Subject: Re: [lojban] Lists and Spam

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 10:30:52 EDT

In a message dated 4/20/2002 7:58:14 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> He can't use it; he's a Windows victim.
> 
Well, aside from not feeling particularly victimized today, I will protest 
implicitly raising an issue that I am forbidden to raise from the other side.

Apparently, then, spam is not a problem for anyone really: some eliminate it 
before it arrives, others just delete unread it as part of their regular mail 
reading routine. some of us even get a kick out of some of it.
As for the privacy issue, as someone said, that was settled a couple of 
decades ago at the latest. Unless you are incredibly careful -- never 
subscribe to anything, never use a credit card, never buy any large item, 
never shop at the same store twice, don't have a social secuity paying job, 
don't have insurance, don't pay taxes and so on -- anybody who wants to can 
get as much information on you as the Yahoo questionairre gives, mostly free 
and the rest for a minimal price. The advantage of Yahoo's file is that it 
can be made reasonably accurate, while what is picked up from most sources 
tends to lump you into categories that may not really apply (as someone 
noted, pitchers are incompetent in the sense of rarely getting the individual 
right but hitting the mass pretty well). As a recent retiree (thanks former 
employer and federales) I get irrelevant medicare supplement ads one of the 
fringe benefits of my old job -- there were no core benefits -- is just such 
supplement from my old employment insurance, as the advertisers could easily 
discover). As a recent home buyer (thanks county governement and title 
insurance agencies), I get a lot of refinancing ads, even though there are no 
finance charges accumulate on a cash deal. As a male of a certain age, I get 
Viagra ads. And so on. At least Yahoo gave me an opportunity to cut those 
ads off (not that I think that the advertisers paid any attention).