From: Creigh Shank (no email)
Date: Mon Jun 02 2003 - 19:42:15 EDT
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not sure I care about explicit
consent. By picking up my snail mail I give implicit consent to the "junk"
mail I get. By subscribing to cable television I give implicit consent to
receive the advertising (notwithstanding, the original argument for cable
was that it would be advertisement free - remember?)
And by connecting to the Internet I give implicit consent to receive e-mail
from anyone who has the ability to send e-mail. (The Earthlink contract is
much less specific than you seem to believe.) Explain how I give consent
to someone who I don't know, who doesn't know me and who has a product I
might want (but don't know even exists). Frankly, this consent stuff seems
pretty silly. If you have an e-mail address, you shouldn't be surprised
when people send stuff to it.
The Internet is about the exchange of ideas: political ideas, ideas about
sciences and the arts, history, literature, and not the least, commercial
ideas. Sorry, guys and gals, I have to say the spammers, those who are
promoting legitimate products and services, are the good guys. Like it or
not, their efforts are good for us all (like castor oil?).
Creigh
At 04:08 PM 6/2/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>At 6/2/03 3:40 PM, Creigh Shank wrote:
>
> >Not much into bragging and not at all into the wasteful little wars between
> >the good guys and the bad guys (I'll let you choose which are good and
> >which are bad). I am trying to run a start-up Internet publishing
> >business, so I am interested in promoting legitimate products and services
> >that are delivered over the Internet. E-mailing (to targeted groups), web
> >sites and promoting through search engines (I hate pop-ups and refuse to
> >use them - they're intrusive) are all legitimate ways to grow my business.
>
>A suggestion: you'd probably get a better response if you weren't just
>using the vague term "commercial mail", since it's not clear if your
>definition of "commercial mail" is what other people would consider
>"spam".
>
>To gloss over some details, if you're sending e-mail to people who have
>consented to receive commercial messages from you, then you're getting
>all worked up for nothing: such messages are indeed legitimate (it's not
>spam, because spam is about conSent, not conTent). Many people here use
>postfix to send commercial mail to recipients who have consented to
>receive such messages; it's fine.
>
>On the other hand, if you're sending mail to people who have NOT
>specifically consented to receive messages from your organization, that
>would not be considered legitimate by most people (and it's prohibited by
>the contract you agreed to with Earthlink, for that matter).
>
>So you'll get a lot less hassle from others (or at least, more
>well-deserved hassle if you're doing the wrong thing) if you mention
>whether the recipients have consented to receive your messages, since
>that's what determines whether they are legitimate (and not whether they
>are "commercial").
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
> Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies http://www.tigertech.net/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>"It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to
>be a cat. Do you behave any differently?" - The Hitchhiker's Guide
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