Where do these emails come from?
Who?s selling your email to spammers; and for how much?
Let?s face it: Spam is out of control. Every day we open our outlook or gmail boxes and practically drown in mortgage offers and penis enlargement pills. But where does it come from?
Sure, one can expect all those ?free ipod? type sites to sell your email, but you?re a smart one. You?re careful about the sites you give your email to and you don?t list it on forums right? But still every once in a while a golden palace casino ad slips in. (I couldn?t help myself there!)
Well, I?ve done some researching and what I?ve found may surprise you. It?s time you start thinking a 3rd time before you give out your email. It?s true that high schools have been selling your name and address to the military since before World War 2, but would you expect an online job site to do it? Groovejob.com is offering a list of 169,000 job seekers between ages 16 and 24 for only $85. What a deal!
Ever look for a job on CollegeRecruiter.com or Jobanimal.com? They?re selling over 1.1 million email addresses AND telephone numbers of job seekers for only $115.
Hoping to win a million in the publisher?s clearing house sweepstakes? They?re sure cashing in. Everything they know about you and 2.5 million other people is being sold for only $100.
Are you one of the 210,423 people who use 123Jump.com for stock quotes? They?re using your email address to make a quick $150.
Even the national association of secondary school principals is selling their email list. It?s going for $125; which is quite affordable for the average principal who makes $64, 453 yearly. Did I mention they?re selling your financial information too?
Are you an IT professional? Get your Microsoft certifications at CertCities.com and they make $300 / month for their email list. All the Microsoft certs in the world won?t be able to block that spam.
Attended a recent Computer Security conference? One un-named booth received 413,000 visitors, and sold their attendance log for $195. Even the new church life leadership is selling their list.
So if you?ve ever wondered where you?re getting the spam from, there it is. Use a free email service and set up a free account for the sites you visit. Forward them to your real account, then cancel them when you no longer need the service. There?s nothing worse than receiving emails from a site you no longer have any interest in.
Here?s my advice to direct email marketers. Don?t buy these lists. If you want to reach people by email, do it the right way. Don?t spam! Instead, rent ad space in a newsletter that the people actually want to receive, or better yet: create your own.
I subscribe to newsletters regarding PHP, Poker, and even HTML. I like reading these newsletters. I want them in my email. Cash in on this! If I see an ad for KEM cards in my poker newsletter, I might buy them. I even expect to see deals on web hosting in my HTML newsletter.
The key here is that the advertiser doesn?t get the email addresses. They simply send their ad to the author of the newsletter, and the author inserts it in. It?s win-win. Your information stays private, and their ad gets read.
Or, if email advertising isn?t your thing, start a blog. Position yourself as an expert. Start posting stuff people will want to read, and they?ll come to you. If it?s useful, they?ll even sign up for email notices.
Most importantly, STOP BUYING THINGS FROM SPAM. A recent survey says that 40% of email users have bought a product by clicking on a link in a spam email. This is why there is so much spam. If we all stopped buying from spam, it might actually decrease.
August 5th, 2003
