To Spam or Not to Spam - The Dilemma of the Internet Marketer

A few years back, I had the opportunity to manage a telemarketing group selling long distance services and one of our
problems was generating enough leads for our telemarketing representatives. The company had about 600 representatives who should make outgoing calls and one can imagine the number of leads we needed to keep them calling and selling in a normal telemarketing six-hour day. At normal phase, a person can dial about fifty numbers per hour. With automatic dialing, this is increased fifty to sixty percent or about a hundred telephone numbers an hour. Multiplied by the number of people, we needed at least 60,000 numbers to call every hour or 360,000 in six hours. With these numbers, I can assume that you may have received one of the calls our representatives may have made. How we got those numbers ?-- that is the company's responsibility and whether solicited or not, I had no idea.

On another scenario, how often do you receive mailed offers from business opportunity brokers, credit card special offers and many other mail (others call them junk) from direct marketing companies? I receive them as regular as the sunset every evening. And by the way, how they got my name and traced my address-they have their means.

Now, we are in the high-tech era. We have grown to live with the unwanted direct mail and have considered them a regular content of the mailbox everyday. In fact, we already formed the habit going straight the trashcan and gave it a name-junk. Some business opportunity offers, I can already memorize because they keep sending the same one. On the other hand, the telemarketers have more difficult time connecting with prospects nowadays because the line is being used in the computers all the time. Nobody complains anymore.

As the technological breakthrough begun in the 1990s with the introduction of the Internet, direct marketing and MLM (otherwise known as multi-level marketing) discovered a much easier, faster and cost effective way of promoting their products and special offers. What used to be a market nearing saturation, suddenly opened up like the rays of early morning sunlight reaching out markets wherever that electronic signal reaches. Here, in the Internet, they can reach anyone who has an Internet connection as long as they have an email address. No stamps-just a few dollars for Internet connection and a phone line. The service is instantaneous - no waiting and fear of losing the mail in transit. A wrong address is returned in an instant.

In the same contention as we have complained and complained and complained and still complaining about unsolicited calls and filling up the recycling box with "junk" mail,-we now have a new "cancer" at hand and a new issue to complain about invasion of our sacred privacies. The mailing list industry immediately took advantage of the situation and email addresses became readily available at remarkably cheap prices.

Unsolicited e-mail otherwise defined by almost everyone as "Spam"

Unfortunately, I cannot provide a definition of the word because Mr. Daniel Webster did not have the opportunity to list
the word in one of his Webster's Dictionaries so we have to settle with the definition provided by the Internet Service Providers or the web hosting companies and agree with however they interpret or define the word. Anyway, the word will automatically assume its meaning as everyone understands it to be. But my contention is that, as long as there is sales and marketing going on around our world, no matter in what type of endeavor you choose to be in, unsolicited announcements or solicitation will always be there. How about complaining to your church minister or parish priest for sending you an unsolicited email for a church donation?

Now, I must confess that maybe I am different. I take time reading the "unsolicited" emails, and I purposely opened
a separate email account where I can receive all these type of email. And so far, I have been lucky that all the messages I receive comes from individuals who wants me to "Be a Millionaire." And tells me that I can only become one if I replied and ask for more information.

Of course, occasionally, a guy writes a sales letter better than I do and I make the mistake of replying. And lo, I get the deluge of follow-up letters sent automatically by an autoresponder-expertly timed in between a number of days until maybe he /she assumes that I will be pest and will sign up. For those who are not familiar with the word, the auto-responder is some kind of a robot that is programmed to "respond" automatically-that's why it is called that.

To avoid this autoresponder harassment-you can "kill it" by replying to remove your name by following the removal instructions which is always written somewhere in the message. That autoresponder is programmed to do that.

But I love the spammer!

Why? Of course, as an Internet businessman and I gain one email address every time. In fact, I set the "bait" as others before me may have already done. I reply to one or two of those sales letters and the flood of emails in the same category automatically rushes into my address.

Now, when it is my turn, I cannot be accused of spamming. I am just responding!

The Internet spammer is an individual or maybe a group of individuals, who are definitely new in the Internet, lacking
or short of friends, no connections, and somewhat urging to do something mischievous or possibly a "con artist" lurking around searching for a victim or a new "netpreneur" trying out his newly purchased email addresses from those database companies who made assurances that the email list is "Spam free". One basic characteristic of a "spammer" is his defensive positioning of himself which he conveniently writes either at the top or at the bottom of his message. Messages like, "you are receiving this because you subscribed, someone subscribed for and on your behalf," and several other reasons -- all for his defense.

In my opinion, if I was sure that I am sending this newsletter to real subscribers, I don't see the need to post that statement. I can use that space for more advertisements. However, as an Internet businessman, there is also a chance that I may have inadvertently included one or two email addresses which I copied somewhere else, so, I also placed this defense at the bottom of the page.

No matter what law is passed against these practices, the solicitor will always try to find a way to go around that.

And lately, I noticed a new disclaimer posted by the MLM marketers, chain letter senders, and other e-zine publishers. Here it is:

"This message is sent in compliance of the new e-mail bill: SECTION 301. Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S.
1618, http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/commercialemail/S771index.html

Further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this
e-mail address with the word 'REMOVE' in the subject line."

Being a spammer lover, I clicked on the URL above and this is what I got:

(A statement from Senator Frank Murkowski)

If you have been directed to this page, you have probably received spam from an Internet marketer. I was the author
of anti-spam legislation in the 105th Congress since I believe that spam is a burden upon citizens who use the Internet. Although my bill passed the Senate, the House of Representatives took a different view of the issue by merely recommending self-regulation. Ultimately no legislation was adopted into law. I will shortly be re-introducing similar anti-spam legislation in the 106th Congress.

If the spam you received contains illegal and/or offensive material, I encourage you to forward the spam to the
Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. The FTC is beginning to take legal action against these abusers of the Internet and is seeking examples of spam to initiate its investigations and prosecutions.

Spam is a burden that needs to end. I look forward to seeing the day that this occurs.

Thank you,

Senator Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senate

Someone may have advised them to use that notice to show the recipient some semblance of knowing the law. Do they really know what they are talking about in the first place?

But, as I said, these guys are only trying to earn a living.

As a note to our MLM and chain letter friends, I say, no matter how you want to argue with it, the ISPs and the web
hosting companies have the final say to decide whether you are spamming or not. Sometimes, when I have time to review their policies, it seems like they are not in the Internet business. But if you want to stay in the Internet, I recommend that you keep in line