Please Spam Me!

According to the Wall Street Journal, that’s what one Chicago woman was saying last month. As a member of a spam study, she received a free Dell laptop with no security software whatsoever, and was instructed to surf the web, click on ads and fill out all kinds of online forums. Not surprisingly, she received spam, lots of it-over 500 a day at one point. She even got junk mail the old fashioned way-via the post office. It was an eye opening reminder of how necessary spam filters have become. Many curse them for blocking or flagging legitimate emails, but most agree they are a very good thing.

The debate rages on about which kind is better, software run on the user’s computer or server based solution at the ISP-most use both. I think we’d all agree that it’s better to have to check the spam folder for any legit messages that may have accidentally landed there than to have to wade through an inbox full of spam!

The woman got a nice reward for allowing herself to be spammed, by the way. She got to keep the laptop, and the company doing the study cleaned it up for her free of charge. Not bad!