One of the largest trade groups in the software industry is using one of
the most reviled practices on the Internet to further its goals: spam.
The Software Publishers Association
confirmed that it sent email detailing the organization's Internet
Anti-Piracy Campaign to a targeted audience of more than 300,000 FTP system
administrators. The mass correspondence was designed to enlighten them
about software piracy, the group said.
The email, sent by Sandra Sellers, vice president of intellectual property
for the SPA, irritated many of its recipients. Many readers found one
passage especially annoying: "Pirate activity violates the integrity of the
Internet, utilizes valuable bandwidth, and crashes servers--often to the
detriment of your users and your system." Spam has many of the exact same
detrimental effects.
"In her very own spam, she stated that software piracy represents a drain
on Internet bandwidth. And what does she expect that 300,000 spam email
advertisements do? Glide silently on little mice feet?" wrote one angry
reader.
The unsolicited mass emailing by a software advocacy group underscores how
seductive the Internet can be as an inexpensive means to reach thousands of
people, despite the odds that the recipients won't appreciate the message.
"We do a lot of proactive education about piracy," said Sellers. "This is
the first time we have used a target audience, FTP sites."
Sellers, who said the mailing was a "one-time thing," called the email
"purely educational." But that didn't stop recipients from feeling a bit
anxious, and then annoyed, when they received the mailings with the
foreboding subject heading: "SPA Piracy Notice."
One business owner who didn't want his name to be used in criticizing the
SPA said he received the email even though he is not a systems
administrator and doesn't know how to operate an FTP.
"It's like getting a note from the IRS: you don't know if it's a refund or
an audit until you've opened the envelope," he said. "By then you've
already had the heart attack."
Although he pointed out that he had no problem with the body of the
message, he said the incident "further reminds me, as a business owner, how
important it is to be overly sensitive with email."