From: Kee Hinckley <nazgul(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com>
I think it follows from this argument that the appropriate definition
of spam is very simple. Harassment. That's why I asked a while
back on this list whether harassment law and restraining orders (both
of which are based to a certain degree on the perceptions of the
recipient) might not be the best model.
Doesn't harassment require some sort of repetition and some kind of
obnoxiousness, threat, or other objectionable quality?
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=harassment says
it means "to annoy persistently."
http://www.safetyed.org/help/stalking/stalkusa.html and the rest of
http://www.google.com/search?q=harassment+legal
seem to suggest some notion of repetition is involved.
Would one polite, short, unsolicited bulk email message every 6 months
be seen as harassment by a court or other sane authority?--I doubt it.
How many individuals and organizations in the world might reasonably
send you an annual reminder of their existence and request for
permission to send more mail? How many bulk unsolicited non-harresmment
email messages would you like in your mailbox daily?
It is counter-productive to take with interesting connotations and
then pretend that their definitions are whatever is convenient. This
is as true of calling the use of surprising mail return addresses
"forgery" as would be of squeezing "spam" into a "harrassment" box.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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