What About Targeted Advertising?

However, the real issue is not one of content. Even if all commercial e-mail was truly targeted and all e-mail marketers sold legitimate products, we would still be inundated with countless numbers of unsolicited advertisements. Right now, most ISPs have strong policies prohibiting their customers from spamming, and when they receive the hundreds (or thousands) of abuse reports that result from each incidence, they will either warn the spammer or immediately cancel his account. Imagine what would be happening right now if this were not so and UCE was an acceptable form of internet marketing.

If only 5,000 companies (a miniscule percentage of what’s out there) decided to try this form of free advertising and send out only 100,000 pieces a week, there would be 500 MILLION pieces of junk mail being pushed through the system each week. How long would you be prepared to wait to load 500+ pieces of spam into your mail reader every time you logged on? How many pieces of valid e-mail from friends and relatives would you be willing to bounce due to your mailbox being filled to capacity with junk mail? Will the request of just press delete be asking too much when you are doing it 1,000 times a day?

Oh, but if it was targeted e-mail from legitimate companies, you wouldn’t get that much of it, right? Well, let’s see. Do you use toothpaste, read books, wear clothes, write with pens, get colds, have pets, drive a car, use a telephone, watch TV, use a printer, play games, have children, shave, cook, eat food, go on vacations, listen to music, wash your hair, do laundry… are you starting to get the picture?

By Jeremy