BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL, ISSUES IN COMPUTING

SPAM ON THE WEB

CHARLES W. GOLDEN

TUI UNIVERISTY

Anyone who has dealt with computers in the last ten to fifteen years has also had to deal Spam [1]the problem with spam is that new users don’t fully understand how dangerous spam actually is. Along with the computer usage that these spammers constantly decrease there is the cost to clean up the after math of their barrage of useless emails and chain letters, not to mention all of the pointless advertisements. Part of the problem is that the basic user does not understand the ability to send and receive emails are a privilege provided by the company, with the full intention that the service will be used for work. If the average user was charged a fee for their internet and email usage during work hours, I can almost guarantee that resources that the company currently has allocated for this application would be decreased by almost 60%. When we accept spammed content on our computers we open ourselves and our employers to a host of unforeseen problems, such as [2]Viruses which are one of the oldest computer threats and people don’t take them seriously until theirs is infected. But one of the worst forms of spam is Phishing, this is where spammers trick you into releasing your personal information, this information can be used to gain access to your company’s server or even worst your financial information. In the case of [3]Scott Richter and his business practices, his argument was that his company was involved in electronic marketing, which he felt gave him the right to use the internet as a form of free advertising. Although we live in a country where free enterprise is highly admired, he cannot interfere with another company’s ability to function for which it was intended. If Scott Richter’s company is sending out 100 million email messages a day the servers processing these emails are being utilized for his company’s personal gain and not that of the company that is being bombarded by these emails. I would agree that Microsoft had a right to pursue charges against the president of OptInRealBig.com and any other company that used the same business tactics which in essence countermanded all of the network administrator efforts to safe guard their company’s network and this type of attack increases the resource budget trying to counterman these attacks. As stated I don’t disagree with Scott Richter’s right to increase his company’s profits, but the fact that they misrepresented themselves by using dummy email accounts which contained over