When Did Marketing Become Malicious?

What's malicious marketing? I'd say it's when an attempt to advertise is done using your resources without your consent. I'd extend this to include public resources, as they belong to everyone to some extent.

Spam is of course the most pertinent example of this. Conveniently this provides an opportunity to pitch SpamButcher, a powerful email content filter application. A trial copy of the said product can be downloaded by clicking any number of links on this website.

My two least personal favorite kinds of malicious marketing (after email spam) are telemarketing and street spam.

Telemarketing is painfully similar to email spam; you're forced to use your time to answer a phone call selling your products you almost certainly don't want. In a rare case of efficacy, the federal government's "Do Not Call List" has actually helped with the problem substantially.

I've recently purchased a "spam filtering" service for my phone which significantly helps with remaining callers. It operates on the same premise as a challenge-response anti-spam system. The caller is forced to press "1" to indicate they are not a telemarketer before their call is allowed through.

Street spam is when an advertiser posts signs on public property promoting their business. Often these signs are in violation of the law. Ironically, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is a major violator of these laws.

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