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Re: [Asrg] Another criteria for "what is spam"...

2003-06-04 07:40:02
At 11:47 PM -0700 6/3/03, Dave Crocker wrote:
Bill,

BC> Spam is email which is sent without a well-founded belief on the part
BC> of the sender that he has the specific permission of the recipient to
BC> send that mail and which is substantially identical form to mail sent
BC> to multiple recipients.

Imagine a student who is researching a paper and hears about a number of
different people who might have relevant knowledge.

The student does not know any of these people. The means by which the
student obtains the names (and email addresses) of these people is not
through "mutual friends", nor public rendezvous mechanisms (such as web
pages listing addresses), nor anything else that might be construed as
giving permission, explicit or otherwise...

The student sends the same query for assistance to each of these people.
It does not matter whether the student sends a different copy (with the
same text) to each recipient or puts all of the recipients into the
address list of the same.

Oh, you mean survey spam?

Hypotheticals are a problem because one can hand-wave relevant details. Your ellipsis is telling. How DID this student get my address? That's an important bit of information, and one which you are treating as unknown in its details.

(and yes, I have in the past and will in the future treat survey spam as spam. In most cases it is not simply rude and unjustifiable unsolicited bulk email, it is also a terrible research methodology.)
--
Bill Cole
bill(_at_)scconsult(_dot_)com

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