I know, I know, it’s a computer column, but I’ve had enough. Something needs to be done about unsolicited spam email, especially the “adult” variety. No, wait, let’s call it what it is: pornography. And it’s getting worse. If you have an email address you’ve seen it. More often, more graphic, more disgusting.

Now, if these purveyors of filth were sending me this stuff through the Post Office, even in a plain brown envelope, they would be thrown in jail. Why should my email address be any different from my postal address? As much as I detest having to sort through letters from the President of Nigeria’s daughter asking me to launder funds, or the countless offers to increase my potency or decrease my waistline, they’re a minor inconvenience compared to these vile reminders of the seedy side of life. And don’t give me the “we can’t censor the internet” or “protecting the First Amendment rights of the pornographer” or “if we prohibit this, it’s another step towards Big Brother” arguments. And don’t tell me “just use an email filter”, because that doesn’t work.

Why do we sit back and accept this? Are we, as a society, so programmed and desensitized that we just don’t care? Of course, we ARE a society that blurs entertainment and advertisement, that accepts paying ten dollars to go to the movies only to sit through fifteen minutes of commercials. Not previews for upcoming films, mind you, but TV commercials for car dealers, fast food and soft drinks. But I digress.

What’s worse, these emails are coming through two email services that supposedly have strong filters at the mail server levels. These services have abuse-reporting email addresses that you can forward this stuff to, but I could spend most of the day doing that and I’ve got articles and columns to write, you know.

Now, having said all that, there is something you can do to at least lessen the visual impact of these porn emails. In order to display those disgusting images, each email contains HTML, the code that makes up web pages, which turns your email window into a “mini-browser”. In both Entourage and Mail (see, we’re back to Mac stuff), you can turn off displaying the images, and there’ll just be text there. Not the complete solution, but lest disgusting. It’s kinda sad we have to settle for that.

Keep those (non-spam) emails coming to petez@macmaineiac.com, and, as always, Semper Mac! Take care.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski