SPAM, Delete This Now!

Yesterday, I visited an email account that I never use any more. The only reason I keep it active at all, is that it is our MASTER ACCOUNT on our MSN service. Both Cami and I have our own accounts that we use daily, but since those accounts are, apparently, SLAVES to the MASTER account, IT must be maintained, at least until we get the initiative to dump MSN. (We joined several years ago when they gave us $400 of in-store credit at Best Buy to pay the same amount we were paying with AOL. I don't HATE MSN, really, but I don't like it much either.)

Anyway, the point of this is pretty simple, really. I hadn't checked the in-box for that account in 4 months. There were 870+ emails in the inbox. That doesn't include the "obvious spam" that MSN filters out, the word-sensitve filters I've established (including the word, "enlarged"), and the "probable spam" that was sent to the junk mail box (which is dumped every 7 days, but still had over 150 additional emails). Of the 870+ emails that MADE IT into my inbox, there were less than 12 that were from people who didn't know any better than to send mail to an address I've told them (approximately 44 times) not to send to, and/or from mailing lists that I had actually opted in to at some point. Do the math...that's less than 2% of the mail delivered is "wanted".

And all of this from an account that I haven't used in over a year (closer to two), that isn't "out there" on news groups or chat rooms or anything of the kind. Email may be a great communication tool, but the situation with needing filters and de-spam-inators (staring Ahnold) and STILL getting tons of junk pushed at you ALL the time...perhaps this is an arguement FOR the idea pushed in several (similar) hoax emails: charging per email. Why on earth would I even consider it? Because, frankly, email is too cheap. These companies basically pay nothing to send out this email. If it cost them something, maybe they'd think twice about sending me the same email, everyday, for over a month. I get a lot of junk mail in my snail mail, but the cost of mailing to so many people keeps it reasonable.