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Inbox / Charles Bermant
Let's try starving the spam monster

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I get mail. Like this note from one reader, who suggested that e-mail software should contain an instant return button that sends spam back to the sender. By flooding the culprits' mailbox with unwelcome messages, they will see the error of their ways and stop sending junk.

This won't work. In the first place, the only thing sending a return message to a spammer will do is to confirm your identity. This will get you more spam, guaranteed. And because spammers know how this game is played (heck, they invented it), they aren't going to allow their victims to dose them with their own medicine.

But my correspondent had what seemed to be a good, common sense idea. He even pointed out how a similar strategy works with analog junk mailers; if you send them antagonistic notes using their own postage-paid envelope then you'll get off their lists pretty quick.

So even as everyone who is anyone now has at least one e-mail address, we are not all on the same place in the learning curve.

There are communications rivers that each of us must cross. Don't use all capitals. Think before you send. Don't hit "reply all" instead of "reply." Don't answer spam. Everyone goes through these rites of passage at least once.

Trouble is, the newbies are ruining things for everybody. As less informed people log on for the first time they do things like answer spam or (even worse) actually buy something from these clowns.

This happens enough times, and you end up feeding the monster. And with a one-in-a-million required response rate, it doesn't take much to keep it going.

Like any preventive, you need to attack the root of the problem. People coming online for the first time should be required to read and understand a statement advising them as to proper behavior with regard to spam. There would be 10 guidelines, which if everyone followed would starve the spam monster.

In personal computing's early days it seemed that software developers were making their products intentionally obtuse in order to keep the crowds away. Now that the computing experience is all inclusive, we can't expect everyone to be as smart as we are.

So we need to take the time to explain to all newcomers about the rules of spam. As far as importance and overall effects on the world at large, it could be as important as that little talk about the birds and the bees.
 
If you have questions or suggestions for Charles Bermant, you can contact him by e-mail at cbermant@seattletimes.com. Type Inbox in the subject field. More columns at seattletimes.com/columnists.

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