ack, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a pri

In 2004 Bill Gates was quoted as saying spam would be a thing of the past within 2 years. It's now 2007 and estimates put the total amount of spam at about 90% of all email sent. When you think about that it's staggering, for every genuine email sent, 9 spam messages will be sent. The more that is done to fight the spammers, the more ingenious the ways they find to get around our defenses.

So what is to be done against an enemy so devious and ruthless? What can stop this deluge of spam email? The answer, on an individual level, is be smart and be organised. In the first place NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM A SPAMMER - EVER - AT ALL If you do you have justified however many millions of messages they sent out to get that sale. Don't encourage spammers in any form. Leaving aside the fact that most people who employ spam email marketing are promoting products which are dubious at best and outright criminal at worst, if you ever buy into them, or even follow your link, you are signing yourself up for a world more spam.

Let's look at it from the point of view of a legitimate internet marketer. It's no secret that businesses that do well online build massive opt-in lists. These work on either opt-in(you sign up) or double opt-in(You sign up, they send you an email inviting you to join and you accept). In other words, they are not spam. You, or someone who knows your address, need to provide your address to receive email from them. Now legitimate e-mail marketers guard their list very carefully, because they know the list is their gold. Here they have the addresses of people who have not only searched for information in a particular area, but have actually signed up to receive more direct from them. The internet marketer then builds a relationship with the customer and then, somewhere down the track, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a prio

What can stop this deluge of spam email? The answer, on an individual level, is be smart and be organised. In the first place NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM A SPAMMER - EVER - AT ALL If you do you have justified however many millions of messages they sent out to get that sale. Don't encourage spammers in any form. Leaving aside the fact that most people who employ spam email marketing are promoting products which are dubious at best and outright criminal at worst, if you ever buy into them, or even follow your link, you are signing yourself up for a world more spam.

Let's look at it from the point of view of a legitimate internet marketer. It's no secret that businesses that do well online build massive opt-in lists. These work on either opt-in(you sign up) or double opt-in(You sign up, they send you an email inviting you to join and you accept). In other words, they are not spam. You, or someone who knows your address, need to provide your address to receive email from them. Now legitimate e-mail marketers guard their list very carefully, because they know the list is their gold. Here they have the addresses of people who have not only searched for information in a particular area, but have actually signed up to receive more direct from them. The internet marketer then builds a relationship with the customer and then, somewhere down the track, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a pri

tright criminal at worst, if you ever buy into them, or even follow your link, you are signing yourself up for a world more spam.

Let's look at it from the point of view of a legitimate internet marketer. It's no secret that businesses that do well online build massive opt-in lists. These work on either opt-in(you sign up) or double opt-in(You sign up, they send you an email inviting you to join and you accept). In other words, they are not spam. You, or someone who knows your address, need to provide your address to receive email from them. Now legitimate e-mail marketers guard their list very carefully, because they know the list is their gold. Here they have the addresses of people who have not only searched for information in a particular area, but have actually signed up to receive more direct from them. The internet marketer then builds a relationship with the customer and then, somewhere down the track, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a pri

or someone who knows your address, need to provide your address to receive email from them. Now legitimate e-mail marketers guard their list very carefully, because they know the list is their gold. Here they have the addresses of people who have not only searched for information in a particular area, but have actually signed up to receive more direct from them. The internet marketer then builds a relationship with the customer and then, somewhere down the track, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a pri

ack, recommends a product, which the internet marketer will receive a cut of the profits from. Now internet marketers spend a lot of time analysing lists and sales, to establish the direction they need to go, what sells and what doesn't etc.

Let's return to spammers. You can guarantee spammers do the same thing. If a spammer sends out 10,000 emails and 100 follow the link, and 10 people buy, what has the spammer achieved. 100 people will go onto a priority list - these are the ones who not only open spam emails, but are likely to follow the links in future emails. 10 people are buyers. Not only did they probably just sign themselves up for some illegal OEM software, or some share scam, or whatever else the spammers are marketing this week, they also put a big red flag above their head which reads "SPAM ME - I LOVE IT".

Spammers are annoying, immoral and ruthless, but they are not stupid. They run their spam operation like a business, because that is what it is to them. They are not sending out messages to annoy you, they are sending out messages for the tiny percentage of people who are going to buy something for them. It's as cheap to send 1 million messages as 1, but if no-one bites the spammers efforts are wasted in both cases.

So, don't feel helpless against spam. You are not. Spam can be beaten. It will just take you, and everyone else, to register total disinterest in unsolicited mail. Don't buy from it. Don't follow the links in it. Don't even open it. Delete it unopened and be happy that you are doing your bit in the fight against spam.