It worries me that some people doing business online are afraid to identify themselves fully or even partially in some cases. It worries me that some people will surf up to that site and other sites like it, read it, like it, charge a considerable amount of money to their credit card and they don't know anything about company.

It also bothers me that people try to market products by email without identifying themselves (other than their email address and sometimes that is false) and expect to be successful. It reminds me of when I used to do a lot of snail mailings and response mailings would be very similar. No return address, no name and address inside envelope other than promotion company's address and an ID number on a circular. I know a lot of you have gotten those! And in most cases they went right in circular file. Well now you have a button that you can use to put them in circular file!

The company you should want to deal with is one that makes full disclosure of who they are, has a privacy statement that spells out what they are going to do or not do with your personal information, and provides accurate information about their products and services. You don't want to deal with someone who appears to be hiding behind a web page, they may be here today but gone tomorrow!

Do you use "Yours truly, Anonymous" as your signature file?

Joe Reinbold, owner of The Entrepreneur's Home Business Link publishes a free weekly email newsletter "Home Income Quarterly E-dition" which is dedicated to assisting online marketers. For a free subscription just mailto:subscribe@homebizlink.com or visit his site at http://www.homebizlink.com

I got one recently that said, "For Women Only". If it's for women only, well, then, why did you send it to me?

Then there was, "Are You Lonely Tonight?" Huh! I'm married with four kids, what do you think?

Oh, and I love these, "You've Just Earned a Commission!" Really? So, I've never even heard of you Mister, what was it, pc49837? And you're going to send me money? Wow!

The best, of course, are ones supposedly from some 'official' in one Asian country or another that is planning to escape to United States only he needs help transferring his $476 million 'escape' funds. All he needs is my bank account information and I can keep 40% of $476 million.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I love it! This is better entertainment than even I can write !

Oh, and how about ones that just say 'from Bobby' or some other name. Then inside it has links for 12 different things. No explanation, just links. Hey Bobby, just curious, you making any money?

Another funny thing is when email contains addresses of other 20000 people that got mailing, and opening line of text says something like, "Exclusive Opportunity!"

Really? Apparently you've taken it upon yourself to redefine term 'exclusive'.

I don't know. I just don't know. If you've got to send email to people about your opportunities, fine do it. Send me something relevant to what I'm doing and I might just read it, even if it is unsolicited.

However, I'm a busy man. I get a lot of relevant email as it is. It can be too much sometimes even. All I'm saying here is that non- targeted advertising is a complete waste of time and money.

I'm a 31 year old, American male who likes outdoors, Internet, has four kids, and a wife. If you send me email about erectile dysfunction, British opera, gay rights parades, or sushi houses, you're NOT going to get a response!

I believe that's fair, don't you?