Spam!

[enismirdal]

The initial overwhelmingly effective effect of the anti-spam laws seems to be wearing off - once more, I am being offered penis enlargements, porny pictures and diplomas. But as it's mail and fills my inbox, it makes my life more interesting - so I'm not objecting.

Comments

[i-eat-bibles.livejournal.com]

Can I be really nieve and ask what are the anti-spam laws?
Im one of those people stuck in the dark ages and think spam is a type of meat and I seriously doubt there is a law against meat however much the vegitarians would like there to be.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Spam, of course being unsolicited e-mail, often relating to overpriced Viagra and/or penis enlargements, and especially common if you're the kind of person who signs up to a lot of mailing lists/frequents newsgroups/registers on a lot of sites.

The anti-spam laws basically say you can't send e-mail to people without their permission. "Permission" is naturally a somewhat vague term - I assume e-mailing someone on, say, a list of beta-readers who you've never contacted before is OK, but e-mailing some random person trying to promote a site/sell something is not.

AFAIK the laws came into effect around Christmas - I know the amount of rubbish arriving in my Hotmail dropped dramatically at about that point, and anandsdiary appealed to us for more spam subject lines cos he was running out. (Yup, I'm name-dropping; sue me :) !)

megamole suggested that the current influx of rubbish might be connected with the fact that the net is currently buzzing with 2 e-mail worms which have acutally waged war on one another (hands up all who haven't received a copy of Bagle, Netsky or both?), although I must say, the virus and just regular spam e-mails I've been getting have had different formats.

Jeez, that's a long reply. Oh well. It's better than writing essays on plant pathogens :)