If your fax was running constantly, spitting out hundreds of Junk faxes a day, you would be really upset. Your mistake is that you think junk mail is not costing you.
The free junk mail they send out costs innocent people billions and billions of dollars in lost time and direct cost.
If something is not done, the net will soon be as unusable as are two of my email address. You should care. You should care.
I don't particularly like my mailbox full of junk e-mail, I have to work hard to make sure I don't accidentally delete legitimate mail, but I can delete the e-mails I don't want, just the way I can throw out the junk regular mail and screen my calls to avoid telemarketers.
The only ones I really am upset over are the junk faxers, who use my paper to fax me stuff I don't want and tie up my machine, when a legitimate fax maybe trying to get through."
I agree entirely with your view. I don't want to receive smut or porno or dozens of duplicate offers for the same thing. At the same time, I appreciate ingenious sales presentations and high quality, unique offers.
So I scan and evaluate. After a few days (using reading glasses) the real “spam” takes no more than a second to recognize.
On the other hand, I have received “advertising” email and have purchased and been satisfied with a number of purchases.
The real problem is the many, many poor suckers who have bought into (as in paid money) these scams that make them think that if they “invest” a few dollars, millions of men and/or women will want to have certain of their body parts enlarged, etc. etc. etc.
That may be okay with you, but when I received an email which asked how my mom was doing [she had just gotten word that her cancer numbers had dropped by HALF after beginning to use PolyMVA---http://www.polyMVAsurvivors.com and http://www.polyMVA.com]---I opened it, thinking it was a legitimate email. I also had some hacker hack into my computer when I "permitted" something which said my OWN IP address was trying to access something---the hacker had FAKED MY address!!!
EVER SINCE, I have had MAJOR computer problems, including not being able to turn on my OWN Norton Internet Security Pro software!!! EVEN NOW, I still have problems with being able to KEEP the Norton Internet Security Pro turned on with ME being the Administrator instead of the hacker!
I have WASTED WEEKS of time trying to KEEP control of my OWN software---all because somebody used a FALSE subject to DECEIVE me into opening their email and somebody else FALSELY made it look like my OWN computer's IP address was legitimately trying to do something.
I'd like to strip the skin off of their Viagra parts and then HANG those SOBs by what's left of their parts!!! I am SICK AND TIRED OF HACKERS and PORNO-PUSHERS!!!!!!!!!
Actually, the difference is vast. With regular junkmail that you receive via snail mail, the cost is entirely that of the sender. With spam, the cost is shifted to the recipient. You pay for your account for personal or business use, not to have it inundated with countless offers to...well, you name it.
As it stands, the latest estimates indicate that at least $4 of your monthly ISP bill alone goes toward combatting and cleaning up spam. Why should you have to pay to get rid of something you never asked for in the first place?
As for the run-of-the-mill arguments that being anti-spam is being anti-freedom of speech, that's just bunk. Free speech doesn't come postage due.
-Jay