Was Your Pocket Picked Today?

Have you ever been the victim of a pickpocket? Some of these guys are so good they can fleece you and you never know it until it's too late. Well, if you have a public email account, your pocket is getting picked every day. You don't know it, but every day your wallet is being lifted.

Over 50% of the tens of billions of emails sent worldwide each day are unsolicited and unwanted. Someone has to pay for the handling of that mail: getting it into the pipeline, sorting it, and transferring it on so it can be received at the correct destination.

Guess who that someone is?

FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson said, "Finding a solution here is like putting socks on an octopus. There are too many moving parts. But the clear message is that doing nothing is not acceptable." "We're approaching a tipping point where consumer confidence is beginning to erode. If we can't solve this problem for Middle America, then the internet will be a place only for the technologically sophisticated or those most accepting of risk."

At a Federal Trade Commission sponsored workshop in 2004 called to deal with the ever growing problem of the barrage of unsolicited junk email and which included top industry experts, no consensus was reached on anything except the fact that the problem was getting worse minute by minute.

Below is the story of how you and I are actually getting our pockets picked. This is what a real world major ISP has to deal with today and every day, and makes clear exactly how you are the victim of a system that is clearly out of control.

I've been invited to meet with Marty who works for one of the world's largest ISPs. He's going to show me what happens everyday with their network, and I'd like to take you along.

We check in with security and are led to a huge amphitheatre. It's what you'd expect to find at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they are responsible for tracking Space Shuttle flights. But who would ever have thought that this kind of facility was needed just to move email? The size of the display on the far wall helped us understand why this company was called "Mega," and the number of technicians sitting at the rows and rows of computers would make NASA jealous.

Marty "took possession" of us at the entrance to this amazing place- I say that because he had to sign a form before our "security detail" would let us enter and he was given a copy of one of the waivers we had signed earlier.

Marty began by explaining that this is the central control room for the entire North American Mega operation. The map on the display showed all of the switching stations and routing points for handling the huge volume of email, including junk mail- billions of messages every day that travel through the Mega system. The crisscrossing and intersecting lines showed the paths the email traveled to get from one location to another. He explained to us that the numbers next to each routing center indicated the capacity of that center that was being used in real time in percentages.

I mentioned that it seemed that every center was operating using a pretty small percentage of its capacity and that it seemed like they had a lot more capacity than needed. He motioned us over to a corner to sit down and then he began to explain.

"If we only had to deal with the normal daily traffic generated by people like you, then you'd be right, and all that capacity you see on the board would be a waste of time and money. But Mega and all ISPs face a very serious problem 24/7/365. In fact, if all the traffic were like the kind you generate, I and over a hundred other people who work here in 3 shifts, around the clock, would be out of a job.

"Mega had to spend the money to build this new central control center, install hundreds of millions of dollars worth of additional servers and filtering software, and hire and train those 100 extra people for one reason and one reason only- unsolicited commercial email (UCE)- better known as junk mail. Most of our users don't know it, but this facility alone has filtered as much as 2 billion pieces of junk out of the system in only one day. Taken it out and destroyed it before it could get to its destination. The junk mailers try to send it out around the clock, and we have to be here to stop them around the clock.

"Why? Because otherwise the whole email system would be overrun by it and it would break down under the enormous weight of it. You need to understand what this stuff is. Most honest businesses quit sending UCE after Congress passed the "CanSpam Act." That means the people sending the junk these days are not only probable lawbreakers, but also unethical, unscrupulous people who would just as soon rip you off as say hello.

"We keep track of the junk we find. Most of it is along the lines of chain letters, pyramid schemes, get rich quick schemes, porn sites, phone sex lines, adult webcam sites, software for collecting email addresses and sending unsolicited bulk email, knock-off Erectile Dysfunction drugs, stock offerings for little known or unknown companies, surveys where you fill it out and get a free laptop- except that what you actually get is the chance to be put on advertising mailing lists, offers claiming to lower your mortgage rates, illegally pirated software, fake health products and remedies- stuff like that.

"The thing is, the UCE mailers keep sending them out because all they need is a modem and an internet connection and for them the rest is pretty much free. They basically send the junk out for nothing. But its not free to everyone else.

"Every time an email is sent from your computer it goes to a server in one of those local control centers on the map. The server has to receive it, sort it according to where it's addressed and then send it on into the pipeline to the next center, which has to go through the same process until it gets to wherever you sent it. That's not a big deal.

"What is a big deal is when an illegal mailer sends out 100,000 or 500,000 at one time. That bogs down the local servers and the other ones it gets routed to from there. And imagine what it's like when hundreds or even thousands do that at the same time. In this business, "CPU Time" is a major expense and processor performance is a critical issue for every ISP. And, these huge unsolicited mailings are extremely expensive to handle. The sender doesn't pay that cost, but everyone else on the system does have to pay it.

"They also have to pay for it another way. The whole system slows down. It takes longer to download your email. You have trouble accessing websites. Sometimes you can't even get online.

"The problem is compounded by the fact that ISPs purchase bandwidth -- their connection to the rest of the Internet -- based on the projected usage of their user base. For most small to mid-sized ISPs, bandwidth costs are one of the greatest portions of their budget and are a major reason why many ISPs have a tiny profit margin. Without junk email, greater consumption of bandwidth would normally track with increased numbers of customers. However, when an outside user (e.g., the junk emailer) begins to consume an ISPs bandwidth, the ISP has only 3 choices: 1) let the paying customers cope with slower internet access; 2) eat the costs of increasing bandwidth; or 3) raise the rate you pay.

"In short, who do you think is forced to bear the costs that the advertiser has avoided? That's right, you do. Those costs have been shifted from the unscrupulous junk mailer to you and everyone else on the system. If you have a $9.95 a month dial up account, how much of that is due to these junk mailers stealing from you- over 50%. Your connection fee could be cut in half if these guys would just get out of the system.

As we prepared to leave, we shook hands and told Marty we didn't have a clue it took all of that money and all those resources just to deliver a piece of email.

He responded, "It shouldn't have to if someone could just find a way to build an email system that could keep the junk mail out. Now that would make us all safer, not to mention a little richer. That would be a dream come true."

Remember using the fax machine as things used to be. In the late 1980s, as more and more businesses began to use fax machines, marketers decided that they could fax you their advertisements. Anyone in a busy office in the late 1980s will remember the piles and piles of office supply advertisements and business printing ads that came pouring out of their Fax machine... making it impossible to get the Fax that they were expecting. It was frustrating that the fax you were looking for and expecting couldn't get through to you while the junk ads you didn't ask for and didn't want were pouring out before your very eyes. Not only was it frustrating because it tied up your fax machine and phone line, but you could hold in your hands the extra costs of the paper and ink or toner your machine used to print out the ads.

Fortunately, legislation was passed and upheld by the courts that successfully stopped the junk fax trend.

Unfortunately, the FTC reported that one year after federal anti-spam legislation, the "CanSpam Act," was passed, the actual amount of spam emails had increased, not decreased!

Most legitimate businesses stopped using UCE, but it certainly hasn't stopped the spam. And the magnitude of the problem of junk email certainly makes the junk fax problem pale by comparison- both in terms of numbers and importance.

Junk email is no different from junk faxes in the way it consumes the resources of others. Over time, unless the growth of UCE is stopped, it will destroy the usefulness and effectiveness of email as a communication tool. Spam is based on theft of service, fraud, and deceit as well as cost shifting to the recipient. And any business that depends on stealing from its customers, preying on the innocent, and abusing the open standards of the Internet is- and should be- doomed to failure.

And yet, in spite of every technological and legislative initiative, unsolicited junk email is like the energizer bunny commercial...it keeps going and going and going. And from your point of view... it keeps coming and coming and coming.

Here's what Vince Cerf, Senior Vice President of MCI said about spam: "Spamming is the scourge of electronic mail and newsgroups on the Internet. It can seriously interfere with the operation of public services, to say nothing of the effect it may have on any individual's e-mail mail system. Spammers are, in effect, taking resources away from users and service suppliers without compensation and without authorization."

The bottom line is this: Unsolicited, unwanted email costs you money whether or not you ever receive it. Can you really afford to be complacent about it? Can you really afford to avoid the question:

"Was Your Pocket Picked Today?"

And look at it from another angle. Huge ISPs have generated hundreds of millions in profits with the tremendous growth of public email. Did they "share the wealth" with you? Did you receive a check? Should you have?

"Was Your Pocket Picked Today?"

By now we trust that you are beginning to see the value of private internet mail. It's totally secure and operates completely separate from public email, much as FedEx is completely different from the U.S. Postal Service. There is one major difference, however. Each time you use FedEx, you pay a fee. The basic private mail system is yours to use at no cost.

Article Source: http://www.rightarticle.com

SmartFinds Internet Marketing Web: www.5starideas.com EMail: robyn@5starideas.com

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