Wednesday, August 18, 2004
I love the smell of spam in the morning.
From: mias@speedy.com.pe
To: mias@speedy.com.pe
Subject: Client Referral
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 07:52:30 -0500Dear Customer,
Be the very first listing in the top search engines immediately.
Our company will now place any business with a qualified website permanently at the top of the major search engines guaranteed never to move. This promotion includes unlimited traffic and is not going to last long. If you are interested in being guaranteed first position in the top search engines at a promotional fee, please contact us promptly to find out if you qualify via email at mias@speedy.com.pe This is not pay per click.
The following are examples on Yahoo!, MSN and Alta Vista:
Company: Eco Summer
URL:http://www.ecosummer.com/trips.html
keyword: adventure travel vacationCompany: Dana Hursey Photography
URL:http://www.hursey.com
keyword: location photographerCompany: Oahu Dive Center
URL:http://oahudivecenter.com
keyword: oahu scuba divingSincerely,
IGN
The Search Engine Promotional Consultants
This is an interesting piece of spam.
The wording they use is rather peculiar—“permanently at the top of the major search engines guaranteed never to move.” A quick reading of that lead me to believe they would make sure your website would always come back in the top position for a given query forever and that the result position for your website would never move down (or conversely, up either). But the placement of “guaranteed never to move” could modify “major search engines.”
“But your Honor, we never said search engine placement would never move. All we guaranteed was that the search engines themselves would never move. And have they moved? Nay, I say! Nay!”
I also like how they imply they were responsible for Eco Summer getting top placement at Yahoo (but not at MSN at the time of this writing) but again, the weasel words allow out.
“But your Honor, they were but examples as it clearly states in the email. We never said they were customers of ours.”
I do hope that mias@speedy.com.pe doesn't mind my interpretation of his email. I also hope he doesn't mind all the wonderful offers (“3xp@nd ur mortg@ge by 3 !nche5!”) he'll start receiving at mias@speedy.com.pe as his email address is scrapped from this webpage.
