The Intersection of Online and Offline

Thanks to Esther Schindler (via Twitter), I read a fascinating article in CIO.com that presented a rare look into the business of spam. The article details the case against Adam Sweaney, a man who it is alleged made more than $1 million spamming. Among the picture it paints includes the fact that:

“Sweaney said he earned about US$2,500 a month for a couple of years selling botnets that could be used for a variety of activities including sending spam e-mails. He didn’t even write them himself, but he traded or bought them in online forums, he said.”

The article is a worthy and fascinating read, but I am a guy — and am physiologically incapable of reading about a problem without offering a solution. It’s been bumping around in my head for some time, and this article triggered my brain to write it. Thanks, Esther.

The e-marketer newsletter, quoting SpamHaus, makes the point for me:

“Spam will continue to be a problem for as long as some businesses see some value in it. According to recent news reports, a well-organized spammer can send between 60 and 70 million e-mails a day (two billion a month). On average, there is a positive response to 0.05% of those e-mails, potentially delivering 36,000 e-mail leads per day to the companies that use spam.”

The is no precise figure that I can come up with, but an incredibly dated report from the University of Maryland put the annual cost to businesses at about $22 billion. That’s serious.

The CAN SPAM Act was a joke because, as the CIO article notes, most of the “serious” spammers are impossible to detect and many operate offshore. So the time that we spent writing and passing the bill in Congress a) did nothing to reduce the quantity of spam emails that I receive (about 1,500 per week) and b) we have really only caught one “big fish,” Robert Alan Soloway.

To me, the only way to make spam go away is to spend money on educating the public not to click on messages that they don’t recognize. It’s pretty simple: remove the incentive for the spammers and their customers, the business dries up and these scumbags go away.

I’m pretty convinced that government is incapable of handling the problem and spammers are clever enough to stay one step ahead of the spam filters, but if spam is costing businesses and ISPs BILLIONS of dollars, why not come up with a three-year, public awareness campaign to educate computer users about what spam is, how it is more than just an annoyance and much, like your annoying sibling, if you ignore it, it will just go away. If you throw in some scare tactics like viruses and malware, people will listen up.

The irony is that email as a tool to reach and educate computer users is out of the question, but think how many people responded to the “Do Not Call” list when it came out. People were ticked off and found a way out (I know, I know, it was government), but I think that a good mix of earned and paid media (print, TV, op-eds, summits, blogs, coalitions, over a sustained period of time, could remove the demand, evaporate the customers and dry up the money.

C’mon ISPs. C’mon large, private employers who are spending money fighting this. Put just a couple of billion into a campaign to make consumers smart and save a lot over the long run.

Mark

P.S. - You’ll note that on the “contact” page of this blog, I have a s-p-e-l-l-e-d out version of a Gmail address. My primary ISP is Verizon, but I filter all of my email addressed through Gmail. Verizon caved like cowering sheep to a class action lawsuit because they were filtering “legitimate” email, probably from Nigerian royalty.

Had a lot of fun writing an article for Media Bullseye last night, which was published today. I think that I had even more fun with the title: “Tubes, Rubes and Boobs.”

• The tubes - what Senator Ted Stevens thinks the Internet is made up of;
• The rubes - just about every legislator on Capitol Hill who professes Internet skillz; and
• The boobs - what Representative Michael Capuano is attempting to protect us from, using franking rules.

When I took some time to research just how stupid the entire debate was over Representative John Culberson’s tweets, I had to take my shots (in writing and in liquid form).

Happy reading.

Mark

The debate about the use of social media on Capitol Hill continues to rage, and in a fashion befitting a Washington, politically-fueled debate in an election year. I thought that it had reached its peak when Ted Stevens called the Internet “a series of tubes,” but I was wrong.

The New York Times chimed in yesterday with a piece “In House, Tweets Fly Over Web Plan.” This cannot be good. And it’s not, boys and girls. Here are some select quotes:

“I just learned the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen’s ability to use Twitter Qik YouTube Utterz etc — outrageous and I will fight them,” Representative John Culberson, Republican of Texas, wrote last Tuesday on his personal page on the online text-messaging site Twitter, where he posts a daily, rapid-fire log of his thoughts. Messages on Twitter are called tweets.”

“Before I could post a Tweet I would have to get approval of the twits that run the House!” And an hour later: “The Dems will do this unless the Internet community stops them.”

Uh oh.

“Leadership has told me personally that they will next focus on limiting our access to text, blogs, and other social media outlets on the Internet,” Mr. Culberson said in an interview.

Oh geez.

On Thursday, all the e-chatter drew a stern response from the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, who, in a letter to Mr. Boehner, rebuffed what she called “inaccurate rumors” that the Democrats were trying to muzzle members of Congress.

Noting her own technological bona fides (“I have a blog, use YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Digg, and other new media to communicate with constituents”), Ms. Pelosi said that the Democrats’ proposal would relax rules that prohibit members from posting on sites other than the House.gov domain.

The article is an interesting read, but let’s not forget that this is the legislative body that regulates our use of the Internet, among other issues, things like the so-called “Net Neutrality.” The fact that Nancy Pelosi and John Culberson are competing about the social media street creds frightens the hell out of me.

Mark

Well, what goes around comes around and David Wescott has tagged me back, squarely in the cojones, with, of all things seven songs that are influencing me the most???

What the hell kind of question is this? Should I answer “Blowin’ in the Wind” as a war protest song? But I digress, because I tagged David first, so payback is payback, and here goes.

1. Hotel California - it’s summer and there is no better summer song
2. Cheeseburger in Paradise - another good summer song, and I long to be a Parrot Head, following Jimmy Buffet around the globe, drunk.
3. De niña a mujer - an old Julio Iglesias song about a father watching his daughter grow up. I’m taking mine to New York this weekend, so this one is in my mind.
4. I’m an Asshole - a Denis Leary classic and I basically am an asshole
5. Tessie by the Drop Kick Murphys - Red Sox are 1.5 games out of first
6. Mercy, by Duffy, just ’cause I think she’s hot, and
7. Time of Your Life by Greenday, because every day in summer should be like this song.

Ok, David, now I have to go take a shower. As a “serious” blogger, I feel dirty.

Mark

P.S. - But not so dirty not to tag back:

Jen Zingsheim

Sarah Wurrey

It appears that free speech, a basic tenet of our form of government, has fallen on hard times when it comes to Congress.

Twitter is blocked on Capitol Hill.

Forget the fact that FEMA uses it, forget the fact that NASA uses it, forget the fact that it could be an instant and excellent way to Members to communicate with constituents, or at least draw them into the debate, the Powers That Be on the Hill have blocked Twitter.

But there is hope, my friends. Have a visit to “Let Our Congress Tweet” and read all about the grassroots movement. Interesting. And while you are at at, have a visit to another site. Stop Blocking, Shel Holtz’s venture that makes the case for private corporatations to wise up and stop blocking types of Internet access for their employees.

Mark