ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] define spam

2003-03-29 20:25:47
From NOIE (Australian Goverment) Study on Spam:

"
Spam- Towards a Working Definition

Spam is the common reference to unsolicited bulk electronnc messages, 
usually electronic mail messages but increasingly SMS messages (text 
messages delivered to mobile phones), that are transmitted to a large 
number of recipients who have not requested those messages. They are 
usually - but not necessarily  commercial in nature; ie, they
generally promote or sell products or services. The bulk of spam messages 
also share one or more of the following characteristics:
 - they are sent in a largely untargeted and indiscriminate manner, often by 
   automated means
 - they include or promote illegal or offensive content
 - their purpose is fraudulent or otherwise deceptive
 - they could collect personal information in breach of the National Privacy 
   Principles (the recent extensions of the Privacy Act to business)
 - they are sent in a manner that disguises the originator; eg, from an
   Internet address other than that shown in the message as received, often
   involving the unauthorised use of an innocent third party's e-mail server;
 - they do not offer a working address to which recipients may send messages 
   opting-out of receiving further unsolicited messages.
While such characteristics are not essential to whether a message should 
be regarded as "unsolicited" or sent in "bulk", most commentators would 
probably not regard as spam direct marketing communications with all the 
following characteristics:
 - they do not include promote or include illegal content;
 - they are not deceptive in any way that would breach common law or
   statute law
 - they do not collect or use personal information in breach of the NPPs
 - they are sent to recipients who have dealt voluntarily with the sender 
   before and, on the basis of that existing relationship, can reasonably 
   be assumed by the sender as prepared to accept messages of the type 
   being sent (ie, the messages would not be unexpected).
"

The entire study is available at, hope it helps:
http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/confidence/Improving/Spam/Interim_Report/Interim-report.PDF

Also I'm currently reviewing all ASRG messages in archive for this first 
month preparing to make summary of work (its organized in same structure 
as work items list sent by paul) consisting mostly of links to some 
archived messages. It should be ready early next week and I'll post a 
link to that. There are already several messages I identified that 
are from "What is SPAM" discussions (note - I'v only reviewed 10% of 
archive so far - we really had lots of messages being posted first few 
days...):

What is SPAM?.
- Various discussions and definitions:
(see last part of email): 
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00026.html
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00171.html 
- Discussions of definitions based on consent:
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00155.html
- On definition of SPAM as "Unsolicited Bulk Email":
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00109.html
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00128.html
- Defintion from Brad Templeton's essays:
https://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/asrg/current/msg00075.html 
http://www.templetons.com/brad/spume/define.html 

----
William Leibzon
Elan Communications Inc. 
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>