That's right, blame the victim!

This is only peripherally related to process automation, but it is intimately related to ControlGlobal.com and our efforts to expand our services to end-users by providing as email newsletters more stories and commentary than we can fit in the magazine. Today I read an editorial by a fellow named Bill McCloskey, who is supposed to be a giant expert in email marketing, called "The Elephant in the Room." The elephant, he says, that everybody refuses to talk about is the great overreaction to spam. He points out that legitimate email senders (like yours truly) are being blocked by soi-disant vigilantes with unregulated blacklists, and legitimate receivers of email are just not getting it. Regardless of my problems with trying to get the emails you've requested to you, I cannot help but being amazed and incensed at the unbelievable chutspah this guy has. In my own case, I spend the first 10-15 minutes of every day deleting the average of 25 spam emails that make it past Putman Media's formidable filters. Imagine how well that sets up my mood for the rest of the morning. I don't imagine that your morning starts much differently. Mr. McCloskey says, "In the name of keeping us free of viagra ads in our inbox, we have crippled the most efficient communications system ever developed. We have allowed the free flow of information to be hijacked by fanatics. And because no one speaks for the e-mail industry, this is going on under our noses with no cry of protest. It is time to recognize the Elephant. It's time for all of us to throw open our windows and shout: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer." Mr. McCloskey, speaking for all the spam receivers in the process automation space, all I can say is that we're madder than you are, and you will have to reform the email marketing business before we stop blocking you. Even though it costs my company money to do it, we will continue to format our enewsletters to pass the anti-spam tests, to only send them to people who have requested we continue to do it, and to guarantee that every time we invade your inbox, we will do so with something of real value to you, that you can use in your daily work. You can rest assured that we have seen the real elephant, and it isn't the one Mr. McCloskey sees.