What is "spam"? I define spam as "unsolicited e-mail, usually promotional, sent out to multiple recipients."

Professional spammers use special "spamware" programs designing to harvest e-mail addresses from public places, such as Web pages and Usenet newsgroups. The software can scan a text document, recognize an e-mail address and add it to a database. It's possible to buy an e-mail list compiled in this way or to have a bulk e-mail company send out your ad to their proprietary list.

So should you try it? Should you join the legions of multi-level marketers and chain-letter writers now sending out their offers to millions of Internet users?

Spamming is against long-time Internet standards of "netiquette" and for that reason is considered unethical by many Internet users, both veterans and novices. Although this fact is not to be discounted, it is not necessarily the primary issue from a marketing standpoint. Does the marketer care about courtesy? Some do, some don't. A sense of decency will not prevent all marketers from spamming. Neither will ethics or morality. However, other factors come into play, as we will see.

Is e-mail advertising the same as direct mail? As telemarketing? Some argue that it is not, because the recipient bears the cost of e-mail. By the very nature of the Internet, electronic mail arrives "postage due." The e-mail user or that user's employer pays a provider for Internet access. That provider incurs cost for all traffic received on its network. So the spammer is actually forcing the recipient to pay the cost of his or her advertising. Direct (postal) mail advertisers, on the other hand, pay the cost of their own advertising and, in fact, subsidize the postal system. And how many telemarketers would get a listening ear if they called collect?

Although I feel this "postage due" issue is an important one, I don't think it is the most compelling factor for the marketer to consider. More critical is the question, How does the recipient view the advertising message? Spam is widely hated on the Internet. A Harris poll of computer users reveals that, out of those who are receiving unsolicited bulk e-mail, 42 percent want to stop receiving it.

Granted, some portion of the public hates all advertising and would stop receiving direct mail, telemarketing calls, newspaper and magazine advertising, and television commercials, if they could. However, Internet users are able to retaliate in ways other consumers can't. And the widespread hatred of spamming can be damaging to the image of the company that uses it.

We are now seeing a deluge of junk e-mail. How much? According to Time Magazine, "Unsolicited junk e-mail now accounts for ten percent of all Internet traffic and up to 30 percent of the 26 million daily messages on America Online."

I surmise that the longer you use the Net for business or other purposes, the more likely you are to dislike spam because of the intensity and volume of the onslaught, as well as the unwanted intrusion in your e-mail box.

"Caveat spammor!"
(Let the spammer beware!)

The risks of spamming can be considerable. Here are some compelling reasons to avoid spamming:

Technological Retaliation
Some anti-spammers will send e-mail bombs, huge messages that can clog Internet servers or crash them. Other spam-haters have been known to send continuous faxes to spammers' fax machines in the middle of the night. I talked with one company president who told me that, after they sent out a spam message, someone rigged up a robot that called their toll-free number over and over for three days.

Loss of Internet Service
More than likely, your Internet service provider (ISP) prohibits spamming and will terminate your account if it receives complaints.

ISP Blocks
If you become known as a spammer, Internet service providers will set up blocks so that no e-mail from your domain can be delivered to their systems. In some cases your mail will be bounced back to you, but in many cases your mail will just be rejected and you'll never know.

Reputation of the Company
Internet users can have a surprisingly strong voice. If your company becomes labeled as a spam advertiser, you may need to launch some serious PR damage control.

Public and Legal Action
The public, especially in Western lands, is becoming increasingly concerned with privacy. If you're a database marketer or direct marketer, you're no doubt already aware of this issue. If the public begins to feel invaded, it will take action, either in the form of restrictive laws or court action. In fact, this is already taking place with regard to bulk e-mail advertising. Self-regulation is in the interest of all responsible advertisers.

Given these risks of advertising by e-mail, I would offer the following maxim:

"The risks of advertising by e-mail are directly proportional to the number of people who don't want to receive your message."

If you send unsolicited e-mail to hundreds of thousands or millions of people, you will no doubt be forcing a message on many unwilling recipients. It is very likely that some, or even many, will retaliate in one or more of the ways listed above, if they can.

In the case of Barnes and Noble, evidently the company's concern for its reputation had its effect. Mark, the lawyer who was placed unwillingly on their mystery-lovers list, tried to complain. When Barnes and Noble said they would continue culling e-mail addresses and sending unsolicited ads, Mark decided, as he put it, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."

Mark set up a "Boycott Barnes and Noble" Web page and submitted it to the search engines and directories and posted the boycott notice to several newsgroups. He then designed an advertising banner and placed an insertion order with a Web ad network for 40,000 impressions with the message: "Boycott Barnes and Noble! Boycott Junk Email Spammers! Don't Tolerate Unsolicited Commercial Email!" That was one angry lawyer.

Within a day, Barnes and Noble backed down and reversed its policy on spamming.

Will something like this happen again? Perhaps so. We'll see. I hope it doesn't happen to you.

Because of the widespread feelings against spamming, the ethical issues involved and the considerable risks, I recommend this basic policy for those advertising by e-mail:

"No one should be placed on an e-mail list without their permission. No one should have to ask to be removed from an e-mail list they never asked to be on in the first place."

Next Chapter: Methods of Email Advertising

© 1998-2000, Alfred R. Bredenberg. All rights reserved.