Caveat Lector

So I get an email from one Megan Farnum asking to buy an ad on my graduate school page. It is unprofessionally poorly-spelt, but seems sincere enough, and lacks the commonest feature of spam (that being, spammers want my money, not the other way ’round). The commodity to be advertised is not named. I am offered $30.

I could fire off “Scram, pathetic loser,” but that would be rude. Megan looks like just a kid trying to get a business (or something) started.

I could just delete the email, but that would be boring. So I Google Megan Farnum’s name, and look what I turn up! I also check out the domain listed as her return email address, and look what I find! I could call them skeevy Internet marketers with a lame brochureware site, but that would be rude.

I wonder, though… is Miss Megan stupid like a fox? For one thing, she is obviously targeting sites with respectable PageRanks (the page she wanted from me is PR 5; not great, but not bad either, especially for a static page) that don’t already have great green gobs of greasy-grimy advertising all over them. The sorority-chick email style got past my spam filters and actually got a personal response from me.

If my guesses about their motivations are true… clever, they are, but astoundingly slimy. I could call them scumsucking Internet parasites trying to goo up the last few bastions of advertising-free materials on the Web—

—but that would be rude, wouldn’t it?