[BC] Ellis email

[Sid Schweiger]

Larry Fuss inquires:  "Why do people get so out of shape about getting spam?"

Because it's a nuisance and a huge expense and it's caused by the Internet's bottom-feeders.  It robs workers of their productivity because it has to be dealt with, even if only to delete it, and that takes time.  It has forced virtually every company that uses e-mail to spend in the aggregate untold billions of dollars to keep as much of it as possible out of its e-mail systems.  It constitutes between 85 and 95% (depending on whose estimates you believe) of all e-mail traffic, and if it vanished tomorrow there would be so much headroom that 'net traffic would flow many times faster than it does.  The bottom-feeders who engage in it constantly find new ways around spam filters to push their garbage into our inboxes.  And it's all in pursuit of money.

The person who finally discovers how to destroy spammers' profits will earn the everlasting gratitude of netizens everywhere.

Sid Schweiger
IT Manager, Entercom New England
20 Guest St / 3d Floor
Brighton MA  02135-2040