Cali is a circus.
What started as a simple reply turned into a rant, beware:
I have a hard time taking California politics serious anymore. When candidates running for governor are best known for phrases such as "I'll be back" and "What you talkin 'bout, Willis?" I tend to loose respect.
I haven't been involved in online marketing very long, but I have never sent an unsolicited email to anyone. I also despise the crap that shows up in my inbox every day. That said, I can't believe that anyone is so liberal and lazy that they would call for legislation regarding spam. I realize that some so-called conservatives have jumped on the "ban spam" bandwagon, but because it involves new legislation and a larger government, I see it as the evil doings of Democrats.
I watch TV and have to sit through the crappy commercials. The channel is free, so I put up with it. Likewise, a lot of the services and information we enjoy on the internet is free, so I expect to have to deal with spam from time to time (yes, I realize that internet service and web hosting costs me, but so does the television and cable I use). "But my kids get porn in their inbox", well first of all, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they signed up to get some of it, and their email address just got passed around to the other porn peddlers from there; second, the "1-900-Wet n Wild" commercials get started on TV around 11:00pm or so. When my son stays up late he can potentially be exposed to that stuff, and so can yours.
I get crap in my snailmail box every day, why isn't there a law against that? It seems that the tree huggers would jump on that because I, for one, just chunk that in the trash along with my batteries and used motor oil. When I delete my daily 30 spam messages, I have squandered what, a few BTU's that Sally Struthers would have preferred I send to little Ethiopian kids.
It kills me to see ISPs advertise that their service comes with "spam filters", such software is available to everyone for free. It will often work as good if not better than the junk that is bundled with the ISPs software. People would be crazy not to use virus protection these days, I think people who don't use spam filters are equally crazy. But the absolute gold medal winners for lunacy are the fruit cakes that like the idea of paying higher taxes in order to have the government filter their inbox for them.
I know there is the wider issue of spammers altering the email headers so it looks like it came from someone other than the spammer, thus potentially damaging their reputation. I get email "bounce backs" in my inbox all the time, apparently someone with my email address in their address book has a virus or someone is using my domain to send spam. This sucks, it sucks really bad, but I see it as my responsibility to track down the culprit and use my protection under existing laws to get them to stop.
No matter what side of this opinion you are on, if you step back and look, you have to laugh, either at the zealots like me, or the government-lovers; it's funny. But realize that while California and our national congress debate and work on this issue, our economy remains stagnant, homelessness and poverty abound, physical and sexual assaults happen every few seconds in this country. Are we really so well off that we can afford to spend time, money, and resources on the elimination of the crap in my inbox that I have already taken care of?
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