MaestroJ - digital strategy & new media

As part of Blog Action Day, this post will be dedicated to climate change (their ‘09 theme) relating to an online subject (my blog theme).

I started out thinking of writing a harrowing account of hazardous climate change effects and how the internet can help tackle it, but then Al Gore had already done that (not the internet part) and ever since reading the book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, (highly recommended) I’m convinced that negative reinforcement is not the way to go.

So my thinking then moved on to writing a totally-awesome-extremely-inspirational post about Green 2.0 and how online initiatives are helping address climate change, give some accounts of organisations already doing it, and relate it back to you, dear reader. But then I must be all out of inspiration juice at the moment, because the draft copy of that post, was, well…uninspiring.

So I stepped back and thought, why don’t I just make it about a single topic, that permeates with everyone online, and is still relating to the environment and climate change from an online perspective. And so I decided on spam.

Spam, the much maligned, irritating, dirty, and energy guzzling plague of the internet. McAfee released a report earlier this year stating that spam energy use annually“totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours…That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes”.

Furthermore, that the average GHG emission associated with a single spam message is “0.3 grams of CO2… when multiplied by the annual volume of spam, it’s like driving around the Earth 1.6 million times”

Those are pretty astounding statistics. Even if the environment isn’t a concern (and it should be) the fiscal burden of spam on industry is also enormous. You can view the full report here.

The insidious nature of spam, spam bots, zombie PCs and the servers that power them make it a very challenging thing to tackle. Action really needs to happen at an enterprise and government level.

But being a smarter online user doesn’t hurt either. You’d be surprised at how many friends I hear about still fall prey to the flashing “1000th user winner” banner, or get their vanity tickled by promises of revealing “who has a crush on [them]“. According to the report, much of the energy consumption is when users have to actively view and delete spam.

Below are some thoughts on being a smarter, spam-free citizen of the internet:

1) Be aware. While researching on this topic alone, I came across 5 different supposedly “anti-spam” sites that I’m 99% sure were spam themselves. Be mindful of the sites you’re landing on and whether they could be potentially dangerous. Verify that suspicious email you got. Spam file sizes are often small and contain random links. Hover over the link and check that the page url doesn’t look suspicious.

2) Protect your email address. Don’t fling it around in public forums and sites. There are often safer, more private ways of passing it on to others. Consider using multiple addresses for different purposes. Use an image file or type out the @ symbol “at” to prevent nasties from indexing it.

3) Report spam. Many webmail services have a built-in spam filter. If any find their way to your inbox, use the “Mark as Spam” option rather than deleting it. This will help the filter work more effectively. Even Twitter just recently stepped up their fight on spam, adding a “Report user as spam” link for each profile.

4) Use filters. Any webmaster or site owner will understand the value of spam filters. Make sure you have the most effective one for your needs.

5) Never, ever reply, click or open that attachment. If you’re unsure or suspect something is spam, then just stop right there and hit that “Spam” button. It’s not worth the hidden malware that burrows into your precious hard drive just to see if Lady Gaga really is a hermaphrodite.

6) Be responsible marketers! Yeah, I’m talking to you. Be aware of the Internet Industry Code of Practice, the Australian e-marketing code of practice and the Spam Act and Code of Practice. Check that your database comes from genuine opt-in sources and use targeted, relevant messages. Your budget and your users will thank you for it.