July 21, 2003
The spam crusader
It's a bird! No, a plane! It's... It's... ...bicycle repair man! No, not really. It's one man against the spam industry. I hope he succeeds.
In the United States and Europe, spam accounts for between 40% and 70% of all email traffic, depending on whom you ask. In January, America Online said it was blocking 1 billion emails a day from members' accounts; by May, that number had doubled. The most fervent antispam activists now predict that the world's email system will seize up within six months. Some organizations just won't have the server capacity to handle the onslaught, and our inboxes will be so packed as to be useless. Even more circumspect forecasters agree that small ISP and businesses may soon be overwhelmed.
Enter Andy Sernovitz:
He has cofounded the Inbox Defense Task Force, which will, he fully expects, throttle spam at the source. He believes that Internet marketers will pony up for an organization that, through investigative digging, harassment, and public education, helps force fraudulent bulk emailers out of business. Rather than trying to block spam after it has been sent, Sernovitz would make it unattractive to send spam in the first place. It is a simple idea, a powerful idea, and -- as of this April morning -- an unpopular idea that has gone mostly nowhere. The Inbox Defense Task Force consists of Sernovitz, former William Morris talent agent Jonathan Trumper, and a newly hired executive director, Joan Campbell, a veteran trade-association manager. The task force operates out of space lent by the company that bought Sernovitz's consulting firm. All told, the task force has collected just two checks from corporate members.
Fast Company | The Dirty Little Secret About Spam
Posted by manne at July 21, 2003 04:19 PM | TrackBack