At this point if we could just get rid of the spamming which is best
characterized by its illegal/gray-area behavior I suspect the problem
would become much more manageable even if not completely solved.
That's one PR problem with all this, the more we focus on the message
(email whose contents I don't want) the more we're opening ourselves
to accusations of just being anti-commercial zealots.
Who can argue with something like:
ALTHOUGH spam covers a wider set of unwanted email it is certainly
(bulk) email which uses illegal and/or ethically questionable methods
to ensure its delivery including but not limited to:
a) Exploitation of open relays and proxies for transmission.
b) Forged and often purposely misleading header information.
c) Creation and use of computer viruses for transmission.
d) Encoding of the message and header information with the intent
to deceive filters and/or recipients.
e) Inclusion of phony removal and/or affiliation information.
f) Highly inappropriate demography (e.g. sending explicit material
to children, making no attempt to prevent that.)
g) Misleading and deceitful subject and other presentation
lines designed to trick someone into opening the mail.
h) Obscuring any possibility of identification of the sender
and/or beneficiaries of the mail.
etc.
I PURPOSELY DIDN'T CRAFT THAT to be finely-honed language so don't
start objecting that you see holes in some of the wording w/o further
clarification, of course, not my point.
I just wanted to keep it short and easy to consider, designed for
knowledgeable colleagues, not hostile skeptics.
MY POINT IS, a list like that is easy for legislators, the media, etc
to get behind and difficult for a so-called white-hat bulk mailer to
quibble with in contrast to definitions which focus on the
repetitious, unsolicited, promotional nature of spam. The latter make
spam sound like a lot of other annoying-but-tolerated advertising.
Obviously it'd be important to stress that this is just a first step
trying to deal with the worst of the problem and not intended to be
exhaustive.
Finally, and frankly, I think if we could just accomplish that much
we'd put the majority of the real dirtbags out of business, and then
can tune further. They can't tolerate accountability of any sort.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
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