E-mail is becoming erratic and dysfunctional

It looks as though spammers are beginning to succeed in making e-mail useless.

Several people have told me recently that e-mail that I send to their Gmail addresses ends up in their spam box. That is something new. One of the things that I thought was good about Gmail in the past was that one never had to check the spam box, because there were so few false positives. But now it seems that one will have to look in the spam box for mail. And also, when sending mail to anyone with a Gmail address, also send a text message to say "Did you get my e-mail? If you didn't, please check your spam box."

But when I tested it by sending a message to my own Gmail address, it came through OK without going to spam. 

I am quite unable to send e-mail to people who have iburst addresses though. It doesn't even reach their spam box, it just bounces right back to me. The only way to communicate with them is through a direct message on Facebook, or SMS.

Oh well, I think I'm going to have to start buying stamps again.

Cairns, Queensland, spam capital of the world?

Is the town of Cairns, in Queensland, Australia, vying for the title of Spam Capital of the World?

It sure seems like it, to judge from the number of spam comments about it people keep trying to post on my blogs.

I always delete them before anyone sees them, so I don't know why they bother, but it makes me wonder. It must really be a crummy dump if they have to pay spammers to publicise their town.

Still, I suppose being Spam Capital of the World must be better than remaining completely unknown, though even that title is probably beyond their reach.

Amatomu spammer gets away with the booty

What's hot in the South African blogging Zeitgeist today?

Booty, that's what.

No, it's not about Trevor Manuel's upcoming budget planning to fleece the taxpayers.

It's some foreign spammer trying to make a quick buck: New online casino no deposit codes… New online casino no deposit codes…...

Come on, Amatomu -- don't let them get away with the booty!