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| Robert Lopez is a senior journalism major and writes 'What's the Deal with Airline Peanuts?' for the Daily News.
His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. |
My poor mailbox is busting at the seams with e-mails telling me how to make a fortune in real estate and how to improve my credit rating. I must be an attractive guy, judging by the e-mails I get from single women I've never heard of, telling me they want to connect. At least for a few minutes every morning when I check my inbox, I'm a stud.
I long ago stopped opening unsolicited mail, let alone responding to it. I guess I shouldn't have given out my real e-mail address on that long-forgotten Chicago Cubs mailing list or written it down on that application for video-rental membership when I was a freshman.
Spam is one big self-perpetuating pyramid. I even get junk mail telling me how to rid myself of junk mail. The spammers keep attacking with the ferocity of a $15 million inventory blowout, so I assume they're expecting to make some sort of dent.
I don't know a single person who's ever thought about claiming that $50,000 grand prize or taking that $150-an-hour job. I can't imagine there's too much profit in bulk e-mail, since I don't know anyone who's ever sent $19.95 for hot stock tips either.
Even Monty Python would be overwhelmed by today's spam problem. According to an article last year in the Montreal Gazette, an estimated one-third of the 7 billion e-mails sent daily are spam. Anyone with $50 can buy a spam list with more than a million e-mail addresses.
What that means conceivably is that for about $15,000 and a monthly provider fee, you can reach an audience roughly the size of the population of the United States. Compare that with ad rates for the finale of "Joe Millionaire" last week, which climbed upwards of $500,000 for a 30-second spot. Fewer than 30 million people watched it.
Spam has a history almost as long as that of the Internet. According to a recent New York Times Magazine story, the first known piece of spam was sent in 1978 by a Digital Equipment Corporation salesperson who hand-typed several hundred addresses to pitch a product presentation. Still in its infancy, the Net was considered to be primarily an educational and scientific tool, and its small group of users disparaged the idea that someone would so shamelessly try to profit.
But spam wasn't a big problem until the early 1990s, when the Web began taking its modern form. One of the first great scams, according to the NYT Magazine piece, involved an alleged Nigerian political exile who needed help transferring $21.5 million in cash out of the country. In exchange for your bank account information, he'd reportedly give you half the cut.
Most spam is much more innocent but equally as annoying. Lately spammers have gotten more clever in order to compete with anti-spam software as well as just plain common sense. Any experienced e-mail user knows better than to open a message that has more than three exclamation marks in the subject line or a couple of dollar signs in the sender's name.
Now they're starting to look somewhat real, though. Recently I've gotten e-mail from users named Nikki (my best friend's middle name), Chris M. (a co-worker of mine) and Riley (one of my professors). They often contain only a first or last name, but the familiarity piques my curiosity nevertheless.
The trash is the most common resting place for these e-mails. My delete box is a graveyard of hucksters insisting I need to consolidate my debt now or lose weight fast. There are even a few messages telling me this is not spam. Maybe I really am a millionaire but don't know it since I threw the confirmation out with the rest of the junk.
If you want to sell me print cartridges, psychic counseling, digital cameras, exotic vacations, online Ph.D.s or any wonder drug guaranteeing to enlarge certain parts of my anatomy, then stay away from my inbox. If you want to comment on my writing, feel free to drop me a line.
Write to Robert at rclopez@bsu.edu
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