May 16, 2002

10:19 PM

It takes all kinds: Marketing guy claims "I love spam."
posted by pmurray63 (19 comments total)

I should have made clear: he's not talking about sending it... he claims to love reading it. I'm not making this up.
posted by pmurray63 at 10:21 PM on May 16, 2002

best sentence ever: I think a few well-meaning but uninformed politicians and advocacy groups have decided what's good for us, and in their zeal, they are trying to establish a new and unwarranted benchmark for the marketing channel we call the Internet, and for one of its components: e-mail.

what a guy!
posted by palegirl at 10:31 PM on May 16, 2002

This just in: Exxon spokesperson John Meredith loves his Ford Excursion!
posted by mathowie at 10:33 PM on May 16, 2002

They tell me about things I'm interested in, such as services and products that might satisfy some of my needs. They provide information referrals, ideas and food for thought.

"U like YOUNG TITE SCHOOLGIRLS??? SHOCKING XXX!!!! fhe3354"

I can imagine his inbox filled with similar offers for services and products that might satisfy some of his needs.

And he likes them. We're dealing with an old perv here, folks.

Or maybe this is all an elaborate joke?
posted by evanizer at 10:36 PM on May 16, 2002

A soon as spammers pay for my internet access, they can have the right to use my bandwidth. Till then...
posted by rusty at 10:39 PM on May 16, 2002

I noticed he didn't include his own email address with that article.

It's too bad, I'm sure we could have all helped him out.
posted by mattpfeff at 11:13 PM on May 16, 2002

Yeah, of course he loves spam. He makes a huge amount of money from it. A thief loves theft. Duh.
posted by Poagao at 11:17 PM on May 16, 2002

about the writer

Barry Dennis is president of Netweb, an Internet and offline marketing and public relations agency.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:18 PM on May 16, 2002

Yeah, but even a thief won't claim to love being stolen from! No, this guy is extra-special full of shit. Here's his extra-crappy Web page. You could e-mail him at [e-mail] or call his voicemail at [phone] if you want to let him know how full of shit he is.
posted by nicwolff at 11:30 PM on May 16, 2002

I just visited http://www.netweb.com/ and it triggered my anti-virus system with an alert about the "Happy Time" worm. Maybe a hacker submitted the story from this idiot's email address...
posted by krisjohn at 11:30 PM on May 16, 2002

Ah, not the same Netweb... He's on AOL and has a GeoCities site? I wouldn't trust him to tell me the sky is blue.
posted by krisjohn at 11:32 PM on May 16, 2002

“Netweb.” indeed. And the photo? This has to be a joke.

I’m assuming — and could be really wrong — that this is them, in which case the malformed mailto: link proves...what? No other links on their page.
posted by sherman at 11:40 PM on May 16, 2002

That last link from sherman triggers my virus scanner. The page apparently has a "VBS/Haptime.gen@MM" virus.
posted by pracowity at 12:50 AM on May 17, 2002

i think the article is a way of harvesting email addresses. send him an angry letter and he'll add you to his database. :)
posted by dobbs at 1:36 AM on May 17, 2002

I don't know anybody that wants to limit his right to receive commercial mail.

Unlike telephones or postal mail, I pay the full cost to operate my mailbox. I should have the right to manage how that mailbox is used. Once I have control over my mailbox, I may choose to opt into spam. More likely I'll choose not to. But the choice ought to be mine.
posted by chipr at 1:45 AM on May 17, 2002

Good for you, Barry! If there's one thing America needs it's more spam. Can you imagine a world without spam? ** shudder **
posted by dlewis at 3:12 AM on May 17, 2002

Spam, first and foremost, is bandwidth and resource theft. Nothing short of it. The difference between direct mail marketing and e-mail marketing is that when using the post office, it becomes an exercise in targeting, because each individual piece costs someone cash to mail it out. On the other hand, SPAM can be sent nearly-free, and the recipient is really the one who pays for it.

As consumer broadband services start to go towards a metered usage of bandwidth, this will become even more prevelant. Right now, consumers just have to deal with downloading it, but once they start paying for it, then they are being fined to read someone else's marketing message that was not asked for.

And this doesn't even nearly take into consideration the massive amounts of storage space required on the servers to store all these messages which were never requested.

Finally, you have the noise factor. Perhaps a message might be useful unsolicited. (For example, let's say someone complains about their Internet Service Provider on a message board, and someone writes them an e-mail (note, should be written personally, not by a bot) telling them about what they think is a better internet provider. But trying to filter out the noise from the signal in your inbox is an absolutely rediculous endeavor now. If I increased my penis size 2-3 inches every time I received an e-mail saying it could increase my penis 2-3 inches, well, let's be frank, I'd be hanging to my ankles when I walk. Too much noise, no signal.
posted by benjh at 3:58 AM on May 17, 2002

benjh: You are quite correct. It's the theft question that needs to be addressed above everything else. Words such as "unsolicited" and "noise" just bounce off the ears of most marketers.

Here in Europe some people still pay for internet access by metered local rate phone calls. It's like a telephone marketing company cold calling you with reverse charges. Plus hijacking computing resources from schools in less wealthy nations is a questionable business practice at best.
posted by dlewis at 4:58 AM on May 17, 2002

Speaking of Spam! Join us this weekend in Austin for our annual Spamarama! Bringing the dignity back to potted pork.
posted by TuffAustin at 7:10 AM on May 17, 2002