scare quotes

this article in the los angeles times about a “legitimate” online marketing company uses scare quotes around most instances of legitimate, but never really discusses why. there have been other articles that have done a better job of describing the business that goes on in trading lists of email addresses, and all it takes is a few people operating in bad faith in that market to turn the folks that like to say (or think) they are legitimate into spamming chumps.

i do like that “alyx sachs” has a very syrup-like name for someone who claims to work in marketing. (sorry, i have too much respect for non-scare-quotes-legitimate marketing folks to put her in the same profession.)