Holy rejection: When spam filtration goes wrong

We've all lived with spam for so long, that we're so tuned into the concept, that we often tune out the rejection process. While the Nigerian Generals will live long in the collective memory of the post-web society, there are more marginal situations where – to be honest – a little discretion might be a good thing. KitGuru opens up the trash folder – just to make sure.

While it might be hard to believe, major initiatives between ISPs, service providers and software vendors has meant that spam levels have fallen substantially over the past 2 years. Arguably the most famous take down in modern history was the Microsoft attack on an evil mailbot called Rustock, back in March. It immediately reduced world spam levels by a whopping 30 billion messages… a day!

In May 2009, CNET was reporting that over 90% of all email traffic in the world was spam. Now the latest report from virus-lubbers Symantec says that the figure has fallen to just over 70%.

OK, so back to our headline. What's the worst thing that can happen when we believe we've been targeted by a spam-bot?

The following image is presently floating around the web, next to a story that explains that the poor young lady who received a message requesting ‘help' at 3:04pm yesterday afternoon, might have over-reacted. You decide.

KitGuru says: This snapshot of web culture is humorous, but it's also a wake up call to any web marketeers who want to have a serious engagement with their audience. No matter how open and honest you appear, you could still get blasted with the verbals.

Comments below or in the KitGuru forums.

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