Sunday, February 27, 2005

Spam from SONY: thank you congress

Sony Media Software – Home for Vegas, Sound Forge and ACID

Congress gave us CAN SPAM. CAN SPAM gave us this:
The monthly newsletter for Sony Media Software product information, news, and tips...

Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, Wisconsin 53704
http://www.sony.com/mediasoftware
Customer Service and Sales: 1.800.577.6642
THIS IS NOT SPAM
You received this message because you requested to stay informed of products and promotions when you registered a product.
The Direct Mail Association paid off our corrupt congressperps (yeah, most of the CAN SPAM supporters were GOP) so they'd make this kind of spam legal. Sure I can tell SONY to remove me from the mailing list -- but I know from years of trying to get myself off paper junk mail lists that my name will just get added back on. There's an entire industry that develops in these situations; the "frontmen" like SONY insulate themselves from the guys doing the dirty work of adding addresses any way they can.

The one good news is that SONY is probably using a legitimate mailheader (CAN SPAM did require this). So when I submit them to various spam filtering services there's a better chance they'll get blocked.

The pain of CAN SPAM is that it did nothing to stop all the porn/phishing spam, but it legitimized the equivalent of paper junk mail -- without creating a "postal fee" to attach a cost to the marketing. This SONY junk is only the beginning, in the absence of a "postal fee" our mailboxes will finally collapse under a deluge of "legal SPAM". I'd place a hex on the GOP Congress, but it's clear my hexes are working.

The only bright spot is the certainty that marketers will overreach, and that eventually they'll have to pay a postal fee (tax) and join a certification program paid for by the tax. The certification program will require a "V-Chip" like tag identifying the type of email as determined by an independent group. My ISP will filter all those messages out at my request.

Or so I can dream. I just hope GOP voters get this stuff too.

Hey, all you black hat bad guy pirate hackers out there ... could you please plunder a SONY movie for me?

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