… is for good people to do nothing.

If you’re in the unfortunate position of having any sort of power in the organisation you work for, it cannot have escaped your notice that something is up. Of course, a bit of spam e-mail goes with the territory, but lately it seems to have hit new heights.

I’m not talking about the obvious peddlers of male enhancement pills and the world’s oldest profession; Outlook is good at trapping those. No, I’m talking about legitimate businesses, many of them based in the UK, who seem to think unsolicited e-mail marketing is a good idea. Sadly the legitimate interests clause in GDPR, and the fact that PECR is targeted at non-commercial users, mean you’re pretty much stuck with them until you ask them to stop.

The particular offenders in my inbox are recruitment firms peddling their candidates, and outsourcing shops wanting to sell me a stack of contract developers in Poland / India / wherever.

So here’s my plea to all you decision-makers out there: don’t take the bait.

On the rare occasion that what’s being hawked sounds of interest, drop it like a hot brick and rely instead on word of mouth and recommendations from others in the field.

If unsolicited marketing e-mails never got any result, they wouldn’t send them.