oreign
countries which, in most cases, have no anti-spam laws at all, or if
they do are likewise unable (or unwilling) to follow up and prosecute.
Why do they keep "spamming"? Nobody buys
stuff through "spam", do they?
Available figures suggest that the "rate of return" on direct
e-mail marketing is somewhat less than one percent, some peg it at about
0.75%. Compared to more traditional Third Class "junk mail" postal marketing, this is abysmal,
but on the other hand, the cost to send several million e-mails is miniscule
when compared to the cost of third class mailing of a similar number of
printed flyers, etc. So, surprisingly, "spamming" turns out
to be very profitable if the spammer has a big enough list of valid e-mail
addresses. The plain fact is that spammers keep spamming because they
are making money, because there are enough people who do
respond to spam ads to make it worthwhile.
How do they get these addresses - including mine?
It is nearly impossible to keep your e-mail address "secret"
or exclusive, no matter how hard you try. There are numerous ways that
spammers acquire the addresses they bombard. Here are just a few:
- If you ever entered your e-mail address on a website, it might be
used by that site, or sold or given to others for mass mailings
- Any e-mail you send out contains your return address. The original
recipients may forward it on through a chain of others until it lands
on a spammer's list
- If you use "vacation/out of office" replies on your e-mail account when you're away, you may be automatically generating a reply to each incoming spam message that confirms that your address is valid, and that someone is reading it (see "What should not be done about 'spam'?", below). This makes it more likely that your address will be sold/swapped by spammers.
- Spammers use "bots" to scan Usenet newsgroup postings for
e-mail addresses, so if you ever posted to a group and put your e-mail
address in the post, it may have been "harvested" in this
- Similarly, spammers' "bots" also cruise the web looking
for e-mail addresses on web pages. If you have a personal web page that
has your e-mail address on it (especially as part of a "mailto:"
hyperlink), or there is some other page (departmental, school, etc.)
with your address, they might acquire it this way as well.
- If you've ever subscribed to an e-mail discussion list, or listserv,
it's possible that the listowner sold all the addresses to a spammer
- Spammers often probe large, well-known mail hosts (Penn has several)
to learn active account names. This sometimes involves the "brute
force" approach of attempting to send mail to every possible 8-character
- If your e-mail address appears in an online directory, it may have
been picked up by a spammer. Penn's online directory is at http://www.upenn.edu/directories.
To update the information about you that is available to a search of the online directory, select the "Update directory listings" link on the main directory page (PennKey authentication required)
- Spammers also sell and swap "catalogs" of e-mail addresses
among themselves. These catalogs are sometimes printed, but recently
are more likely to be on CD-ROMs that contain literally millions of
What can I do to keep "spam" out of my inbox
Here's a foolproof method:
- Locate the cord (usually black, about 1/2 inch thick) coming from
the back of your computer and going to an AC power socket on the wall
or power strip.
- Pull it out of the socket.
- Never plug it back in again.
If you're not quite ready for that drastic a step, start by coming to
terms with the fact that it is virtually impossible to avoid dealing with
spam at some level unless you're willing to give up using computers entirely.
There are some things you can do, though, that will help ease the pain
of dealing with spam, even if it's just a little bit:
- The Direct Marketing Association's DMAchoice Service (http://www.dmachoice.org)
lets you register e-mail addresses that you would like to keep out of
mailing lists. All DMA members (more than 4,500) are required to remove
registered ad