Political Campaigning in San Diego Using Spam Technique

Unsolicited spam mails were being distributed in San Diego for weeks as a part of political campaign in the city. These e-mails represented the mayoral candidates of San Diego, candidates aspiring to be in the City Council, and others wanting to be city attorneys, as reported by VoiceOfSanDiego on May 27, 2008.

People receiving the spam reacted differently to the rather new electioneering technique because of little knowledge they have about the impact of spam. However, some recipients said that the inflow of the campaign spam took away their interest from the candidates who pushed the unwanted missives.

As campaigns for political purposes become more competitive and expensive, the Internet serves as a new promotional mean. Thus, candidates use e-mail as another means to influence the voters. By distributing uninvited mass e-mails, they try to engage the electorate with just a click of the button. In the San Diego campaign, the message to inform the voters was being first decided and then sent in bulk to a specific section of the city's population.

Meanwhile, it has been known that Political Data Inc., an organization that collects and furnishes information on California voters, purchases lists of people's e-mail IDs from companies that collect data privately. Those organizations, in turn, obtain the e-mail IDs like other data on people from commercial Websites and online registration forms.

Nevertheless, recipients of the current campaign spam appeared frustrated due to the deceptive and annoying nature used in the e-mail marketing. According to the recipients, the messages hampered productivity while some demanded to know the source from where the candidates obtained their e-mail IDs.

The San Diego e-mail users also expressed dissatisfaction at the manner of collecting their e-mail Ids, storing them as a database and finally using them for spamming. They argued that this way any person could put them in an undesirable situation by using their IDs to send malicious messages.

One of the recipients of the spam mail, Herbert Wohl, said that the message was misleading as it gave an impression that he of his own volunteered to take it in, as reported by VoiceOfSanDiego on May 27, 2008.

Related article: Political Spam Traffic May Rise in Coming Weeks, Warned MX Logic

» SPAMfighter News - 6/7/2008