Living in the "Brave New World"

I have interacted on and used the Internet since the late ‘80s of Radio Shack’s TRS 80s and Commodore 64 computers. I recall fondly the days when I’d use a land line phone modem to connect. Those days are considered the “Jurassic period” of the Internet’s history now. Over those decades I’ve seen the progression of its growth; from the Netscape browser to the advent of Google and the ever-increasing chip speeds, and water cooled gaming systems to handle the heat generated by them.

However, there is one thing about interacting on the Internet which greatly disturbs and annoys me, and, I’m sure, the vast majority of users across the nation. We all know it as “junk mail”. For the typical online user, dealing with these annoyances have been obviously growing futile as we lead and conduct our busy lives of doing business, or even just communicating with family online across the country, or around the globe.

Since I can only speak for myself, allow me to account what my experience has become of late. I’ve subscribed to certain organizations I wish to support, or receive information from. I’m also well aware of the reality of how business on the Internet and in the digital age has evolved and works. Some of these companies, or organizations, sell subscribers' email addresses to other similar type businesses and organizations as a way to make money. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2015 only set rules for commercial emails; whatever the term “commercial” means to the FCC. Hey, I'm all for "free enterprise", but it’s obvious to me that it hasn’t resulted in diminishing junk mail which has been growing at an exponential rate.

As a result, I’ve received “junk emails” from various online businesses or organizations to which I never subscribed. Consequently, I’ve used the “unsubscribe” links, found in very small font size, at the very bottom of a page, to take me off their list. This experience has resulted in the reality that there is a plethora of different “unsubscribe” formats, or designs. Some are immediate, informing the user that you’ve been removed from their list. Others require you to type your email address in to get the desired result. I speak from experience having been a web designer in the past myself. You know the drill because you’ve, no doubt, experienced this yourself.

Yet, my experience with attempting to “unsubscribe” has resulted in getting more new, and unwanted, emails from other previously unknown businesses, or organizations,  to which I never subscribed. My only logical conclusion as to why this happens is that upon unsubscribing from one entity, that entity then takes those email addresses for unsubscribe requests and sells them to other businesses, or entities, which are aligned with their kind of organization, or business. Otherwise, how would that new entity get my email address?

I’m sure there are probably other methods and means by which this happens, but it’s highly annoying to have to take time to deal with these pesky emails – often “click-bait” type ones – which have grown to exorbitant levels lately. I can hear those who might be reading this saying, “What’s your problem, dude, just use the delete button!” I do, but I spend more time pressing delete, than I do reading the ones I want to keep. I’m also aware of the fact that there are those who simply acquire a new email address on another provider to get away from them.

If this practice is breaking a law the FCC, or whichever other federal bureaucracy has regulated, then it’s obviously a lost cause, and very few, if any who engage in selling my email without my consent are being prosecuted and fined, or whatever they do. So, apparently, dealing with these annoyances is merely a fact of life in the digital age of social media and Internet use. And I’ve only restricted my topic to one narrow sector of online use which is now the dominant means of interaction for the vast majority of our nation’s population today.

Instead, our elected representatives, either in our state or nationally, are busy and overwhelmed with so many other priorities that the seemingly insignificant things – like pestering, unwanted emails – grows ever more pervasive to the point in the future when use will diminish significantly by user choice, and significant reduction of commerce on the Internet will result. Then again, with the younger generations not knowing anything differently, they will most likely just accept it as a normal thing in life.

But, when one’s lived during the period through which there was no Internet for the common user, to where almost every appliance or gadget we purchase today is in some way connected to the web, then it blows their mind about the “brave new world” we’ve evolved into. I shudder to think about what's to come!