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.....Unwanted Contact and Spam Mail.
As an example we would quote two recent experiences, as follows:
(1)We received an Email offering to sell us 2M (yes 2 million) valid or active email addresses. Naturally when we wrote back and asked where they got OUR address from, the mail was returned in the usual way, "Unknown" However the instructions within the Email offered these 2M addresses ( Vol No.1a) for an introductory offer of US$749.95 plus shipping of US$75. !! The recipients were asked to print out the entire Email, fill in all details including credit card details and fax to a number in the USA, whereupon it was promised that the CD containing the 2M addresses would be despatched. !!
This would appear to us to be an insidious way of extorting money from people and organisations on the assumption that the people concerned in the selling of this, are honest and trustworthy business people.?? One wonders how many replies they received and how much money they made out of this venture !!
(2) In the last few days we received another email, this time offering us the following:
(a) Address book of the Worlds Richest Families.
(b) Private Address book of Great Britains Richest Families.
(c) Private address book of Lady Millionaires.
It was stated that they had ten years of experience in researching and collating this information, and that you can now market your product or service with confidence to those who can afford it. !! It also stated that the worlds finest companies continue to use their Super Rich marketing lists.!!
The strange thing about this contact was that the Email originated in Australia, yet the contact Email and fax number and the Web site was an English one. !!
This email was actually much more open and no attempt was made to hide. Their web site, email address and fax numbers were all given.
One would be entitled to ask, who is safe from these organisations ? Do the Rich not also deserve their privacy, just as much as anyone else. ? One only has to remember the tragic case of Diana, Princess of Wales, to realise how the rich and famous are constantly hounded. Just because someone makes a lot of money, does that mean that their privacy can be invaded, just because they are rich ?
Surely, everyone, the rich, the poor, no matter who you are, has a right to some privacy, but it appears that there is an ever growing band of individuals and organisations who are intent on invading that privacy, and are being encouraged by those who's intent it seems to be to obtain every email address they can lay their hands on.
Another sinister aspect of this, is the growing number of 'homepage' sites by individuals, and younger people, that openly show their email addresses for all to see. There must now be millions of these sites on the Web, hosted by apparantly legitimate companies offering free web space to these people, if they join their growing online community. These addresses could be easily collected by others and sold on to organisations who wish to buy them, and then these innocent people could be inundated with unwanted mail from untraceable sources. !!
One also has to ask the question, if all these sites are given away free, who pays for the expense of running them, the costs of staff, and all the other costs of such a venture. ? We are told, in most cases that the advertisers pay the costs. But who are these advertisers ? do they sell on email addresses in order to defray their costs ?
There are obviously many genuine organisations and companies on the Web, who help to make our Web experience an enjoyable one, and we have seen in our travels many excellent sites, not only colourful but informative and interesting and quite obviously cost a lot of money to produce. They are to be commended for enriching our Web experience. However, it would appear that the sinister element is getting larger and larger, and this should be a worry not only to all of us, the general users of the Web, but more so to these legitimate organisations who have spent so much on their excellent sites. They above all do not want people to abandon the Web or their very presence will be placed in jeopardy with no viewers and no users of their sites.
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