I’ve got a bone to pick with New Line Cinema. There I was, so excited to be playing on their “Golden Compass” movie website and getting “matched” with my personal daemon that I wrote a blog post telling the world about the great site (okay, so maybe the whole world doesn’t read my blog, but let’s forget that for now). And how does New Line pay me back? By turning me into a virtual dartboard for spammers.
I’ve had my author website and its author email address running for ten months now, and in that time I’ve probably received a handful of spam emails. Total. But within minutes of typing my author email address into New Line’s website for the “Golden Compass” movie, I starting getting splatterd with spam at the rate of about twenty a day.
I don’t read any of the spam, of course. But the subject lines make it clear what the content would be. Never in my wildest dreams did I suspect that there were so many parts on the human body that could be enhanced, enlarged, expanded, pleasured, or medicated. Yikes! Not wanting readers of my blog to be similarly and so graphically spammed, I deleted the post I’d written about the GC website. I could not in good conscious be the arrow that pointed its way to a site prowled by spammers.
Yes, I realize that that’s what is happening. New Line isn’t directly responsible for the spamming of people who visit their site. Somehow, spammers sit on the most popular sites and “steal” the email addresses, and the “Golden Compass” website is a popular destination right now. “Phishing,” I think they call that practice. The thing I can’t figure out is why spammers do this? Why do they bother to spam? Does anyone actually buy the products that are advertised via such slimy practices? Seriously. I can’t imagine a scenario where someone logs into their email account, sees an email with the subject line “Never been confident about the size of your pecs? Try XtraSize+!” from a stranger calling himself “Elisio” or “Mauro” or “Big Daddy Cat”, and then says, “Huh, I think I’ll read that”… and then says “Wow, I must have that!” Honestly, the whole notion of spam puzzles me.
But then, I’m not the spammers target audience, so why would I understand it? I prefer to patronize businesses and individuals that don’t steal and outright lie to my face. Because that’s the amazing part–we all know spammers are stealing information and lying to get past spam filters, making up fake names and resending the same email that we already deleted ten times under ten other names. So why would anyone risk sending a spammer their hard-earned money?
Above all, spamming just seems like a lot of trouble to me. Are their returns really worth it? Does sneaking into millions of email accounts really generate that much business? I guess it must, or why else would they pummel unsuspecting people? Ooh, their tenacity drives me bonkers! I wish I could just turn back time and untype my email address at New Line’s website, a desire that actually plunks me solidly into the very demographic the spammers are aiming for. For in addition to being spammed by porn products, I keep getting a spam email with the subject line “Time Control.”
Time control, you say? Huh, I think I’ll read that one…
