Black Twig Design

spam

Spam

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Sending  mass unsolicited email threatens the very survival of the internet,  yet we still have customers debating with us about the subject.  We want our position made very clear.  Spam is not like postal bulk mail (unless yours comes "postage due" with no choice but to pay).  It is not like telemarketing (unless someone else is making collect calls and you have no way to refuse the call).

see also Why is Spam Bad - from Spamcon Foundation

Spam is Unethical

Spam is theft.  It is the moral equivalent of illegally tapping into your neighbor's phone line and setting up a telemarketing boiler room on his account.
Email is not free to transmit.  We include email accounts for you to use with the understanding that your traffic will grow incrementally and legitimately so that your needs can be anticipated, and we will have an opportunity to bill you for your usage.  (For 99% of the legitimate businesses on the internet, this usage will never exceed the limits of the basic service.)

"Internet Service Providers offer the use of mail servers to their customers as a service.  The senders of junk e-mail are using the property of ISPs, namely e-mail servers, free of charge in a way which has a negative impact on the ISP customers.  It is clearly unacceptable for Internet Service Providers to have to go to extra cost (i.e. the capacity for the extra e-mail traffic caused by uce) for something which is of no benefit to the ISP itself and is a nuisance for its customers. " -
The European Internet Service Providers Association
One episode of mass emailing can result in the disruption of service for hundreds of innocent parties, incurring a substantial out-of-pocket expense that must be absorbed by someone along the line and passed on to all users in the form of higher rates.  Since email passes through so many different routers, servers, and hubs, most of which have strict anti-spamming policies, one complaint by a single recipient carries the very real risk that all of the websites on our server could be blocked, shut down or blacklisted from the internet.  A portion of every payment you make to any provider for internet services is, in effect, subsidizing pornography peddlers, get-rich-quick scheme hustlers, and every other type of shady business, so long as spam is tolerated.

"A European Commission study recently said that spam cost the Internet community $9.42 billion US last year." - CAUCE

Spam is Illegal

Keep in mind that in an ever-growing number of legal jurisdictions, very strict laws have been passed to stop spamming.  More and more of these laws cover incoming and outgoing email.  In California, for example, spammers are liable to prosecution for spamming into the state as well as from it, and some states now have recoverable damages set as high as $50 per email per recipient.

"In the never-ending war on junk e-mail, two San Diego County men accused of "spamming" are the first to face felony criminal charges in California.  Michael Persaud, 24, of San Diego and Frank Kriticos, 25, of Santee appeared in San Diego Superior Court yesterday on charges that they sent out tens of thousands of unsolicited e-mails pitching home refinancing services.  The e-mail flood overloaded and crashed a Palo Alto company's computers, which the two men allegedly used to send the e-mails." - San Diego Union-Tribune March 13, 2001
Spam is Risky Business

Unfortunately, law enforcement has difficulty catching up with professional spammers because they stay on the run.  They will take your money and promise you a mailing list of addresses to those who will become your customers when they receive your unsolicited sales pitch.  They set up an account with a local ISP, then use automated software to run thousands or millions of messages through their account.  By tomorrow morning they have left town, leaving you, us, the local ISP and every service provider and user along the route holding the bag to pay for their abuse.

Once the perpetrator has disappeared, who do law enforcement and wronged parties come after?  You and us.  Every day there are people permanently banned from the internet for spam-related abuses.  One complaint to a single company can result in you being shut down--and remember, every email you send goes through several hands.  Multiply that by a hundred or a thousand, let alone a million, email messages, and the odds approach certainty that your behavior will generate complaints.  Some of those complaints will be to companies with "shoot first, ask questions later" policies.  And it may take only one complaint to do enormous damage to your business.

"Due to the cost of access to the Internet through European phone companies, each piece of uce received by a European consumer costs the consumer money.  It is simply unacceptable that a uce sender can force such costs onto consumers." -
The European Internet Service Providers Association

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  © 2003 Black Twig Design, Inc.
801 S. Garfield Ave. #143, Traverse City, MI 49686

telephone 231-929-4997