The economic basis for spam reveals a new solution

Monday, November 03, 2003 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: spam, spam solutions, economics of spam

As this Canada.com article rightly points out, you can throw a lot of promising solutions at the spam problem, and yet the spam keeps on coming. The popular approaches have so far been legislative ones (outlawing spam) and technical ones (altering the Internet infrastructure to require trusted email senders).

But there's another alternative: supply-side anti-spam efforts. Not to be confused with Reagan's supply-side economics, supply-side anti-spam efforts focus on eradicating the profits that spammers presently enjoy. Take the money out of spamming and spammers will find a new line of work. Maybe they'll even take up permission email marketing.

I outline this view in an anti-spam public education effort I've launched called Spam. Don't Buy It. This effort simply aims to educate Internet users on their role in stopping spam. Because, as strange as it seems, many of the same users who complain about spam are, themselves, secretly purchasing products from spammers.

In fact, the continued deluge of spam proves it. Spammers are business people, in a twisted sense, and they only stay in business because it pays to do so.

We can make spam unprofitable in many ways, of course. Encouraging end users to avoid buying from spam is just one way. Another way is to pass new laws that somehow manage to capture and fine spammers. With a large enough fine, the economics of spamming shift dramatically.

Of course, legislative approaches assume that spammers can be identified in the first place, and most people familiar with spam will agree with me when I say that spammers are virtually impossible to locate, identify and prosecute.

That leaves the technical approach. It's a great idea, but it's getting absolutely no traction in the real world. Is it realistic to expect network administrators to all simultaneously switch their mail servers, all across the Internet, to something that's more secure? And what would that security look like, anyway? Dear God, please don't let Network Solutions be chosen to accredit "trusted" email senders.

If you look at what we can do right now, the answer is simple: a grassroots, supply-side approach that cuts off the cashflow to spammers. That's why I stand by the Spam. Don't Buy It. effort.