Spaaaaam?

I found an interesting article on InformationWeek.com that contains some emails by people who “[say] the spam problem is overhyped.” The crap spewing forth ranges from an pseudo-intelligent:

“We think that spam blockers are a good solution to the problem. Much better than legislation that wastes our time and money on a problem that government can never control anyway”

All the way to the asinine:

“How about directing some of that energy toward the people that infect our systems with viruses, a far more serious and worthy problem?”

That’s like the trick you play on kids when you want to take something away from them “Look at the pretty shiny thing sweetie!” and then BAM!!!, your GI-Joe with the battle action kung-fu grip is gone…I miss you Duke…but I digress.

The fact is spam costs money. The ISP I work for is in the process of spending 10s of thousands of dollars to upgrade servers and purchase spam software to stop this. We’ve had to buy disk space and spend time on the phone explaining why a customer’s mailbox quota is used up by emails promising you a lower mortgage that will also increase the size of your naughty bits and regrow hair if you’ll simply be their American business partner.

If ever there was a time when legislation was necessary, this is it.

p.s. You didn’t hear it from me but these people made the mistake of allowing their personal email addresses to be posted along with the article…not that you should sign them up for the ilovespam.com mailing list. [ InformationWeek ]