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

--On Saturday, June 07, 2003 5:36 PM -0400 mathew <meta(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com> 
wrote:
> - It is from a source which it is hard or impossible for the
> recipient to stop from sending further messages.
There are ~25,000,000 small businesses in the US alone. If 10% of 
them decided to send you one email per year, you would get 6,849 
peices of mail a day.  It would be hard or impossible to get those to 
stop.
> - It is unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail from an organization the
> recipient does not have any prior relationship with.
Define prior business relationship.  If I have a store credit card 
with Company, Inc., and have never given them my email address for 
any reason, do they get to e-pend it from other sources, merely 
because they can?  Yes, I have a business relationship with Company, 
Inc., but they were never granted permission to extend that 
relationship into an arena I have not chosen to invite them into, 
namely my inbox.
How about registering software or a waffle iron for waranty purposes? 
If I don't give them an email address, do they have a right to go 
find one, because we have a "business" relationship?
Is a bulk email for a survey or to preach to me about the Church of 
$diety or to ask for donations spam?  It's not commercial.
Spam is not about content, it is about consent.


> - It is bulk e-mail from an organization the recipient does have a
> prior relationship with, but the subject matter of the e-mail is
> outside the scope of subject matter about which the recipient
> agreed to receive e-mail from the organization.
Define "agreed".  The recipient and the sender often have varying 
definitions of "permission".
> - It is bulk e-mail from a source the recipient has requested not
> send him any further e-mail.
One free bite? No.



http://mail-abuse.org/standard.html

An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal 
identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally 
applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient 
has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable 
permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception 
of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate 
benefit to the sender.
DISCUSSION:

(i) Trivial or mechanised personalization such as "Dear Mr. Jones, we 
see that you are the holder of the JONES.COM domain" does not make 
the personal identity of the recipient relevant in any way.
(ii) Failing to click the "do not send me marketing literature by 
e-mail" button in a web sign-up form does not convey explicit 
permission. Only when the default result is "no followup e-mail" AND 
the inbox impact is clearly stated before any action which changes 
this result, can permission of this kind be conveyed.
(iii) The appearance of disproportionate benefit to the sender, and 
the relevancy of the recipient's specific personal identity, are 
authoritatively determined by the recipient, and is not subject to 
argument or reinterpretation by the sender.
(iv) Non-personal e-mail always places a disproportionate cost burden 
on the recipient, and is considered to disproportionately benefit the 
sender unless it was verifiably solicited or by the recipient's 
willing exception.
(v) A message need not be offensive or commercial in order to fit the 
definition of "spam." Content is irrelevent except to the extent 
necessary to determine personal applicability, consent, and benefit.

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