April 03, 2007

Sorry I must have done something terribly wrong!

Sir, yesterday I suddenly received a pop-up in my computer informing me that since I had sent one same message on one same day to 500 recipients, Gmail had reasons to believe I was involved in some very dirty spam activity and so they had decided to sentence me to 24 hours suspension, which luckily did not include receiving emails. The sentence was carried out immediately, there was no court of appeal, and when I write this, I am already on my 36th hour and yet no release.

What did I do? I had just created a blogspot that contains some fresh questions that I think should be made to the candidates for the presidency of the US in 2008, so as to get to know them better, and I was communicating this to a list of professors and PhD students that I had found on the official web sites of the universities. To be able to send my other routine emails, as well as this one, I had to speedily open a competitor address ,yahoo, though I still shiver at the thought of what would have happened if they had suspended my incoming mail too leaving me totally incommunicado.

I am absolutely certain that in one of those small printed documents of understanding that I must have clicked I have accepted Gmail´s right to do as it pleases with me, but does this really mean they have the right to do so?, without any forewarning?, when they also make a living by transmitting their spam like ads with our private e-letters? I really do not know how to answer those questions but at least I immediately confessed to my wife and daughters what had happened, and they took it well, which lifted a very big load of bewildered shame from my shoulders.

Yours truly,
(Name withheld)
A presumably dirty spammer