the volume of spam on my work email is really getting out of hand, just like the spam on my various personal email accounts did long ago. my work email doesn't have much in the way of spam filters.
but starting today, i've decided to try an experiment. for every piece of spam i receive i will follow the instructions to "opt out" of future emails. no matter how much of a pain in the ass they make the opt out procedures, i will follow them to the bitter end.
i've always been suspicious of "opt out" instructions in spam messages. i've long suspected that if you show that you're able to follow the opt out instructions then it would just tell the spammers that you're taking the time to read their spam (and thus making you a more valuable target for spammers). so, until now, i've never tried to opt out. but given how bad it's getting and how little control i have over the spam filtering here, i've decided to experiment with my work account to see if opt out works.
so while i was opting out earlier today, i was routed to a web site that promised to handle all of my opt out needs. first, the site instructed me to enter the email address i wanted removed from their list. but before i could click "okay" i had to enter a series of letters into this other field. you know, like that thing some blogs make you do before you leave comments to prevent comment-spam.
that's right. apparently the spammers are worried about getting spammed too.
