Online Faxing and Unethical Use

Online faxing is a highly convenient means of communication. Not only can it save you time on loading individual faxes into the fax machine, it can save you money. You do not need to maintain a fax machine, nor do you need to pay for a phone bill. In addition, online faxes enable you to keep track of any faxes you send and receive automatically, which for a busy office environment is a great bonus.

People who have already made the switch to online faxing will tell you that one of its greatest advantages is the ability to send a fax to email with the click of a button, and the ability to send the same fax to hundreds of recipients at once. Unlike a traditional fax where you have to feed the page in and enter each recipient individually, online faxing allows you to enter all recipients at once, and the fax is immediately sent to all recipients. While this is a great feature for those of us who plan to use online faxing in an ethical fashion, it opens up the door for those who wish to send out their messages, often unsolicited, en-mass.

Spammers can use online faxing technology to inundate your email inbox with unsolicited faxes. Being able to send out faxes at the click of a button means that they can literally spam hundreds of people at once, people who had no desire to receive the fax in the first place.  This is one disadvantage to online faxing, the ability for people to use it to spam your inbox. Fortunately online faxing providers have strict guidelines on how their technology should and should not be used, all in an attempt to cut back on the unsolicited faxes that people may inadvertently receive.