Re: legitimate unsolicited commercial e-mail vs spam

From: John Malyon <jmalyon_at_artcyclopedia.com>
Date: Wed 3 Nov 1999 10:44:14 -0800

DAVID ROSS WROTE:
> I am writing a paper taking the position that legitimate
> unsolicited commercial e-mail (e.g. business to business,
> or directed at website owners, complying with
> proposed/actual federal and/or state legislation, with
> easy removal from mailing list, etc)should be
> distinguished from 'bad' spam (e.g. fake return addresses,
> pyramid plans, pornography, etc.), and should be
> permitted (if not actually encouraged).

I certainly resent the spam I receive in my inbasket as much
as anyone, but I do think that the common term "unsolicited
commercial e-mail" is too vague. I would certainly be afraid
of any law which enshrined this phrase.

"Unsolicited" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Who has
ever "solicited" e-mail, except when you forget to uncheck
those opt-in boxes which now appear on every web form? And
"commercial" is such a broad term that if I send you an
e-mail offering to advertise on your web site, that could
fit the definition of spam. For that matter, I have also
received non-commercial spam on a number of occasions.

I think the important thing that distinguishes spam from
conventional e-mail, is that it is a mass mailing. If I am
blind-copied on an email, or if there are more than a
couple of recipients, in my experience that message is
almost certainly spam. But if someone writes a letter to me
personally, I don't object to that even if it proves to be
of no value to me.

I don't have the perfect solution, but I'd like to suggest
"unsolicited mass e-mail" as a somewhat better definition.
Does anyone else share my concerns?

John Malyon
Owner, The Artcyclopedia
The Guide to Museum-Quality Art on the Net
http://artcyclopedia.com/





Received on Wed Nov 03 1999 - 12:44:14 CST