June 28, 2012--Unsubscribing

At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney (who grated on me), I hate junk mail. The mail-mail version and now the e-mail version.

I think of myself as a non-suspicious type. I do not see lurking behind every unpleasant experience the forces of evil or greed; but in recent months I have been inundated by unwanted and unsolicited e-mails. All of them trying to sell me something--shoes, theater tickets, political candidates, vitamins, Viagra.

Could it be, I have been thinking, that since Facebook began to make noises about going public--hustling an initial offering of over-priced stock to privileged investors--as my social network of choice was morphing more and more into a business venture, that they were selling information about me--my interests, proclivities, and e-mail address--to hucksters who in turn were trying to get me interested in Christian Mingle (where Jesus could help me get dates) or the Canadian Pharmacy (which could help me get the little blue pills I might need for those dates)?

Forget for the moment that I am neither single nor Christian nor . . . well, let's leave Viagra out of this. But either by coincidence or mercantile intention my In-Box has been flooded.

This is aggravating enough that I am fighting back. Under "Mark As" for each of these intrusive messages I keep clicking "Phishing Scam" in the hope that my e-mail provider--Hotmail--would then block any additional e-mail ads from Bestvite or Intimo Luxury Sleepware.

(As a sidebar I aver that I do not have a closet full of nightgowns--that is not one of my proclivities.)

In spite of this, my Junk Mail folder continued to be as full as before, and I was trying to resign myself to getting used to dozens of daily pleas from the likes of Elizabeth Warren, who I would vote for, and erstwhile Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, with whom I have had my e-mail fill.

But then I discovered Hotmail's "Sweep" window. I hoped that if I begin by clicking on Alan Grayson's attempt to get me to contribute to his election campaign and then hit the Sweep button, no more e-mails from him would ever show up in my In or Junk Mailbox.

Further, as a fail-safe deletion and blocking strategy I noticed in the finest print at the bottom of the bottom of unwanted e-mails, an "Unsubscribe" hypertext. Clicking on this, I thought, could be my final solution. And so I excitedly and simultaneously marked all these unwanted e-mails both Phishing Scams and clicked on Unsubscribe.

So now, my Junk Mail folder is empty of all entreaties except, wouldn't you know it, for those from the Canadian Pharmacy. Maybe they know something I don't. To be sure, I'll check with Rona to see . . . .