# What's so horribly evil about "spam" email? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 6, 2003, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255 "2003-08-06T02:30:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/41 "2003-08-06T05:47:23Z")
Okay **Rex** , now you’re being deliberately obtuse. People have provided sites and impressive numbers and you continue to sit here and go: “You still haven’t proven anything! La La La! I can’t HEAR YOU!” Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/42 "2003-08-06T05:52:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > \*\*It would seem from all the anecdotal accounts from just about everyone who works in an office environment that internet access = employees goofing off. Seems like a waste of time that might be costing the company more money in lost productivity than “fighting spam” could ever create. \*\* **Rex** , your incoherency is losing focus. We’ve moved from “spam isn’t so bad, you can just delete it” to “employees don’t even need internet access anyway”. Your first proposition has been soundly defeated: others have firmly established that spam is a costly, intrusive nuisance well worth fighting against. You’re still persisting with your second assertion. I’ll say it again: many of us _need_ internet access to do our work. We \*need \* email to communicate with external clients and customers. Contrary to your summer experience, I’ve never worked in a law firm, accounting firm, consulting firm, mining company, university, or government department that didn’t provide internet access and email to its employees. No one I know in an office environment works without internet access or email. Notice that no one here has argued against the idea that many people at least some of the time goof off on the web. But just remind us again what that has to do with spam, will you? Narrad (busy eating tuna salad, posting to a message board, at lunch time, in front of my work computer.) ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/43 "2003-08-06T05:57:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LudditeAndroid \* > **Well, _my_ imaginary children would love a good soft-core porn extravaganza now and then. What’s wrong with _your_ imaginary children? Damn puritan.** I dress mine funny, and then point and laugh. ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/44 "2003-08-06T05:57:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > > I understand you have more experience (though I will probably go on to discuss this with friends of mine who work as specialized instructors for future IT folk, network administrators and the like, to see what they think of all this.) So surely, within your experience, you can find plenty of things that are annoying and perhaps even costly impediments to completing your work. What I’m wondering is if spam warrants the special hatred it seems to receive from so many. I so wanted to post the whole text but I am trying to save room here. Please seek information from your friends, it is a big deal in the IT industry. More an more tools are on the market to curb them (SPAM) but it’s still tine consuming and it does cost money. It’s never been a nice point in the IT arena, and more annoying as hell than it is a welcoming thing. There are many level types of SPAM…the ones that have HTML are an IT manager nightmare as many can have HTML and many can have viruses…viruses are the fucking worst. GODAMN VIRUSES…FUCK… So you think it’s not a big deal…yay for you. For IT managers from those that run a 5 system network to a 40 system network ( which I did more than a 40 system network) is a lot of damn work, let alone the whole email coming in. You have this one sided view of all that goes on and sadly you don’t have a clue. You would do yourself a favor to have a mod close this thread as there are many current and former IT people that will tell you that you are horribly wrong. SPAM creates and more often than not creates headaches. SPEM frequently includes viruses that can wipe out very important files. Learn from this thread and realize you are in the wrong…we current and former IT people know it all too well. SPAM is a fucked up part of society. Usually bringing out more money than a company wants to spend. Spend some time in it and you will realize what bullshit it can create. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/45 "2003-08-06T06:04:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > \*\*What pipe-dream office do you work in? Employees use email to read and forward glurge to their friends and family. Employees use the internet to screw around on company time. That’s what internet access is used for in the working world. \*\* It’s only a small part of what Internet access is used for in corporate America. Besides, such actions can be justified on the grounds that – in moderation – they can actually help employees be productive. In contrast, spam does not help them be productive, except perhaps in the most contrived of circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/46 "2003-08-06T06:19:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > The internet is like creating a 50-story library, and filling the entire library with pornographic magazines except for a small alcove on the top floor with a handful of adult non-fiction, a few copies of popular periodicals, and about 3 children’s books. So you’re saying that the content on the internet is 98% pornography? I just have to say, “cite please”. I think you’re vastly exaggerating. From Computerworld [Article 1](http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,83386,00.html) > [@](#): > > According to Ferris Research in San Francisco, spam cost U.S. corporations $8.9 billion in 2002, a figure that’s expected to rise to $10 billion by the end this year. [Article 2](http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,82021,00.html) > [@](#): > > Over the past year and a half, spam has become a major problem, accounting for nearly 50% of e-mail traffic. If an ISP needs to expand the number of servers, the amount of storage, the bandwidth, to provide acceptable internet service to a customer like me, who pays for it? I do. Am I indifferent to the fact that half of the e-mail traffic through my ISP is spam? No, that’s my money paying to forward it. Comparing spam to junk snail mail is an invalid analogy. Businesses pay a fee for junk snail mail, which is why sending a first-class letter to anywhere in the United States costs only 37 cents. On the other hand, people sending spam are doing it at my expense and I get nothing out of it. Saying that employees should not have access to the internet shows a total ignorance of the business world. I use the internet to contact customers via e-mail; to send software patches; to check the support fora for the database software I use; to visit technical fora; for many many business reasons. Do some people goof off on the internet? Sure, like some people make personal phone calls on the office phone. Should we get rid of office telephones? The uses of the internet far outweigh the amount of “goofing off” that happens. I have had the same e-mail address for more than 7 years now. The e-mail going to that address is about 90% spam. I am thinking of telling all my friends that I am going to have to abandon that e-mail address. But a lot of people know it, I sometimes get messages from people I haven’t seen in years to that old e-mail address, and I like the username I chose. I should have to abandon it because spammers have made it unusable for me? And I’m supposed to just ignore that? RexDart, I’ve read all your arguments and have found every single one of them lacking. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/47 "2003-08-06T06:33:31Z")
And I forgot the worst - now some spam is going out with my e-mail address forged in the “reply-to” portion of the e-mail, which means I am getting bounced messages saying “This message was undeliverable”, when the cause of the bounced message is a mass e-mail spam that wasn’t even sent out by me. Isn’t that just special? ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/48 "2003-08-06T06:36:13Z")
Man, RexDart, haven’t you been reading what people are saying? Someone posted that they spent 20 minutes a day deleting spam. If they get paid, let’s say, a modest $9 an hour, then the employer is spending $3 per employee deleting spam! That’s a completely unnecessary and wasteful expense. Some companies have to pay for their service by bandwith usage. If spammers are sending megabytes worth of spam to everyone, they are costing the company a noticeable amount of money. I have a yahoo account with 4 MB limit. Sometimes I get spam messages that are half a MB in size. If I am gone for a week or two, sometimes the account overflows past the grace limit, and I don’t receive the legitimate e-mails! That is a significant problem. Yes, I have given this email out to my bank and a couple of other places where I have legitimate transactions, but isn’t the point of an address so that you CAN conduct legitimate business? Finally, I also have a netscape client that can download messages direct and let me look at them through the program. However, I am on a dial-up connection. That means the 500k spam messages actually do increase my download times significantly! Yes, I can just download, leave, and come back, but sometimes I want to check my email messages in a hurry, such as when I am home for only a brief period of time. Spam fucks up my ability to do so. Spam is a vile by-product of electronic mail. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “evil”, as I would reserve that for people like John Wayne Gacy, but it is something on the level of pollution (i.e. an externality that costs society and individuals time and money and generally makes a lot of people’s lives a little bit worse) and should be criminalized and/or severely regulated. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mullets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@John\_Mullets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mullets)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/49 "2003-08-06T06:53:29Z")
Rex, you’re a funny bastard, you know that? Jesus, everyone stop responding! This guy’s just pulling your leg. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/50 "2003-08-06T07:15:25Z")
**RexDart** , you really need a few more years experience in an Internet-enabled office environment. Let me give you a hint if you plan on using e-mail professionally or plan to work at Internet-related companies: understand the spam problem as soon as you can, because it’s only getting worse and it will affect you and everyone else on the Internet increasingly unless something is done soon. Here are a few of the most alarming issues about spam: - the recipient (that’s us) pays for spam. Normally the costs incurred by an ISP in the handling of spam – bandwidth, storage, abuse staff etc. – are transferred to subscribers like you and me in the way of service fees. Were there no spam, ISP costs all over the world would be lower and the service better. - It’s unsolicited (coupled with the fact that the recipient pays for junk mail, this is completely unacceptable) - It’s a hassle. For a number of reasons, I get about 100 pieces of spam a day, and I have to pick out the legitimate business e-mails from the offers of penis pumps, farmyard girls, and Nigerian dictators’ money. - It causes enormous problems, including network disruption, traffic congestion, mail delivery delays or even loss, etc. (just one career spammer can easily send out more mail in one day than all the legitimate users of an ISP can send in one week). - It costs a bundle any way you look at it, both to enterprises as well as ISPs. Refer to the information already provided to you And those are just the most pressing problems. Your perception of what offices use the Internet for is so uninformed that it’s not even worth addressing. It’s quite clear you really don’t have a notion of what the spam problem is. I also note that you made this statement: > [@](#): > > I’d rather not have it, but I’d also rather not resort to some of the nasty tactics that the zealous anti-spam crew has been known to employ. That’s funny, the fact that you bring up the anti-spam crew and their “tactics” – what tactics are you referring to exactly, when you don’t seem to have the smallest glimmer of understanding regarding this problem? Comments like that coupled with your obtuse defence of spam and the mention you make a bit later on about spam subsidizing education suggest that you are a spammer, or you are thinking about becoming one, or you are thinking about hiring one. And no, it doesn’t require hugely technical knowledge unless you want to be one of the really evil slippery ones. You want to talk about tactics? Well, if spammer tactics aren’t deplorable enough for you, look at the bullshit coming from the Direct Marketing Association, which is possibly the world’s biggest obstacle to meaningful legislation against this digital menace: > [@](#): > > - From [C|Net: The DMA’s doublespeak on spam](http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5047695.html) \* > > Wientzen said during an appearance on CBS News last week that spam is only “e-mail that misrepresents an offer or misrepresents the originator–or in some way attempts to confuse or defraud people.” > > Let’s parse that sentence closely. The DMA claims that unwanted e-mail is spam if, and only if, it happens to be fraudulent or confusing. Because the DMA’s members are legitimate, established businesses, Weintzen tells us, their unsolicited e-mail entreaties to us shouldn’t be considered spam. > > That’s news to me. Sure, plenty of the unsolicited bulk e-mail that I get comes from loathsome bottom-feeders that claim a close personal relationship with a deposed Nigerian dictator or tout “herbal Viagra” of dubious provenance and utility. > > But my in-box also is cluttered with solicitations to buy products that seem, well, legitimate: reports on the stock market, used office equipment, discount clothing, cheap cellular phones, etc. Nonfraudulent in nature, those are the kinds of unsolicited bulk advertisements that the DMA believes its members should be allowed to send consumers. > > That’s precisely wrongheaded. Spam is not about content. It’s about consent. Because I’ve used the same e-mail address since 1995, I get a heck of a lot of spam–and I’ve never consented to receive any of it. > > In the argot of marketers, the DMA backs an “opt out” approach, meaning that marketers may spam you as much as they can until you specifically request to be deleted from their mailing list. An alternative approach is known as “opt in,” meaning marketers would be prohibited from sending you e-mail unless you granted them permission first. Read the whole article, it’s one of the best in recent times. Spammers don’t believe in opt-in marketing because that would cut into the huge sales today attributable to direct marketing efforts (because, given the chance, more people than not would prefer to receive no junk mail). Instead the DMA, in a fit of profit-driven idiocy, submit that opt-out is sufficient. That is nonsense. Aside from the fact that opt-out means you will still receive junk mail from whomever feels like sending it to you, I estimate that no more than 10% of spam comes with a viable opt-out mechanism – the rest of those links and addresses “to unsubscribe” simply let the asshole spammer know that your e-mail address is active. Nice argument for an opt-out system! See also [http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/0803spam0803.html](http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/0803spam0803.html) In addition to the existing problem, the ADMA, an Asian organization whose ties to DMA I have so far been unable to establish, has set up shop in Hong Kong. I have, generally speaking, zero faith in the ability of marketers to regulate themselves, and the ADMA seems to be more nonsense along the lines of DMA. You can have a look at their guidelines and recommendations: [http://www.asiadma.com/adma/resources/tipstools.asp](http://www.asiadma.com/adma/resources/tipstools.asp) Right now the guidelines are mostly info on banner / popup sizes and formats. However there is a small section about “eDM” (which I assume is email direct marketing) - that stipulates: 1. opt-out 2. link to privacy policy There does not seem to be any mandate for opt-in - which means that the approach is substantially similar to what the DMA has been screaming for the last two years. On the other hand, ADMA links to the HKISPA terms, which look like they do define “unsolicited bulk / commercial email” as spam - this is actually a correct definition, but not one that the DMA or any of its variants will support (not without a lot of arm-twisting, and how do you twist the arm of several of the world’s biggest brands?) I mention this because Asia is becoming the world’s region of choice for spammers, with marketers outsourcing their spam needs in this region. Generally speaking Asian ISPs in countries like India, mainland China, etc. are more interested in revenue than they are in the spam problem – which many ISPs still fail to understand and take seriously. If you really want to educate yourself on spam rather than bang your head against an unbreakable wall, you are welcome to read this [Salon.com](http://Salon.com) article, which is a good (and humorous) one: [A spam fighter’s work is never done](http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/27/spam_fighter/?x) You have no argument and no defence for spam – heck, you don’t even have an apology for it. Stop wasting your time, this is a serious problem any way you look at it (even **responsible** marketers are opposed to it, if not the irresponsible ones). ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/51 "2003-08-06T11:52:19Z")
Rex, in real dollars, spam costs me about $27.00 per day for the rather minimal time it takes to clear it off. You do the math, and then try to tell me that at the end of the year it doesn’t add up to a significant chunk of change out of my rice bowl. And yes, the internet is vital to my job. If you have a job that does not require the internet, and if your income does not suffer if you take a few minutes to clear spam, then of course spam would not be a significant problem for you. Not everyone is in your shoes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/52 "2003-08-06T11:53:36Z")
Oh, and Rex? FLICK! ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/53 "2003-08-06T12:10:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BraheSilver \* > > * * * > > Imagine that you’re in a movie theater. Imagine that someone comes behind you and flicks your ear. Is it a minor annoyance? Yes. Is it a huge pain in the ass? Not really. Is it a heinous evil infecting our society like a plague? Probably not… > [snip the logical progression] > …Imagine this fad spreading across the country - every theater has flickers waiting to get you, and even when you rent movies, the store sends a flicker down to your house to make sure you get your flicking. Is it a minor annoyance? Yes. Is it a huge pain in the ass? Yes. Is it a heinous evil infecting our society like a plague? Indeed. > \*\* This is so the best analogy re: spam that I’ve ever seen - absoultely outstanding. Given that Rex doesn’t really respond to this or any of the techs who have similarly laid it on the line I guess either a) he is just trying to get a reaction or b) he’s planning to utilise this approach. (email addresses to the wall, chaps!) J. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/54 "2003-08-06T12:32:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \*The internet is for adults. \*\* Bollocks. That’s like saying the world is for adults. Children have to live here too. Besides, you are off on a complete red-herring, we’re not talking about the internet here, we’re talking about spam. The internet is something out there that I either choose to go visit or don’t. But spam is something that comes barging uninvited into my house. We’re talking about **my mailbox** , that child’s mailbox and even your mailbox. I consider them all private property and if some insist on dumping their crap in it just on the off chance it might make them easy money, then I have a right to get really annoyed by it. Spammers are scum. There is no other conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![FairyDust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@FairyDust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyDust)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/55 "2003-08-06T15:03:23Z")
RexDart, I beg to differ when you say that the internet is for adults. [Here’s an article about kids and teens on the net](http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/feature/net.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/56 "2003-08-06T16:11:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > \*\* > I’ve seen spammers referred to as if they were the most heinous criminals of our age. (And yes, they actually use the term “criminal”.) I’ve seen ISPs compared to Mafia-style criminal syndicates just because they don’t intrude on their customer’s privacy and watch what everyone’s doing to root out these alleged evildoers. > > In short, what’s so friggin bad about spam? Is it mildly annoying? Sure. Is it a huge pain in the ass? Not really. Is it a heinous evil infecting our society like a plague? No. Fucking. Way. > \*\* Is this the same **RexDart** who is always bringing up writers and fans of slash fiction as if they were the most heinous criminals of our age? I am not particularly interested in slash, and have only ever read any as a favor to friends who were. And that’s just it – you don’t find it unless you go looking for it. I’m sure I could fire up Google and find plenty of the filthiest and most disturbing slash fanfic in the world in just a few seconds, but as I have no desire to do so I will forever be spared this experience. On the other hand, every day when I check my e-mail my junk mail folder is full of sickening porn spam. Sure, it only takes me a second to hit “empty folder”, but that’s long enough for me to see that there are people out there in the world who want me to see (and think I want to see!) “Titless teens fucking and sucking”, “Farm sluts taking huge horse dick”, “Horny blondes who want to cum with you”, or “Hot college ho’s”. Then there are the people concerned about the size of my (nonexistant) penis or my (quite big enough already, thank you) breasts. Is this the worst thing in the world? Is it the biggest problem in my life? No and no. But I have to put up with enough irritation in the day as it is, and I would be happy if I could read my e-mail without ever seeing that kind of garbage. And I am just an e-mail user. There are techie types out there actually have to work to fight spam lest they see their entire network crash under the strain. This is a huge problem at major universities, which could receive MILLIONS of spam e-mails PER DAY if they did not take strong steps to block it. When I get junk mail, or sales calls, then at least the business running the show is the one paying for postage or the phone bill. When I get spam, it’s either me or an innocent third party who is paying for the bandwidth and server space. The spammers are abusing these resources that they did not help pay for in order to make a profit. ---
**Author:** ![Petter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dbc845/32.png) [@Petter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petter)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/57 "2003-08-06T16:34:19Z")
**RexDart** , Does the timing of your question have anything to do with [SomethingAwful.com](http://SomethingAwful.com) being placed on the SPEWS blacklist? ---
**Author:** ![FairyDust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@FairyDust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyDust)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/58 "2003-08-06T16:39:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > \*\*Is this the same **RexDart** who is always bringing up writers and fans of slash fiction as if they were the most heinous criminals of our age? > > \*\* [Yes.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3569559#post3569559) ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/59 "2003-08-06T17:28:45Z")
Last month my small company (we do some web hosting including email hosting) had to spend time patching up tiny holes in our server setup, tracking our 10 IP addresses down on several blacklists and requesting them to be removed, and re-configuring our servers to require SMTP authentication for all accounts. Then we had to create a help page to cover 6 different email reading clients to explain how to set up SMTP authentication for our users, then spend several hours on the phone (incurring 800-number and cell phone costs) helping our less-sharp users make the switch. All in all it cost us about $1500 in time and actual resources just because some spammer used us as a relay. And not even a proper relay (we’re not an open relay) but some new weird scheme they’ve got going. This may be peanuts to a big company but for a new, small company like mine that can be 75% of a month’s salary for 3 people. This doesn’t even bring into account the $300/month we spend in bandwidth alone, plus server space for those who don’t clean out their mailboxes (even I don’t). All of our clients have Web sites and they all post their email addresses on the sites so they can do business (the reason they have a site in the first place) and they ALL get spam and tons of it. We can’t afford any anti-spam software. ---
**Author:** ![Venus\_Isle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/47e85d/32.png) [@Venus\_Isle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Venus_Isle)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255/60 "2003-08-06T17:34:36Z")
Spam Email is fucking obnoxious and intrusive, period. Just like the boneheads from long distance carriers who bug the living day light out of you 5 times daily, even hang up on you if you’re not the right family member answering the freaking phone. All because you dropped them and want to save a buck. IDIOTS!!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-horribly-evil-about-spam-email/193255.md?page=4)