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The other day I was surfing the digital waves of the internet when I
found something interesting, maybe even amazing. A rather large,
flashing banner displayed along the top of my current swell informed
me that, “If this banner is flashing, you have already won!”. No way!
Me? Oh, yeah. All I have to do is enter my email address so they
can send me the prize information.

Of course, I didn’t win (and no, I didn’t really think I had). These sad
attempts at trickery are rampant on the net these days, rather
they border a favorite web page or clog my email like so many
leaves in a storm drain.

To me, they are generally just an annoyance. To those not so well
versed in technology, they can make the internet a confusing, annoying
hell. Sometimes, they just piss me off.

It’s not like I don’t accept advertising as a necessary evil. We are
bombarded with it every day on TV, on the radio, in the mail,
along the side of road, plastered on our favorite sports figure,
on our children (You think I’m kidding? Check
this out.), and more. It’s just that deliberate lies, intended to reel in
the gullible or confuse the technical deficient, are just
plain wrong.

Should laws to used to enforce this stuff? My normally
laissez-faire attitude is taking a beating because, at some point,
it needs to stop. My email is not the community dump.
The internet should not be a playground for
these companies to molest us with one useless product or another.
Save that for late night television and
QVC. At least then, a simple
turn of the switch or press of a button can relieve us of this anguish.

Maybe we could all reach a compromise here. Spammers, agree not
to outright lie in your advertisements. We’ll agree to occasionally take
you all out back and beat you with a stick (preferably a big stick).
Heck, we’re still getting the raw end of the deal.

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