The current state of Email marketing has been a growing disdain 
for SPAM! What some are calling the biggest problem online 
today, that needs dealing with. Marketers both online and 
offline use SPAM as the reason via Marketing departments are 
not producing the results they are looking for.

It's strange to me, I've been sending opt-in newsletter for 
over 7 years and the last 4 years HTML email campaigns. In this 
time, I have seen the # of virus received by our company go thru 
the roof. There seems to be email addresses setup that only send 
virus out on an automatic basis, whether you send an email to 
that email or not. Also I have seen a slight increase in SPAM 
but only because we still have contact email addresses on our 
site, which is search and emails are harvested daily. But far 
from what everyone thinks, SPAM is seeming more like online and 
offline Marketing department scapegoat.

I've noticed in the last 10 years, that SPAM tastes a lot more 
like GOAT not pig. In recent years, I still get telemarketing 
calls on a regular basis all day and during dinner hours. Even 
bigger then SPAM, every day I check my snail mailbox, I find 
junk mail still arrives daily. Worse than that, the companies 
I do business with, including my bank, credit card company, 
mortgage company, and many other piece of mail are stuffed 
with 4-10 glossy papers of ads for hand sewing machines, flash 
lights, fake leather bags, books and anything else those direct 
marketers can stuff in a legitimate piece of mail.

TV is packed now with more commercials that make less and less 
sense, and in some cases offend viewers to get a response. 
Programs we tune into watch are packed with product placement, 
actors drinking Coke, reading Vogue, while talking on their 
Verizon cell phone. SPAM is not limited to email, but you can 
see it in all sources of marketing now.

It seems to me that email is not the main source of our over 
SPAM nation. I think it's time to put the responsibility on 
everyone who is involved in marketing offline or online. I am 
tired of email being the only thing people associate with SPAM, 
as if all other forms of marketing are the perfect examples of 
how to manage the email industry. When the truth is email is 
not the big BAD spam slinging monster, Marketing departments 
are, as well as individuals using grey market servers & software 
to harvest and blast email users. The same way direct marketers 
do to send you junk mail via direct mail and stuffed into every 
spot available in legitimate mail as well.

There are solutions for preventing SPAM, just like a Do-Not-Call 
list can benefit those receiving hundred of telemarketing calls 
a month. The problem still lies with the current marketers who 
use SPAM as their way of deflecting their own Marketing SPAM, 
whether it's via commercials, direct mail, junk mail, telephone.

We can no longer take a legitimate, trackable, measureable form 
of marketing in email and use it as the scapegoat for all the 
problems Marketers have created for themselves.