01. Advertising and email advertising

02. What angels won’t dare to do.......

03. An intelligent proposal versus unintelligent lawmaking

Advertising and email advertising

Now, this part of the discussion pulls me directly into an unplanned area. That of the ethics of advertising. Advertising is informing one’s version of thoughts, ideas, products, plans, and creations.

Now who does advertising disturb? Well, it would disturb anyone who sees a potential competitor getting a means to advertise about his side. I remember my own sending a single email to a number of persons in Karnataka inviting them to join a particular business idea. At least a few people reacted quite angrily, saying that I would be taken to task for SPAMMING. I do receive around 15 to 30 spam letters every day. However almost every one of them is received in the SPAM folder. A few odd ones that do enter my Inbox at times are the different ones from the ordinary ones. For all the hype about SPAM being a problem, the fact is that at times, I do get information on essential items and web addresses from these unsolicited commercial emails.

Some ten years back, I was bothered by the immensity of these letters. For, they used to come directly into my Inbox. Now, the very efficient SPAM folders available along with all the email services do their work quite efficiently.

It is quite easy for a silly guy to demand legislation for each and every thing here. Each and every new legislation is not adding to the security of the people. But rather giving additional rights to the low quality official class to meddle in the affairs of the people. A single experience with the Indian police can be a livelong torment for most people who live in this geographical area. When this is the situation, demanding newer laws, when the earlier installed laws are still not be made use of in a civilised manner, is just advocating the devil’s cause.

For example, there is the rule in India that beating children in schools by the teachers is a capital crime as per court ruling. However has anyone heard of any teacher being taken to task for beating children?

Look at the above post that came on an Anti-Spam site: All he has to do is to mark that particular email as SPAM once and that would end it. The argument would be that he has not time for that. Well the fact is that when he opens his TV or his newspaper, he would have to face a barrage of advertisements. He has no complaints. He is paying money to make use of them. So he can naturally put in a complaint that he does not want to be disturbed with advertisements. Yet, he wouldn’t. For, no one would listen to him. For, the advertisers are spending a huge amount of money to advertise their products. However, the feeling is that the persons who send commercial emails are not spending any money. It is not the truth. They are also spending much money, time and expertise for this purpose.

However, what would irk is that fact that a poor man can advertise as effectively as a rich man through the emails. That would really distress a rich businessman. He would want a terrible legislation that can send the poor man to jail. So that he has the field for himself. That in fact is the gist of hate for SPAM as of now. For, SPAM folders are doing a wonderful job, and there is no need for a terrible legislation for ending advertising. Without advertising economic activity can be stifled. And to limit the right to advertise to the rich is not a correct attitude.

The attitude is like this: For sending one letter, it would cost a definite amount of money. For sending, 10s of thousands of letters, it would cost an immensity of money. So using email for sending an immensity of letters is a misuse of the email system. Well, this argument has one flaw. Actually, even though emails can be called letters, when they are advertisements, they cease to be letters. They are advertisements, and to go through the inept logic of snail-mail versus email will not suit the discussion.

The commercials that come in the TV channels are definitely a great distraction. There is no legitimate reason that a viewer should be forced to view the advertisements that repeat every day. Actually, the viewer wouldn’t have a right to say anything in this matter in the old days, when TV broadcast was free and through the TV towers. Now, the viewers are paying customers. They do have a right say no to advertisements. However, nobody would. For, everyone has a remote control device that helps them change the channel when the commercials start. However if there had been no Remotes in their hands, it would have been plain mental torture.

Now, I heard this strange information about Kerala channels. Some of them formed a cartel to forestall the issue of the viewers changing the channels using a remote. They started a syncing in the commercial breaks. So that all the channels in the cartel would have the commercial break at the same time. So the viewers had no option other than to grin and bear it. Here it must be mentioned that forming a cartel is a business crime. Why doesn’t anyone speak anything about this?

Now coming back to the email commercial advertising issue, there is need to think beyond the issue of jailing a businessman. And to think of ways to see that the possibilities opened up by the internet is secured for all. That is what I am contemplating upon. However, before going into that I need to speak about the larger concept.

Once when I went to a newspaper agent and asked him to insert my palmlets in a particular Malayalam newspaper to distribute them along with it, he simply said that there had been express commands from that newspaper’s office not to do anything like that. For, such minor advertising was actually a competition with their own advertising department. However when I look around me, the whole roadside is full of hoardings and boards, and notices. I could say that these are distractions to my mind. Yet, I do not bother about them.

However, if I was a businessman I would really get annoyed to see a competitor’s advertisement glaring at me from the roadside. Now, this thing takes us to the issue of the rampant misuse of roadsides for posting of advertisements. It spoils the looks of the roads and the streets. And makes them more unsafe for vehicles. For, they can distract the driver’s attention. As well as block the view in many areas. Some huge hoardings spoil the skyline. However none of the persons who clamour for legislation against commercial emails do agitate against such things.

Now, coming back to the emails that end up in the SPAM folder. If I open any one of them, in my Gmail, I would find an immensity of Google advertisements also coming in with them. They are pasted on the sides of the email. Well, can I condone it? The answer is that I have to. For, I am using a free service offered by Gmail. If that be the reason that I should allow it, then by that very logic I can disallow the various TV and newspaper advertisements. For, I do pay to see and view them.

There are so many companies that repeatedly send the same content. It should disturb. However, very rarely do these emails enter the Inbox. However, there are other seemingly legitimate spammers whose letters do enter the Inbox. They include such famous online websites like the FACEBOOK, LinkedIn, Wayn and others. What they do is to tap the emails of their registered users and send more or less unsolicited invitations, putting up a pretence that their members had expressly requested them to do so.

Actually what has happened is only a procedure that is setup and which is activated as a new member registers. His so-called request is only what he is made to do without much forethought. Even the relatively lesser known Indian-US website where I had done blog posts has sent me a lot of emails. I used to get an immensity of invitations saying that this female and that female have requested me to be her contact. I understand that these are standard procedures and there is nothing personal in these requests.

Even famous jobsites have done similar things.

What angels won’t dare to do.......

The fact is that all these kinds of arguments would reach us nowhere. The Indian parliament would have no qualms about passing another ill-mannered and un-intelligent piece of legislation. For, it is this same group of people who have enacted such totally nonsensical Acts like the Right to Compulsory Education (note the combining of the words Right with Compulsory teaching under teachers whose knowledge and calibre match that of the members of the Indian parliament), Abolishing of Child Labour (Labour is not just cleaning toilets, but even doing a computer work in a great ambience is labour.

Children do have the right to work if they want), and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (a very prejudiced writing done by some rank idiot which makes the whole institution of marriage a crime, and the spirit of the act does not confine itself to domestic violence, but more or less runs amok into the many unconnected things).

An intelligent proposal versus unintelligent lawmaking

What has to be done is to see that a person can make use of the possibilities assured by the Internet to market his ideas, products, creations etc. without infringing upon the provisions of any nonsensical laws. I do not know who is in charge of the Internet. However, there is a definitely a global authority. For, if one wants to get a URL, one need to apply for it, and then register it.

Likewise if one wants to send unsolicited commercial emails, one would need to register one’s email for a particular amount. Say 20 or 30 dollars, depending on the size of the email in terms of bites. Once this is done, they can send any amount of emails, with a particular code prefixed in the Subject box. Something like Com/:

Emails arriving with such Subject prefixes would have to enter into a particular standard folder with such names as Commercial/ Unsolicited/ Business / Books etc. This folder box and the filtering system should be there in all email servers. The receiving servers would have the right to insert their own advertisements into the received emails. As per the default settings, only one email from one such registered email would be accepted for a particular period. Any more emails would be summarily rejected. This can even be set from content matter also.

Big businesses would certainly get distressed over this grand opportunity being given to the smaller businesses. Their refrain would be of the overload on the Internet and huge use of resources. Well, it is quite a silly argument. If they can burn up fossil fuel which they did not make, well then, they better shut up about another man using an Internet resource. As the way I see it, it would gather a lot of revenue for the global Internet authority in terms of registration fees. As to punishment, let it be reserved for persons who send unsolicited commercial emails without this proposed registration. For, they can clog the Inbox.

It is my suggestion that this is the way to work around a problem. It would bring in a mood of refined control and parameters into a field of activity which is definitely not a crime. The other cantankerous idea is to demand that the other man should be put in jail. Well, the very mood to jail another man comes from a very arrogant self-assurance that others will rot in jail, while he himself roams around as a free bird.

There is also this thing to be mentioned. When speaking about SPAM emails, the speakers invariably move into the issues of Phishing and financial scams, to support their arguments. These are totally criminal activities. Only a rank idiot would see a commercial advertisement and a financial scam as one and the same. For, both are different activities. The former, a business promotion and the latter an attempt at cheating.

Note: Unsolicited SMS on Mobile phones and commercial voice advertisements on the phone are quite a different matter. For, it involves a real physical disturbance of the phone user. It can awaken a sleeping man. For instance, I usually go to sleep in the afternoon hours. There have been plenty of instances when I had been rudely woken up by a voice advertisement. Along with this there is irritation of the mobile company incessantly sending me SMS advertisements of the various services and tariff rate offers. These things are real disturbances, in that they are either a rude physical calling or repeated message of the same theme.