No doubt about it.
“Spam” (unsolicited commercial email) threatens to
paralyze and ultimately destroy the email system as it
currently exists on the Internet.
Anyone with an email address can attest to the fact that
the avalanche of Spam has only increased in the last year
and shows no sign of stopping.
However, the current system many Internet Service
Providers (ISP’s) use to deal with Spam may just destroy
the Internet’s email system long before the spammers do.
Now, I won’t deny that the weight of the Spam on any
ISP’s resources can rate very significant.
It’s been estimated that between 30-60% of all email now
sent is Spam!
This means that 30-60% an ISP’s system resources
(bandwidth, hardware, system maintenance) go towards
delivering messages nobody wants to receive.
Out of self-defense, many ISP’s turn to third party
services like SpamCop, SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early
Warning System), and SpamHaus to help them identify
sources of spam and block the messages before their email
systems get clogged.
No Trial - No Defense - Guilty!
In theory, it’s a great system.
In practice, it creates a situation resembling a witch
hunt where the accused gets burned at the stake without a
trial, let alone the ability to face their accuser.
Here’s how the system works.
Let’s say a business habitually sends legitimate email to
its customers or prospects who asked to receive the
email.
As long as nobody complains, life proceeds as normal.
But then let’s say one of those people forgets they opted
in to the business’s email list and reports an email
message as spam to one of the services I mentioned above.
Result: the business gets blacklisted by one or more of
these services and ISP’s in turn automatically block
email (legitimate email) sent by the business to its
customers and opt-in subscribers.
To make matters even worse, nobody at these anti-spam
services bothers to let the business know they’ve been
blacklisted.
When the business finally discovers their status and
tries to contact SpamCop, SPEWS or SpamHaus, the real fun
begins.
If the business does discover which service(s)
blacklisted them, they’ll find they can’t call anyone on
the phone to discuss the problem.
They also discover these services are totally unregulated
and there is no higher court of appeals.
Any email responses from these services often contain a
smug attitude of assumed guilt that scoffs at your claims
of innocence.
Also, don’t bother asking for the opportunity to face
your accuser in order to prove your innocence because
they get to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.
Combining this attitude of assumed guilt with the
inability to prove your innocence creates a recipe for
disaster for every legitimate business.
Oh, by the way, while writing this article, I received 19
spam email messages through an ISP monitored by all 3
anti-spam services.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
In the end, the current system only creates opportunity
for abuse that targets legitimate businesses while the
real spammers just merrily keep sending their flood of
email.
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved - http://www.thenetreporter.com
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how
to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of
targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…
Simple “Traffic Machine” brings Thousands of NEW visitors to
your website for weeks, even months… without spending a
dime on advertising! Turn Words Into
Traffic
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job hunter, but also presents several potential challenges. It also adds several complexities, and a lot more things to think about…and be mindful of.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, highly aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of colleagues is your source for job leads.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job site and got 650 responses in a calendar week. For one position. That’s increased job hunting competition.
Had the right person contacted us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have landed the job prior to running in to all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 13 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be sure to check your application matierials carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily eliminated with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By passing over prospects whose cover letters gave us causes not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating job hunters whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by rejecting prospects who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job sites give you a feel of who is hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well written resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing – so you don’t stumble at a critical point.
Another thing to be aware of is how quickly and easily you can be checked on on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to swing our thoughts about who to employ.
AA-Careers provides a broad set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.
Be careful out there, and good hunting!
