Back Off, Spammer

Help. Take Me Off Your List... Periodically, I've written about unsolicited e-mail, commonly referred to as spam. But the e-mail monster keeps growing. Here's a typical lament sent to me about a popular e-mail list. "I tried opting-out three times to no avail. Do you have any tips for getting these guys out of my life? I have resigned myself to simply hitting the delete button."

Here's the problem. Building an opt-in e-mail list is really hard. It's much easier to force "subscribers" to opt-out. E-mail attrition rates are 2 to 3% a month. So for example, in the case of the PikeNet Dispatch, this year I'll need almost 3,000 new subscribers to opt-in to replace expected attrition. That's a huge number of voluntary signups. But ethically, it's the right choice. And luckily the natural balance of the PikeNet Dispatch seems to be about 10,000 subscribers (actually, 10,762 this issue).

The difficulty of achieving a natural balance is hugely compounded as a mailing list grows. If you have a mailing list of 100,000, you'll need 30,000 new subscribers annually just to stay even, a Herculean task. And that's why it's so tempting for firms to slam your address onto an e-mail list and force you to opt-out. Prime harvesting grounds for e-mails include company web sites, conference attendee lists and trade association directories. Which explains why, even if you opt-out once, you could easily be "subscribed" again.

What's the answer? If you're a sender of e-mail, make sure that you provide a link to cancel a subscription AND contact information complete with e-mail and phone number. If you're a subscriber, make sure that you learn how to use your e-mail filter tools. For example, in Outlook open the offending message. Click Actions / Create Rule. Then tell Outlook to send all future messages from this sender to the trash. You'll never see one of these offending e-mails again! ... See also, E-mail Protocol -- Yes, You Need Permission (Feb 12, 2002) and Ethics 101: Do the Right Thing, Please (Jul 24, 2001).

--Peter Pike