The cynic in me wonders why we are surprised at yesterday’s report, covered here in New York Times, that 94% of all email passed through the Internet is spam. After all, aren’t we all confronted with inboxes bloated with email that’s clearly unwanted? Here’s a snap shot of my junk folder in an email account that I use exclusively for “trapping” and analyzing spam:
You’ll notice that I have managed to train the folder to exclude most pernicious types (porn, ED pills, etc.) of emails, but there’s still a glut of permission based marketing emails in there. This means that somehow, somewhere along the way, I have granted that advertiser (or one of their affiliates) permission to contact me — probably without my really knowing it.
Here at Rep Def I work with our MyPrivacy team on the best way to unravel these permissions and make sure that the user has *true power* to control the way he or she is contacted. I’ll try to come back here today to post some of the best tips for proactively limiting these types of emails.
We’ve already made huge strides on the problem of telephone privacy, and more recently started to address unwanted direct mail. I’ll bet on our crew to figure out email, too.
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