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American Morning
Revenge of the Telemarketers
Aired July 03, 2003 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You might call this the revenge of the telemarketers. More than 15 million phone numbers are already registered on that government do-not-call list. But the Direct Marketing Association, which filed a lawsuit to try to prevent the national registry, incidentally, says the massive hang-up will cost its group members about two million jobs. And telemarketers are now determined to, get this -- and this should come as no surprise -- find other ways to get their message across, if you will. So brace yourself for a barrage of e-mail and direct mail advertising.
Here to talk a little bit about this is Michael Miller. He is the editor in chief of "PC" magazine.
Michael, good to have you with us.
MICHAEL MILLER, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "PROTECT MAGAZINE": Glad to be here.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's assume for a moment there are some people out there who don't know what spam is, for just a moment, and give us a quick definition so people know what we're talking about.
MILLER: Basically, spam is unsolicited e-mail, e-mail that typically goes out to lots and lots of people promising offers from better rates on mortgages to things that you may not want to see in your in box.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I get about 150 to 200 every morning. It's a nice treat. But, of course, one of the problems I had is my e-mail address was out there on the Web for a little while. That's a big no-no. You want to really guard your e-mail address as much as possible, correct?
MILLER: That's absolutely true. Particularly you want to make sure you don't enter your e-mail address into things like chat lists in these online conversations, because when you do, these e-mail addresses are what's called harvested. In other words, the are programs out there that look for e-mail addresses and then make a list and then you get these e-mails.
O'BRIEN: And when you respond or do engage in any sort of commerce over the Web -- one thing that a lot of my friends have been doing lately to try to circumvent all of this is to get one of those quickie e-mail addresses at Yahoo! or whatever the case may be, and if it starts getting spammed, you just shut it down.
MILLER: That's absolutely a good thing to do. There are many free e-mail accounts on the Web, from hotmail or Yahoo!, which are the two most popular. Those are good. There are other services for Web mail like mail blocks that let you have different accounts, you know, say this is the one I use when I work with Amazon, this is the one I use for eBay, so you can track where you're getting the spam from, if that's happening, and then shut off those accounts.
O'BRIEN: So, that's the first thing you can do.
But big picture here, this is a big problem. When I'm, you know, spending a lot of my morning every day just kind of going through this junk, is there anything that legislation can do to get us out of this problem?
MILLER: Well, legislation is one thing that people need to get done to make this go away. There are laws making their way through Congress, making their way through some of the state legislators, that would make spam illegal or that would at least require these people to let you opt out of their lists and all that.
No legislation is going to be perfect, no matter what they do. But it's one step in the process. The others are software and just user behavior.
O'BRIEN: Of course, one of the big issues here on the Internet, whenever you get involved in an Internet discussion, is the jurisdictional issue, because, you know, some guy in Bulgaria can be spamming you and he doesn't pay any attention to the laws of California at all.
MILLER: That's absolutely correct. This is an international problem. There are things going on across the world and no legislation is going to stop everybody. So that's why you also need software that's going to get rid of, you know, a bulk of it. You'll never get rid of all of it.
O'BRIEN: Is there any doubt we're going to be seeing even more spam now that there's fewer people to call?
MILLER: There's no doubt that there will be more and more pieces of spam sent. What we're hoping is that software comes along and legislation comes along to block more and more of it, so that less of it actually gets through to your in box.
O'BRIEN: And did you sign up for the do-not-call list?
MILLER: I signed up for a state do-not-call list.
O'BRIEN: All right, now, if you could sign up for a do not spam list, which would be a nice thing, I suppose, would you do it?
MILLER: Yes, I would. But it would not be a perfect solution. It's one of many different things that need to happen to go forward.
O'BRIEN: The fact of the matter is these companies have something to sell and they're going to try to reach us no matter what, aren't they? MILLER: Right. And the big thing about spam is it's really inexpensive. At this point, they can send out millions of messages for just a few dollars. And therefore if even a tiny percentage of the people who get it respond, it's possible.
O'BRIEN: Could this be something that kills the golden goose of e-mail communication and Internet commerce if it is left unchecked?
MILLER: I don't think it's going to kill Internet commerce or e- mail. I think there are possibilities that we'll get to a point where free e-mail, where it doesn't cost anything, will disappear. There are people who have ides for charging for sending e-mail, which would get rid of a lot of the spam. I don't think we're there yet, where we need that, but it's certainly something people will think about.
O'BRIEN: Charging for sending -- so I could charge somebody to receive spam?
MILLER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I could make a few bucks on this, huh?
MILLER: That may be.
O'BRIEN: Well, that could change my opinion of those 200 spam messages I get every morning.
Michael Miller, "PC" magazine, thanks very much for being with us.
MILLER: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 3, 2003 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You might call this the revenge of the telemarketers. More than 15 million phone numbers are already registered on that government do-not-call list. But the Direct Marketing Association, which filed a lawsuit to try to prevent the national registry, incidentally, says the massive hang-up will cost its group members about two million jobs. And telemarketers are now determined to, get this -- and this should come as no surprise -- find other ways to get their message across, if you will. So brace yourself for a barrage of e-mail and direct mail advertising.
Here to talk a little bit about this is Michael Miller. He is the editor in chief of "PC" magazine.
Michael, good to have you with us.
MICHAEL MILLER, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "PROTECT MAGAZINE": Glad to be here.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's assume for a moment there are some people out there who don't know what spam is, for just a moment, and give us a quick definition so people know what we're talking about.
MILLER: Basically, spam is unsolicited e-mail, e-mail that typically goes out to lots and lots of people promising offers from better rates on mortgages to things that you may not want to see in your in box.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I get about 150 to 200 every morning. It's a nice treat. But, of course, one of the problems I had is my e-mail address was out there on the Web for a little while. That's a big no-no. You want to really guard your e-mail address as much as possible, correct?
MILLER: That's absolutely true. Particularly you want to make sure you don't enter your e-mail address into things like chat lists in these online conversations, because when you do, these e-mail addresses are what's called harvested. In other words, the are programs out there that look for e-mail addresses and then make a list and then you get these e-mails.
O'BRIEN: And when you respond or do engage in any sort of commerce over the Web -- one thing that a lot of my friends have been doing lately to try to circumvent all of this is to get one of those quickie e-mail addresses at Yahoo! or whatever the case may be, and if it starts getting spammed, you just shut it down.
MILLER: That's absolutely a good thing to do. There are many free e-mail accounts on the Web, from hotmail or Yahoo!, which are the two most popular. Those are good. There are other services for Web mail like mail blocks that let you have different accounts, you know, say this is the one I use when I work with Amazon, this is the one I use for eBay, so you can track where you're getting the spam from, if that's happening, and then shut off those accounts.
O'BRIEN: So, that's the first thing you can do.
But big picture here, this is a big problem. When I'm, you know, spending a lot of my morning every day just kind of going through this junk, is there anything that legislation can do to get us out of this problem?
MILLER: Well, legislation is one thing that people need to get done to make this go away. There are laws making their way through Congress, making their way through some of the state legislators, that would make spam illegal or that would at least require these people to let you opt out of their lists and all that.
No legislation is going to be perfect, no matter what they do. But it's one step in the process. The others are software and just user behavior.
O'BRIEN: Of course, one of the big issues here on the Internet, whenever you get involved in an Internet discussion, is the jurisdictional issue, because, you know, some guy in Bulgaria can be spamming you and he doesn't pay any attention to the laws of California at all.
MILLER: That's absolutely correct. This is an international problem. There are things going on across the world and no legislation is going to stop everybody. So that's why you also need software that's going to get rid of, you know, a bulk of it. You'll never get rid of all of it.
O'BRIEN: Is there any doubt we're going to be seeing even more spam now that there's fewer people to call?
MILLER: There's no doubt that there will be more and more pieces of spam sent. What we're hoping is that software comes along and legislation comes along to block more and more of it, so that less of it actually gets through to your in box.
O'BRIEN: And did you sign up for the do-not-call list?
MILLER: I signed up for a state do-not-call list.
O'BRIEN: All right, now, if you could sign up for a do not spam list, which would be a nice thing, I suppose, would you do it?
MILLER: Yes, I would. But it would not be a perfect solution. It's one of many different things that need to happen to go forward.
O'BRIEN: The fact of the matter is these companies have something to sell and they're going to try to reach us no matter what, aren't they? MILLER: Right. And the big thing about spam is it's really inexpensive. At this point, they can send out millions of messages for just a few dollars. And therefore if even a tiny percentage of the people who get it respond, it's possible.
O'BRIEN: Could this be something that kills the golden goose of e-mail communication and Internet commerce if it is left unchecked?
MILLER: I don't think it's going to kill Internet commerce or e- mail. I think there are possibilities that we'll get to a point where free e-mail, where it doesn't cost anything, will disappear. There are people who have ides for charging for sending e-mail, which would get rid of a lot of the spam. I don't think we're there yet, where we need that, but it's certainly something people will think about.
O'BRIEN: Charging for sending -- so I could charge somebody to receive spam?
MILLER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I could make a few bucks on this, huh?
MILLER: That may be.
O'BRIEN: Well, that could change my opinion of those 200 spam messages I get every morning.
Michael Miller, "PC" magazine, thanks very much for being with us.
MILLER: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
