Under the current description that I have seen, this email is
in fact SPAM because you are not expecting it.
Oh my, have we come a long way. I receive mail that I am not expecting
everyday, and I would definitely not qualify all of that as spam.
Lighten up! What do you want, a system in which someone has to ask us
permission before they can send us mail?
In fact, legally, the message from networksorcery does not qualify as
"spam": the source address is genuine, you can reply to it; the subject
line is not misleading. Indeed, it is sent to many people, so it is not
quite the same as a letter from an RFC reader asking what the heck I
meant in section 3.4 of RFC XXXX, but is definitely not the everyday
proposal to look at fresh flesh or pyramid investments.
Like it or not, at some point spam is a form of free speech. Yes, I
know, free speech by spending someone else's money, etc. And it is
irritant. But people seem to be quite irrational with spam. They are
ready to endorse all kinds of censorship proposal, they are ready to
broadbrush as spam any mail they don't like. I would much rather receive
some spam than see free speech suppressed, and I definitely want to be
able to send or receive "unsolicited mail."
Some feel that the netsorcery case is borderline spam, but our first
reaction to borderline cases should be tolerance! Remember the
robustness principle?
-- Christian Huitema