Make Spam History
December 17th, 2007
Like many internet consumers I am SICK of SPAM, PHISHING, EMAIL SCAMS and MAN-HOOD ENHANCEMENT REMINDERS. The likes of McAfee, Norton, Sophos, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo all do a great job of minimising SPAM. But it still gets through and is very annoying!!!
Spam wastes so much time
As a consumer and business I have wasted countless hours deleting, sorting and changing email accounts because of SPAM. Multiply that around the globe and that’s a considerable waste of human effort.
Of course consumers can do more themselves (like do not open or action emails from spammers) but generally they’re lazy and uneducated in the clever tricks of spammers and fall for these ridiculous offers. And of course we expect the anti-virus/security vendors to take care of it all for us.
But I have a simple idea to help minimise spam… please read on.
An Idea! Make an Anti-Spam Banner
A while ago I was lucky enough to attend Live8 at Hyde Park London (great day and cause – Bob Geldof you’re the man). There was at the same time a ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign. http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/
During that time MANY MANY MANY websites supported this campaign by putting a free corner banner on their websites (e.g. personal blogs, government sites and businesses did this). Hardly a day went by without seeing these banners (a sort of digital equivalent of the charity ribbon or badge). It always grabbed my attention.
Example: http://www.bobgeldof.info/
So why not do something similar for Spam / Anti Virus ???? Surely the Anti-Virus vendors such as McAfee et al could create a free banner and code for webmasters to place on their sites in support of “STOP SPAM TODAY” or “MAKE SPAM HISTORY” : A kind of joint Anti-Spam campaign.. The security software vendors could promote this in a myriad of ways surely. E.G. A dedicated site for the free banner/code, educational hints and tips on how to spot spam / phishing and recommend suitable products…. maybe team up with the blogging world, get Google involved…. etc, etc.
Everyone has a Spam problem so support should be world-wide.
OK, so the idea will need finer detail and I may not realise all the issues here. But it’s simple enough surely? I’m sure we can all fill in the blanks. The news / technology sites /on-line articles would love it for free copy. Vendors could back this with their resources, maybe even discount their products for this as an incentive of some sort. The more people that use Anti-Spam / Virus products the less chance of this scum spam getting through and maybe one day they’ll stop?
(I live in hope).
Posted in Website Design
