Oliver Siodmak’s Rants & Raves

Being a free citizen living in a democracy I am strong supporter of a free and open-market based economy. I have always believed that individuals have the right to choose how they live their lives and how they earn a living. Acceptance of that system means acceptance to all the things that go with it; bill boards, direct mail, television, radio, web and even e-mail based advertising. So do we as individuals who support this way of life have a right to say what is and is not acceptable? What is a promotion of a product or service and what is intrusive? I ask you, at what point did advertising become a combat sport?

At this point my mates in England are asking, “has he gone mad?” My response might be, “quite so.” For you see, I am posing these questions to my readers at 1:30am because some I spent a portion of my time tonight flushing out a long series of unsolicited advertisements posted to my blog as comments. Up until today, I had thought that spam, the annoying practice of sending unsolicited advertising … not curried ham in a can, was limited to E-mail and the occasional Usenet group postings. Alas, I was mistaken. There is a large number of individuals it appears that devote their technical aptitude to post Comment Spam on unsuspecting websites. For but I few hours today I was host to over 20 messages relating to Online Gambling. Fortunately, a friend noticed the posting and pointed it out to me. (Thanks Joe!) Within minutes I was able to activate some additional comment posting controls and limit the posting of additional offenses.

I guess the continous evolution of technology that has allowed millions of individuals from around the world to communicate in a way that only 15 years ago was restricted to the military and academic researchers has now been twisted into yet another advertising weapon. It begs the question, “should I continue to use this technology or just Opt-Out?.” For now, I will continue to remain opted-in. I can only hope that governments around the world work together to develop guidelines and restrictions that facilate the reintroduction of a level of decency back into product marketing and advertising. If not, more and more individuals are going to begin reconsider becoming unplugged vs. plugged in.

What are your thoughts on this issue? I’d love to know.

P.S. – Comments should be restricted to the subject mentioned above. Advertising relating to porn, enlargement of organs, mortgages, stock tips and free iPods should be limited to my in-box where it belongs! Thanks for your cooperation.