So, after getting this press release, I called up the guy who sent it, William Mathis, the United States PR contact for Knox Software. I called him up to ask him to take me off of his list, and he quickly agreed, but I had a more important question to ask.

The E-mail I had received had no less than 150 destinations, and I could tell you who it went to, if I were as unscrupulous as Mr. Mathis. Not once, mind you. Not twice. In the interest of not sounding like Ron Popeil, I'll just tell you straight out that this came to my INBOX three times within the space of about an hour. Meanwhile, my E-mail address is in the middle of the spammage, waiting for some enterprising young spammer to grab it and put it on their list of dazzling open source news people. I actually managed to find about three or four other people on this spam-fest that I knew personally, and probably object. Of course, they got three copies, too.

For a moment, I considered E-mailing that entire list and asking them not to deal with Knox Software, because every tech company should have a basic semblance of proper netiquette. I thought about publishing a letter stating that we would never cover Knox Software on this website. Instead, I decided to do my good deed for the day. Instead, I decided to use one of my high-tech journalistic source tools (a telephone) to contact dear Mr. Mathis.

I called his number, which was on the bottom of his press release (damn nice of him), and asked for his extension. I opted not to dial the direct number because he might have thought I had an interest in his press release. Within seconds, I was connected to Mathis himself.

After we had come to an agreement on the spelling of my name, which he asked twice, I had mentioned that I recieved his press release.

"Great!" he said.

Now, understand that last week I was at the Linux World Expo in New York City. I have had my United States recommended daily allowance of 'cheerful marketing robot' for the next six months. I didn't feel like dickering with this. I wasn't going to be pleasant.

"No, not great. I want to be taken off of your mailing list."

"Okay, no problem!"

Oh, God. The big smile almost burst through the telephone. It was time to get down to business.

"So, William - When you sent out that press release, I want to know why you included the E-mail addresses of all the recipients in the header."

"That's a good question, and I actually never considered the option. I should have really thought of that."

"Will you do it again next time?"

"Of course not."

Good deed done, and it probably cost me about twenty-five cents. This is one marketroid that won't be bothering me ever again (if he knows what's good for him), and will be at least a little more cognizant the next time he feels like sharing my E-mail address with every damned news source in the open tech field.

It's not the spam that bothers me, it's just the total lack of decorum. If you want to convince me that my readers will want to hear about your latest tech-story du jour, then you better convince me you know how to operate a goddamned E-mail client.

See y'all in a week.

Emmett Plant
Editor-in-Chief
Binary Freedom