jarango

Now I know: my email address is worth $.001

I’ve been arguing against the use of spam as a marketing tool, in one way or another, for more than ten years. To my chagrin, there has been little progress in my home country in this regard; while spamming has fallen out of fashion (and into illegallity) elsewhere, in Panama it is still alive and thriving. I receive dozens of unsolicited emails every week from otherwise reputable businesses.

It’s understandable that in 1997 businesses were willing to experiment with bulk emails; the medium was new, and netiquette hadn’t yet gelled. There were no rules—implicit or otherwise. In 2007 it’s a completely different story. I don’t think there is a single email user on the entire planet who isn’t hugely annoyed by the deluge of crap flooding our inboxes. Companies have spent many millions of dollars to build spam filters and other techniques to shield productive people from having to deal with this stuff. People have even gone to prison for sending unsolicited emails, for heaven’s sake!

But not here. In Panama, spamming is considered a legitimate business practice. I’m still shocked by the frequency with which I’m shown PowerPoint presentations that include “mass emailing” as a marketing channel. The perpetrators are not freaks either: they are otherwise well-meaning, law-abiding marketing folks looking for what they perceive to be a “cheap and easy” way to get the word out about their business, no matter what. (Many of these people, it’s worth noting, are protected from spam by corporate mail filters.)

How “cheap and easy” is it? I recently received an email from a gentleman (whose name, email, cell phone number, and affiliation I will not post here, even though they figured prominently in the message) offering “More than 150 thousand prospects for your business in a DVD!!!” for US$150. Where did this guy get this valuable information, you may wonder? The email describes it thusly: “Our database comes from different internet sites, universities, [the Panamanian] Chamber of Commerce, CAPAC, ACOBIR, APEDE, members and users of the [Colón] Free Zone, the Hebrew Academy, lawyers, doctors, and more…” (A note to my foreign readers: the acronyms are highly respected professional associations.) In other words, the seller is promising the personal details of the “who’s who” of Panama’s managerial class, who most assuredly did not give their permission for their membership information to be used for these purposes. (Given the amount of spam I receive from Panamanian companies, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of my email addresses are in there. I certainly haven’t signed up for any of this stuff.)

Again, the person who sent this email didn’t shy away from including his personal information in his message (which itself was unsolicited, obviously). In other words, this sort of gross breach of privacy is not punished (or punishable) in Panama, otherwise this guy would be in deep shit.

The local “professional” spammers know that what they are doing is wrong, and that people are annoyed by their unsolicited messages. They tacitly admit so in the messages themselves. However, they make little effort to allow victims to opt out. Check out the preamble of an unsolicited message I got this morning, for a local upscale, super-high visibility shopping mall:

Translation:

This message has not been requested by you; however, we invite you to register for free on our form in exchange for future incentives.

This is the first thing the user reads in this message. In other words, they know the user will be wondering “Why the hell did I get this?” right off the bat. However, they make no effort to allow the user to opt out; on the contrary, they are encouraging the user to sign up for more crap! Given that this sort of statement usually allows users to “unsubscribe”, this form is extremely misleading and malicious.

But wait, it gets better. Check out the footer:

Translation:

In case you don’t want to receive new messages click here.
This email has been sent by Enlacepc.com by request of the client. [sic] It’s not our motivation [sic] to annoy you. We invite you to register for free on our form in exchange for future incentives.

So, great: they give me a way to opt out. One step forward. Unfortunately, the next three sentences they take about 19 steps back. Let me paraphrase: “We know spam is a royal pain in the ass, but we (Enlacepc.com, whatever that is) are gonna send you this crap anyways because our client made us do it! By the way, sign up for more crap.”

Thanks guys. You (and your client) are really considerate and classy.

After 12 years of working in this medium in Panama, it’s very discouraging to still see this type of highly unprofessional, unethical behavior on behalf of these marketing companies and their clients. They are discrediting the internet as a marketing medium, and poisoning the well for everyone else. I, for one, am glad that I have gmail’s excellent spam filter on my side; very little of this stuff gets through to my actual inbox. But I suffer when I see my friends and family wade through hundreds of unsolicited messages in order to get through to their real email.

When will this stop? I’m sure some of these messages must be going out by accident (or otherwise) to US citizens. If so, I wonder if these spammers are prosecutable in the US legal system?

Technorati Tags: panama, spam

September 27, 2007 | Archived in Business