16. Why spam is Bad!

In internet lingo, spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail, or UCE.

Here's the best way I can explain why spam is bad, and should be reported.

When you receive junk mail in your mail box at your home, you can rest assured that the sender paid money to get it sent through the U.S. Mail. You and I pay 37 cents to mail a first class letter. Let's say an advertiser pays 15 cents per piece of mail sent. He pays what is known as bulk rate.

If he sends 800,000 pieces of advertising, it costs him $120,000 to send them. (Hey, I don't know what the bulk rate really is; I'm just using a figure for discussion purposes.)

A spammer sends his e-mail for free, and he can send many thousands of e-mails with just one click on his computer.

Now imagine that you have no "junk mail" filters for your WebTV account. And imagine that no one ever reported spam to get the spammers' accounts shut down. (Remember, spamming is illegal.)

Now imagine that all that spam actually got to your WebTV email inbox. Let's say only about 200 per day get to your mailbox. And let's say that those 200 emails fill your mailbox to capacity, so that no other email gets through. And now let's imagine that you are expecting an important email from a family member in another state. But they can't get through to you, because your email box is full, and won't accept any more messages. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Or let's say that your relatives do get their email to you, but it is lost in amongst 199 other emails, all of which are advertising. Would you ever find it?

Or, imagine this scenario, Let's say that regular U.S. Mail patrons didn't have to pay to send you junk mail. You received 200 pieces of paper mail in your mailbox each day. (Of course, your mailbox won't hold 200 pieces of mail. The postman would have to place them in large cardboard boxes on your porch each day.) Can you imagine how many trash cans you would have to purchase, just so you could throw away all that junk mail?

This is why spam is bad.

To read another perspective on why spam is bad, check out....

http://www.sputum.com/drone/why.html