My confession is that I used to be one of those lucky people who literally received no spam – at least not the traditional sense.  Due to an increasing amount of emails flowing across servers at some point I got caught out.  I obviously was put on a dreaded white-list on a spam server.  Now I receive emails – probably in excess of 8 a day – prompting me to buy VIAGRA, CIALIS and look at all manner of depravities.

It is horrible.  It also feels more of a personal attack that physical junk mail.  Aside from the psychological impact, spam at its’ worst is meaningless drivel peddled out one person in the literally thousands who clicks on the bad link.

Most spam, therefore, is in fact a scam.  The definition I’m using here, for all you markets out there, is not your advertising emails by the way.  No, I’m talking about the spam with the unspeakable subject matter or those trying to sell drugs or worse.

Returning to the ‘bad link’ – Google research has shown that more than 1 in 10 pages are guilty of having spyware/malware housed on their servers.  Therefore, spam is a symptom of a greater problem, rather than the cause.

The nature of the net is that of a carrier, whilst the web is the ’space’ where this communication takes place.  It is a natural playground with assets, liabilities, flashpoints and flaws.  It is so easy for me to forget on a personal level that it wasn’t too long ago when I had dialup and a 486.  Oh, and Netscape Navigator to boot.  Remember that?

Now, the net has changed.  Spam is a torrid part of one of the most used communication methods in the world today.  It is also comparatively senior compared to things like Twitter, myspace, blogging and instant messaging.  Spam is synonymous with this older (by electronic standards) communication form and in time it will become an anachronism.  Until that time, filters work ever-harder and email servers get stressed.

On a slightly less prophetic note and to round off this exploration of spam, I have brought together some exceptionally strange quotes I have received in the form of classic spam one-liners.  Spam has gotten round the net not just in the form of frustration, but humour too.  We’re good at that, seeing the light in a bad situation.  So, let’s take a look at some of my personal favourites:

• The pirate from ceiling cactus
• The amazing healing lozenge
• Add considerable spice to your aliveness
• You need panther time
• Penis enlargement good gift
• Cialis and your dog
• Your wife needs a bigger penis

So, there you go.  Spam will continue until email technology changes – but in the meantime I’d better go fend off the comment spam from my own blog.  Enjoy!

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