I refuse to give in

Soon-to-be-painted window ledge in our living room

A year ago I began receiving an increase in spam. Tons of it. It didn’t just wham-bam hit my in-box one magical day. Several additional annoying emails began to trickle in each day, and as months went by, it’s gotten ridiculous. I’m talking 200 or more a day.

I created part of the problem myself by 1) not setting up an alternative email address for anything that wasn’t personal or work-related; and 2) by including my email as a link on my website (which I’ve recently remedied).

Still, as the victim (yes, victim), I’m not to blame for what myself and every other Internet-using person on this planet has to endure. It’s incredible to me that there are indivduals out there who think it’s OK to send this crap. They have no idea how old I am. I could be an 8-year-old. And the bulk of these unwanted missives are pushing sexually oriented products and are totally inappropriate.

Every morning I have to go through and weed out the legitimate emails from the slew of trashy ones that have hit my account overnight. The easiest solution to this problem would be for me to change my email. But at this point, I’m just unwilling to do that. I own this domain name and I’ve had this email address for six years. I shouldn’t be forced into that. And I won’t for now.

I’ve casually explored some of the spam blockers and will spend a little more time looking into them. I just wish that there was more that could be done to address this problem. I’ve read articles about the people who send spam. They think they’re practicing freedom of speech. That’s an interesting way to interpret the situation. Too bad it’s not even close to the truth.