfortunately, identity swapping quickly gets by that - people pretending
to be someone else with hacker tricks (I frequently get viruses purportedly
sent to me by me).
11. Switch to an ISP that pre-screens e-mail for virus and obvious
spam, and that allows you to set your own e-mail filter that runs
server, before the messages arrive at your computer.
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