Originally published November 3 2003
The economic basis for spam reveals a new solution
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
As this Canada.com article rightly points out, you can throw a lot of promising solutions at the spam problem, and yet the spam keeps on coming. The popular approaches have so far been legislative ones (outlawing spam) and technical ones (altering the Internet infrastructure to require trusted email senders).
But there's another alternative: supply-side anti-spam efforts. Not to be confused with Reagan's supply-side economics, supply-side anti-spam efforts focus on eradicating the profits that spammers presently enjoy. Take the money out of spamming and spammers will find a new line of work. Maybe they'll even take up permission email marketing.
I outline this view in an anti-spam public education effort I've launched called Spam. Don't Buy It. This effort simply aims to educate Internet users on their role in stopping spam. Because, as strange as it seems, many of the same users who complain about spam are, themselves, secretly purchasing products from spammers.
In fact, the continued deluge of spam proves it. Spammers are business people, in a twisted sense, and they only stay in business because it pays to do so.
We can make spam unprofitable in many ways, of course. Encouraging end users to avoid buying from spam is just one way. Another way is to pass new laws that somehow manage to capture and fine spammers. With a large enough fine, the economics of spamming shift dramatically.
Of course, legislative approaches assume that spammers can be identified in the first place, and most people familiar with spam will agree with me when I say that spammers are virtually impossible to locate, identify and prosecute.
That leaves the technical approach. It's a great idea, but it's getting absolutely no traction in the real world. Is it realistic to expect network administrators to all simultaneously switch their mail servers, all across the Internet, to something that's more secure? And what would that security look like, anyway? Dear God, please don't let Network Solutions be chosen to accredit "trusted" email senders.
If you look at what we can do right now, the answer is simple: a grassroots, supply-side approach that cuts off the cashflow to spammers. That's why I stand by the Spam. Don't Buy It. effort.
We have treated the spam e-mail problem the way we do most challenges
of modern life: We have thrown money, technology and consultants at it.
Thousands have flocked to the spamming game because the operating
costs are almost nil once computers are set up.
A spammer need only get purchases from a gullible few to turn a small
profit.
And in a shaky economy, it is easy to get those few, as many people
become vulnerable to the appeal of get-rich-quick spams, such as the
classic "work from home" come-ons, or money-savers such as home
refinancing.
Another way spammers profit in a down economy is by tricking small
businesses into paying for an "electronic marketing campaign" that turns
out to be nothing more sophisticated than a massive spam dump.
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