The Dangers of Spam-a-Lot
Every day I'm reminded that what cost of sending email is (virtually zero). As a product reviewer, I get lots of e-mail from vendors. Some of it is from software suppliers who I've had products from in the past and am now one of their registered users. Some is from vendors who would like me to review their product. Some of this is spam.
Recently I got a press release from "Emily." I'm already suspicious when e-mail comes from a so-called friendly name rather than a full name. A glance at the subject line showed that this was a general mailing and business related. Now I'm doubly suspicious because not only should e-mail come from people with a full name, general mailings should come from an identifiable company.
The product turned out to be completely unrelated to our magazine and the products we review (it was a phone switching exchange for IP communications). The company, rather than managing its press release, just sent a blanket e-mail to anyone who might review anything anywhere, confident that I'd feel that having their... stuff... clogging my in box is a value-added activity. It's the functional equivalent of spammers who simultaneously sending me spam for Viagra and breast enhancements. This is just poor mailing list management, folks.
Posted by Peter Vogel on 08/25/2010