How landcutters are still hurting the mainland

You are immediately into edge cases / slippery slope with that line "would have an interest".
Everybody would be interested in making money, therefore if X sends a message to everybody about a money-making scheme, X isn't spamming?
Everybody probably has a need for insurance policies of some kind, so if X sends a message to everybody about insurance, X isn't spamming?
A common "This is not spam" disclaimer that I've seen in spam is a claim that the sender is simply bringing valuable information to the attention of the recipient.

In my juristiction, the legislation allows businesses to send unsolicited email to other businesses, but must contain a clear and effective zero-cost opt-out mechanism.
Unsolicited email must not be sent to non-business addresses unless the sender has a business relationship with the recipient and even then can only relate to the particular product or service category which was the subject of the relationship.

I will cheerfully report unsolicited commercial email as spam even though the legislation here does not define it as illegal. It's still spam, and the spammers deserve to be listed in blocklists.

Unsolicited email does not scale well.
If I'm in the business of selling ballpens/widgets, I do NOT wish to receive unsolicited email from a thousand ballpen/widget suppliers.
If I want to ensure that the ballpen/widgets that I offer to my customers are the best, then I will research all possible suppliers. I don't sit on my butt and depend on a few of the potential suplliers to send me unsolicited email.






Sending a message that is the same or substantially the same to a number of people is defined as bulk in any legislation that I've noticed.
'Bulk' does not equate to spam. To qualify as spam, the messages have to be unsolicited.

UBE is spam.
"I only sent a few" / "I only spammed a little bit" / "It was valuable information for the recipients" are all disclaimers that cut no ice.
Once you start allowing some UBE to be not-spam, you open the floodgates. You end up with pages of definitions to be teased out and worked around.
It simply does not scale.

If one land dealer IMs all landowners in a sim, you might argue that the incoming load on the recipients is negligible.
What if a number of land dealers (or extortionists even) do the same?

It's not uncommon to see a parcel changing hands a number of times until the 'last idiot' buys it. What if each of those people IMs all the landowners in the sim?
What happens in a sim with a high turnover of parcels?

What happens if someone produces a cheap (or Open Source) landbot that includes the IM-the-neighbours function? Let's say a few hundred people set such a bot loose with a small tier budget.
Even worse, hat happens if that cloud of bots all arrive at a fresh field of micro-parcels?


Your line also seems to be that unsolicited IMs are not spam, because *in the opinion of the sender*, the recipient should/could be interested in the information.
It doesn't stand up. It doesn't scale.




If the notification of land becoming available in a sim is a valuable service, then people can sign up for that service.

Many businees people note in their Profiles that their IM's get capped - so try a notecard or try again - later - sometime.

If Unsolicited IMs are not stamped on, ordinary non-business avatars could end up having to accept that IMs between friends get eaten by the unsolicited business IMs capping the message limits. It's the equivalent of 'Mailbox Full", but without the sender being notified that the recipients mailbox is full.
In SL, we have very small IM mailboxes. We should guard them carefully.

Oh come on, you have already forgotten the discussion we had about them at the time? Landbots eliminated the low tail of the price curve, pushing the minimum price up and making the market look healthier than it really was.

Kind of like the part automated buying and selling had in the current RL economic boom and bust.

I distinctly recall the discussion but the main part of it that I recall is that I thoroughly, unquestionably proved the theory to be total poppycock. If I hadn't bought "the tail of the price curve" then Sarah Nerd and her button mashing cohorts would have done.

True, but then LL put a throttle on Search.
This did slow down the human button mashers. It also made it difficult for individuals who were simply looking for a place to use.
It did nothing to stop the bots, as the obvious counter measure was to federate more bots.
Button mashing groups would have had to recruit and coordinate more human button mashers.

So, we're going all ad hominem now? OK...

I think we're done with this argument at this point. As far as I am concerned, you are quite wrong, and we will just have to agree to disagree. I fully support what Elanthius did, and think it was wrong for him to be sanctioned by LL over it. It was NOT spam, and it was not harmful in any way. It only benefited the people he sent the messages to, and doesn't open the window to just "any old spammer".

Because I respect you otherwise, I am not going to pursue this any further, since it doesn't appear anything more positive is going to come from it, and I certainly have no desire to respond to the ad hominem goad.

No. I genuinely did not understand the point you were making.

You think so, but the predictions I made at the time were borne out by reality.

I think Elanthius is right about this: if bots hadn't been doing the buying, then humans would have.

The bubble was created by DEMAND. We all recall the stats about the huge influx of new Residents during the months before.


I don't see how 'making the market look healthier than it really was' could even work, if not for Demand.

There were more people wanting more land. Addtionally, the fact that the Lindens stopped auctioning off whole sims contracted the supply. That's what made the bubble.

Wow.

That really leaves it wide open.

This means that a single IM can be considered 'spam'.

Wow.

I hope that their investigation involved verifying that many messages were sent.

It is not spam if a person (or bot) IMs other occupants of a sim that a piece of land in the sim has been set for sale. LL can "deem it" as whatever they want - including spam - and they can act on it whatever way they want, but it isn't spam.

Neither is it spam to message people and parties who would be interested to know the information, as in the new range of ballpens. As Sling mentioned, the abilty to opt-out of further messages must be included with email messages.

The idea that it's a small step or two to being fully fledged bulk email spam is ok, but remember that bulk email spam is a small step or two away, so it isn't spam.

Yes, people have made that argument.

Try a thought experiment.

Go out and pick up a newspaper. Go to the classified section. Count the ads.

That's the number of people who had something they thought was important enough to spend a few bucks on a classified ad to get to you.

Just for one city, for one day.

If it was OK to email people you THOUGHT would be interested in what you were offering, that's how many people would take advantage of it. Every day. In every city. And every city is just next door to you on the Internet.

SL is a small city, so you probably wouldn't get QUITE that many IMs, but if it was OK to send a few hundred IMs a day to people you THINK are interested in your offering, but who hadn't asked for it, then that's what you'd be faced with.
It's not just a step away from full fledged bulk mail spam. It *is* full fledged bulk mail spam. Because it just takes a fraction of the population of SL to follow to make IMs totally useless.

So, sometimes I look at parcels for auction. Sometimes I notice that they would fit really well with a neighbor's parcel. Sometimes I leave an IM to that neighbor, alerting them to the auction, its closing time, and the URL to the specific parcel auction page.

It's unsolicited. I have no way of knowing a priori whether it's "wanted" information or not. And sometimes I see more than one of those on the auction list--this morning I sent two, for example.

By this definition, am I a spammer?

By which definition? By the Lindens? I don't know. By the accepted definition?

* Unsolicited, check.
* To strangers, check.
* Broadcast (bulk)...

Is it broadcast/bulk? Do you send out hundreds a day or a dozen a month? Something in between?

No Qie - you are not a spammer.

Argent. Your argument doesn't hold up. It could be said that everyone is interested in expanding the the male sex piece, but that's not common sense. It could be said that all retailers that sell ballpens are interested in a new range that a manufacturer has made. Emailing all of the first is spam, but emailing all of the second is not. To argue otherwise is just being pedantic about some definition or other, and I've heard it all before.

You are too hung up on the word "bulk", and it doesn't look like you understand what is meant by it in this context. It doesn't just mean "a large quantity".

This reminds me of the speed limits in some areas. "Reasonable and Prudent" has been proven effective, because driving 61 MPH in a 60 MPH zone is not necessarily dangerous. Driving 59 MPH on black ice is dangerous, but is unenforceable under the 60 MPH rule.

Elanthius did this to offer opportunities for neighbors and make proactive steps in curbing extortion. He was "reasonable and prudent" by targetting only specific residents and limiting the IMs to a single instance. When examining intent in this case, "spam" is a real stretch.

Meanwhile, automated shouts, unsolicited group invites, camp/traffic bots, notecard greeters, useless anti-copybot scripts, extortion and who knows what, are still epidemic.

It's only one of the three parts in the definition I gave, so no, I'm not "hung up" on it. I didn't even use the word "bulk" in the definition BECAUSE it's too easy to misunderstand, so, yes, I DO understand it and if you use an automated system to send a large quantity it's absolutely broadcast/bulk... and it doesn't take very many to be "a large quantity".
Yes, there are many worse examples, I entirely agree. And I have already said that this might well be a case where spamming might be excused... but not by defining the behavior as something other than spam, because THAT opens up too much opportunity for abuse.

Sorry, I did mean the Linden definition, which as worded ("unwanted or unrequested messages" would include my auction IMs at least some of the time (e.g., the recipient has already bid, or is at tier limit and really doesn't want to be reminded, or whatever).

And of course I have no pre-existing business relationship with those recipients. At least at the very low volume at which I'm transmitting (a scarce few a month), it wouldn't *seem* as if I'm spamming despite not knowing the recipients from Adam.

So really, there are two main differences between what I do as a kind of lame "hobby" and what Elanthius was doing as a service: foremost, as you say, "bulk", and secondarily, perceived commercial intent. Neither LL nor Argent include commercial intent as a criterion for spam, so perhaps we should ignore it, but I have a hunch that it's what generated the AR and ultimately determined G-Team's decision (whether or not they admit it--or were even conscious of it).

So, back to "bulk". The term isn't quite on point in Elanthius' case, because it implies great similarity among the messages which just isn't the case. The actual information contained in each message (*these* parcels are for sale in your sim) is different in each sim. It's really "volume" more than "bulk." I think the same result would obtain even if each message were hand-delivered by individual low-wage minions, and specifically tailored to the recipient ("...this may make a nice addition to your parcel at *<coordinates>*, and would add *n* prims to your current *x* prim limit in the sim, of which you currently have only *y* to spare. Oh, and did you know that if your land were group-owned, you could save 10% and easily cover this additional parcel without paying additional tier." Etc.) I think the minions would still get suspended, even if over half the message text and 90% of the information were completely tailored to each recipient. That's not "bulk" by any stretch of terminology.

But tbh, personally, I don't give a damn whether something is properly termed "spam" or not. I do care, however, what kind of communications are permitted in SL. At present, Elanthius' service is forbidden, yet LL takes no action against the spampire virus owners, where the messages are 100% identical, and in much, much greater volume. 'Splain me that, please.

The LL response that Elanthius posted was the outcome of a review. This should imply that the situation was considered at greater length than it might have been when an abuse desk person processed the initial AR(s).

LL had the option to consider that this was a pro-bono action. However, if the messages were calling attention to a reverse auction, then they probably rightly considered that this was a case of unsolicited IMs being broadcast purely to maximise profit. The reverse auction bit would really have the scent of extortion.
Even if the land was being offered at a fixed reasonable price, the unsolicited messages were would be sent by someone who wished to benefit from maximising turnover.



An opt-out mechanism does not convert spam into not-spam.

What you are looking for is a special TOS clause for land sales only, allowing for (a single) IM to other landowners in the sim.
It would have to be that specific, or the floodgates open.

It would have to specify a single message only, or some people would send at least one a day. Some would demand to be allowed to send unlimited quantities as IM's get capped and there would be a danger that the recipient would not get the valuable IM
Landcutters would have a field day.


Are there other situations in which it would be not-spam to broadcast IMs? If so, the TOS would need to list those as well.
Who decides that it's not-spam? The sender?


How about sending bulk IMs promoting a low-prim furniture?
*Everybody* should be interested in low-prim stuff so IM everybody.
or
Anybody who visited your store was interested in low-prim stuff at the time, so IM everybody who was ever detected on the parcel, even if they didn't join your group.
Keep IMing them with new products unless they jump through your opt-out hoop.

Take that to its logical conclusion. What if everybody running a store or club began to IM everyone who visited their parcels? The argument woud be that they had displayed an interest in the content.

Unsolicited IMs do not scale.
In SL, with our very limited capacity for storing IMs, unsolicited IMs would create damage far more rapidly and severely than unsolicited email did in RL.

Yeah, see, but "logical conclusion" runs both ways, scaling down not just up. How tiny must the volume be, such that it doesn't matter that it's unsolicited? It can't be "spam all the way down" because that would mean nobody could initiate an individual IM conversation with a stranger at all, ever, making SL the world's first Antisocial Networking site.

What about notifying customers that a free product update is available? How is that not spam by these definitions? (It's unsolicited, may be unwanted, and completely bulk.) Do I have to get each purchaser to explicitly opt-in? And for transferable products, what about the new owners: is it okay for agreement by the original purchaser to encumber subsequent owners to receive the update "spam" until they opt-out?

Like I said, I have no idea, but I *hope* they looked at logs to see how many messages he was sending.
So you fail the bulk/broadcast test.
Yes, that's a danger of people using sloppy definitions of spam, and why we developed a definition that was based on the characteristics of spam that are the cause of the problem.

* If it's not bulk, the volume won't cause a problem. There's certain kinds of messages that are treated as cancellable and actionable spam even in very small quantities, because they become bulk because of the number of people doing it. For example, "affiliate spam", where people are rewarded for sending out a few copies of a message.

* If it's not unsolicited, it's not a problem, because there's a limit to the number of places individuals solicit mail from. You also have to be able to effectively withdraw permission after soliciting mail, too, of course.

* The exception for existing relationships is practical, and not a problem, because again there's a limit to the number of relationships you can be in. And "you're a potential customer" or "you will benefit from this" isn't a relationship. So something like "you bought something from me and gave me your email address" is a relationship, but "you bought something from me and gave me your email address and then told me never to mail you again" isn't.

The term "substantively different" in the definition of spam was chosen deliberately, because otherwise it's too easy to customize the messages automatically. Job spams and real estate spams are perfect examples of why this was put there... but it also covers things like genealogy spam, web-site-promotion spam, "me too" spam (where you quote something they posted to a mailing list and response with "yes, I totally agree with you" over an ad in your sig-quote), and so on.
That's called "affiliate spam", as mentioned above.
It's bulk (or broadcast, which is a better term, because it doesn't lead people to think of bulk mail where every message has to be identical because of the underlying mechanism).
If I was in charge of the G team, they'd be slapped for "affiliate spam". But Linden Logic is sometimes hard to figure out.

I already brought that one up. An "ad campaign" that only ever contacts (say) a hundred people is not going to be successful often enough to make allowing "100 messages, ever" a scaling problem. An "ad campaign" that only contacts a dozen people a month is not going to have scaling problems, either, because there's not enough chance of a payback. So the limits to what's "bulk", "broadcast", "volume", or what have you can be set pretty high compared to what people normally do.
Existing relationship. Unless you're pretty wealthy (even in SL) you just don't buy enough stuff that this becomes a scaling problem, so long as you CAN terminate the relationship.

The problem with setting limits is that there is a question of the entity whose actions are to be limited.
If the limit were 100 'of something', it's a sure bet that someone will use 100 accounts/bots to each do the 100 somethings.

LL's abuse desk would have to be equipped with tools that could verify that the limit was exceeded.
Even if the limit (of say 100) were not exceeded, it is possible that 99 people could send in an AR.

Or
LL just ignore spam ARs unless they get 50/99/100 Ars for the same IM sender.
How many people know how to AR an IM?


Why go to any trouble to facilitate the likes of Elanthius's IMs?
Are they really worth the trouble of creating a TOS and abuse desk load? It would be just another thing for LL to mess up. People getting unsolicited business-type IMs would just get frustrated.


Here's a way for landowners to auto-check if land has become available in their sim --

A while back, there was a bug that resulted in some peoples' land being randomly put on sale for an arbitrary price. The bug cloned the land settings of an adjacent parcel when J.Random.Avatar clicked on a parcel.
During the ensuing panic, I gave away a script that made a prim IM the landowner if their parcel details changed.

Someone (or even me) can create an object that tracks land in a sim. It's something that I've been meaning to do sometime.... real soon now-ish sort of thing
.... but it's not a priority for me right now.

Any competent scripter could make it.
There's no need to open the spam floodgate a crack.