Junk email (was: Re: AIS homepage suggestion)

From: Scott Aitken  <zebra@chcs.com>

        Linda Mann lmann76543@aol.com wrote:
>One of the things I like about the internet is that it seems to have no
>commitment to consistency - if partial info is avaialable, partial info is
>what you get, rather than no info at all.  Seems like a few contacts are
>better than none.  Would they be subjected to spam?  For those of us who are
>really inexperienced at this, what bad thangs might happen if we had our
>email out on a public access like the AIS home page?

Your email address is not unlike your postal address or your phone number.
The more people who know your address and phone number, the more junk mail
and junk phone calls you get. Same holds with your email address.

Since I run two small businesses (which have web sites), manage several web
sites (like the AIS), and belong to a number of email lists (like IRIS-L),
I get a LOT of email. Most of it is fine, but some of it definitely falls
into the category of "Junk email" or "Spam".

Junk email is like junk mail; people wanting me to buy goods or services
which they presume I might want because it relates in some vague way to my
businesses or other interests. I find this mildly annoying, but I can live
with it. At least it doesn't waste paper.

Spam is junk email taken to new heights. Anyone who has watched almost any
unmonitored newsgroup for any length of time has seen messages by
ignoramuses "Make $50,000 in 30 days!!!!" (always with multiple exclamation
points). They post them to all the newsgroups and literally clog up the
whole internet with these stupid messages. These also get distributed
occasionally on email lists and by private email. This kind of email
infuriates me, as it does most people. So far, I don't recall ever seeing
it on IRIS-L, but I have on other email lists I belong to. And I have not
received any from which the source can be traced back to being on Mike's
E-Rolodex.

So far, this has been a very polite and well behaved group for the most
part. But you can see why some people are wary of giving out their email
address to the general public.

Scott Aitken
<zebra@chcs.com>
AIS web page:  http://www.isomedia.com/homes/AIS
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