Here is a novel idea for fighting spam: use exploding ink packets to mark people who respond to obviously illegitimate e-mail pitches. Then we can target them for public ridicule.
Whatever one thinks should be done to combat spam, marketers and anti-spam zealots alike can agree that if people didn’t respond to unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail, there would be no profit in sending it.
So here’s what we do: Set up a stupid-consumer sting operation so we can identify the barnyard idiots who are spammers’ best prospects.
How it would work: Mirror real efforts like the sales pitch below for lip-plumping cream taken from a real eBay auction. And for those who think the pitch isn’t authentic, search under “e-mail” and “lips” on eBay. [And don’t ask me how I found it.]
“X-Rated Emails Helped Me Plump My Lips.
“Plump Lips in 7 Seconds or Your Money Back… Guaranteed!
“My Dilemma…
“So I’m 33 years old and like the majority of men and women I have lips about as thick as a razor blade. … But other than a costly and potentially dangerous surgery there was nothing I could do to get rid of these little itty bitty lips that turtles would mock.”
Huh? Oh, I get it. Turtles have no lips.
The pitch gets better.
“The Light Bulb…
“So one day while erasing all the spam e-mails (you know what I’m talking about PENIS ENLARGEMENT this and BREAST ENHANCEMENT that … I realized that the skin on the lips are very similar to the skin on [the] penis and breast tissue. So I began wondering what would happen if I took highly concentrated extracts of these ingredients and put them into a rapidly absorbing serum. Would my lips grow?
“The Results…
“No more than 7 seconds after trying this wacky formula, my lips began PULSATING! They were throbbing so much it felt like I had just been stung by a hive full of bees!”
The seller then offers prospects “Lip-Plumping Serum” for $9.99 per bottle.
Now there’s a hall-of-fame sales pitch: $9.99 for a product that the seller claims makes its user feel like she’s been stung by bees while giving her clown lips. And these are considered benefits.
And here’s where clown-lip cream fits into our anti-spam, stupid-consumer sting operation: Anyone who responds to the clown-lip pitch deserves whatever they get. Moreover, they are as responsible for the unsolicited garbage polluting the Internet as anyone, so it’s only fitting that we publicly embarrass them.
As a result, anyone who orders clown-lip cream from the anti-spam stupid-consumer sting operation should get a package delivered with an exploding ink packet in it just like banks use to mark robbers who have stolen sacks of money.
After all, we can’t ridicule them if we can’t identify them.
What color should the ink be? Pink with white flecks in it, just like Spam canned meat, of course.
Spotting pink clown-lippers on the elevator in the morning would sure lighten the start of the workday:
“Hi, Bob”
“Hi, Susan. Why, you’re certainly looking all pink and clown-lippy this morning. The idea of feeling like your head was jammed into an angry beehive seemed like a good thing, did it?”
“Shut up, Bob.”
Moreover, these responders are clearly so stupid, we could avoid lawsuits by printing “Warning: Exploding Ink Packet Inside” on all sides of the box, and they’d still open them. After all, they’re putting penis-enlargement cream on their lips, thinking that feeling like they’ve stuck their faces in beehives is benefit, and buying the product from someone who is even less accountable than a street-level drug dealer.
While the battle against spammers has seen mixed results, marking and publicly humiliating the idiots who keep them in business would at least be entertaining.
