Slowly the flood begins—one email message, then another, and another. The Help desk is receiving escalating incidents of people receiving email advertisements that aren't addressed to them, and users are complaining about receiving pornography and other offensive ads. You spend hours sifting through log files and tracking messages and finally go to the powers that be to propose that the company implement an antispam solution. You have a handful of good reasons why an antispam solution would benefit the company, but ultimately, the decision makers say no.
5 Spam Assumptions
In my experience, five assumptions are behind most decision makers' denial of the need for an antispam solution. After you understand what these assumptions are and what factors cause the assumptions, you can present the decision makers with the facts, allay their fears, and mitigate potential risks.
1. We don't get that much spam.
If you walk down a row of cubicles, you'll get varying responses when you ask how much spam each person receives each day. Some say none, some say just two or three messages, and others reply with an emphatic "Too much!" Executives and managers who don't receive much junk email often believe that spam isn't a problem because they don't hear many complaints from users. (One reason that executives don't receive spam is that their email addresses typically aren't exposed on the Internet. Spammers harvest addresses from Web postings, newsgroups, and other places that executives often don't visit.) . . .
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