![[Home]](/wiki.gif)
Advertising On Usenet - A Quick Note About What Happens To SpamAdvertising On Usenet - A Quick Note About What Happens To Spam
| |
| The Bush Survival Guide - 250 Ways to Make It Through The NExt Four Years Without Misunderestimating the Dangers Ahead, and Other Subliminable Stategeries |
|
Links:
| |
Subjects > Computers (Search for Computers) > Internet (Search) > Internet Culture Discussion > Advertising On Usenet (Search)
Useful advice for new users, system administrators, entrepreneurs, and others who are concerned about proper netiquette.
A quick note about what happens to spam:
Another consideration against spamming is that Usenet readers developed defenses against it, so it's not very effective. There are quite a few spam detectors running on Usenet, and if one of them detects that the same message has been posted repeatedly to multiple newsgroups, the humans who run those spam detectors will step in and actually *erase* the spamming messages with 'cancel' messages which are honored at most sites around the world.
A common misconception shared by many members of the media is that spam is bad because it's *advertising* and that people who cancel spam are doing so to get rid of *advertising*. In actual point of fact, most Usenet users consider cancellation to be extremely bad manners and something to be done only as a last resort. When spam-cancellers cancel spam, it's done because of the *volume* (posting hundreds of times), not because of the content.
The analogy that's often used is that yes, you have the right to walk down the street and say whatever you like -- but you do NOT have the right to stick your head in someone's house at 3 am and shout through a bullhorn.
So if you *do* spam, you're likely to lose your account, have your personal life made a living hell, possibly get sued by people whose storage space you're taking up, and in the end, not very many people are even going to see your advertisement. It's just not worth the grief you'll get.
Sorry to be unpleasant about it, but spam's a really bad idea.
Finally, if you're wondering where the term "spamming" came from, it came from a Monty Python sketch in which the characters were in a restaurant which mainly sold Spam. Items on the menu included things like "Spam, Spam, Spam, eggs, ham, and Spam." Whenever the waitress recited the menu, a group of Vikings in the corner would chime in with her, chanting the word "Spam" over and over, drowning out everything else.
Some members of the media have spread the explanation that the word "spamming" derives from throwing chunks of Spam into a fan. This is not where the term comes from.
3. Unsolicited junk email
Another often-practiced and often-punished scheme is to send email to thousands of strangers whose addresses you found in various Usenet newsgroups. In the last year, dozens of people have lost their Internet access after sending thousands of strangers ads for timeshare condos in Cancun or dubious credit schemes, and yet, the junk email continues to flood in.
Suffice it to say that junk email, using Usenet posters' addresses, is a really bad idea. Most sites will yank your account if you do that kind of thing.
4) 'Mail-Merged' ads
Some advertisers noticed that it was only *identical* postings that were getting cancelled by the spam cancellers, and cleverly came up with a way to post their ad to dozens of newsgroups while varying a line or two to make it look sufficiently different to avoid being cancelled.
For example, one book editor posted ads to dozens of newsgroups about his book, essentially giving a sales pitch for said book, while adding a paragraph to each article that purported to contain the text that had been printed about each newsgroup in said book.
It was rather obvious that the editor wasn't interested in getting feedback on the text since the book had already been published; eventually an employee at the company admitted that the technique had been used to try to avoid triggering the spam cancellers -- and that the point had indeed been to broadcast the ad widely without getting cancelled.
Don't do postings that say things like "Congratulations, REC.FOOD.DRINK.BEER reader, you are among the lucky few to be included in this amazing offer." Spam that makes a token effort to relate to each newsgroup it's posted to is still spam, and will still be erased on sight.
See also ftp://ftp.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1
Check out [Facts About Trees]
|
Interested in Cicada Origami?