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When Spam Attacks

Oh my, I finally get it.  I finally know what it feels like to be a consumer inundated with spam.

I understand the sense of hopelessness,  frustration and anger that builds and builds until you are just completely overcome with misdirected rage.

Now, I’m not new to spam.  Like most online professionals I tolerate, even welcome the steady stream of spam that reaches my  mailbox as I’m able to see what the latest trends are in online marketing (spammers are sooo innovative), who’s being a bad boy and new and interesting dubious practices.  It’s actually quite fun!

Spammers are innovative so it pays to keep tabs on what they’re doing.  It also helps us to protect our clients if we can trap the spammers proactively.

However, this past month I’ve learned what it’s like to be a powerless consumer.

It won’t stop!  I’m inundated by German spam.  Not even the kind with pretty pictures or offers for Viagra or mortgages with smiling happy families on them – just plain German text from hundreds of different IP’s and email addresses.

Aaaargh!  If only I could read German!  Heinz, Petor, Klaus, Margerite and the 150 other German emailers are desperately trying to tell  or sell me something of value.  I, however, just can’t read their emails!

Of course I tried to unsubscribe, even blocked the first 100 IP’s but they just won’t stop!  They’re relentless and for some reason they believe that if they send me a 1000 German language mails a day I’ll somehow develop the linguistic prowess to finally opt into something they want.

Yep, I now know what it means to be a powerless consumer.

I know that somewhere in the future my tech’s will find and trap the source and hopefully my mailbox will go back down to it’s usual 300 mails a day – but until then if I don’t answer you it’s because I’m learning German.

Auf Wiedersehen

Jon

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