How landcutters are still hurting the mainland

Just in case anone hasn't read the simple page at http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html

The word "Spam" as applied to Email means Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE".

Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.

Spam is an issue about consent, not content.

Spam is an issue about consent, not content.

Spam is an issue about consent, not content.


Some people might like to dance semantically around "substantively", but you will find that Elan's actual IMs and some ballpen supplier sending UBE to ballpen retailers will (for examples) both be defined as spam by anyone with a decent reputation in the spam-fighting industry.

I've worked with Spamhaus. I used to be one of the guys who were providing then a spam feed to build their RBL, and they had a mechanism to get back to me if I was classifying anything as spam that they didn't, and it never happened.

I dropped it because they were pulling sites from the headers that I don't think should have been listed as spam sources. NOT because they didn't like the quality of my information.

That page doesn't say what you think it says.

I read English. If it isn't written in English, then you're probably right.

If it IS written in English, then I think I understand quite well what it says.

Now, I can't help it if their words don't match their deeds; I just read the words.

Things are never as simple as a pithy phrase or cliche.

Things are never as simple as a pithy phrase or cliche.

Things are never as simple as a pithy phrase or cliche.

See? If I repeat something enough times, it doesn't make it any more true.



Well, maybe that's a problem, then. That we've been suckered in by the so-called "experts" to the point where we are being told that baby and bathwater are the same.

Sounds like it has become political to me...

This wouldn't be the first time that people have been divided by a common language.

Here's the bottom line.

If you're interpreting a definition of spam in a way that implies that someone would be inclined to try and sneak spam "under the radar" by formatting their spam in a particular way, then you're misinterpreting the definition.

No, what I am saying is that there are valid and proper reasons to send "unsolicited" messages to recipients which you decry as "spam" for a number of reasons that I don't support. This "hypothetical" (since it wasn't what Elanthius really did) situation is one of them.

The fact that the "catch-all" "de facto" "expert-supported" rulesets don't and can't account for them in their limited, hard-line stance means, to me, that there is a problem in the rulesets, not with the messages themselves.

Perhaps it is why the language in the CAN-SPAM acts is the way it is, because, for once, the politicians considered the baby separate from the bathwater. I don't want to believe that, but I am sensing more rationality and reasonability from their camp than I am from yours.

THe CAN-SPAM act with the business interests and idiot politicians that emasculated it are rightly ridiculed in the anti-spam world.

It's otherwise known as the I-CAN-SPAM act.

There are no widely accepted definitions of spam, although there are no doubt many small groups of people who make definitions for themselves. I guess you're in one of those. But you did point to a search results page for the searchterm "targeted spam", so you certainly looked like you were handing off to what you thought was some sort of other authority.

Yeah, that really makes for a good counter-argument.

Lots of people tell themselves that. It's a really effective way of rationalizing spamming. And we usually hear it from people who are trying to explain why THEIR site should be kept out of a blocklist, why THEIR post should be left uncancelled, why THEY are an exception to the rules. I'm not saying that you're one of these people, mind you. You may simply have been listening to so many of them spout off on the net that you think they represent reality.

The people who actually DO something about spam know better.
The CAN-SPAM act is pretty typical of the kind of "anti-spam" legislation that the Direct Marketing Association lobbyists have come to love. It's very similar to most of the laws that have been passed against spam, and the biggest effect it has had is to supercede the few effective state laws out there.

The only effective prosecutions against spammers have been against people who were involved in other kinds of crimes, or who were prosecuted under state laws despite the CAN-SPAM act.

Here's another hypothetical (the first part isn't hypothetical, it actually happened):

Back in 2003, my home was broken into and robbed while I was away for a couple weeks. After the dust cleared, I went around and told all my neighbors up and down my road that I had been robbed, and to watch out for themselves.

Now, hypothetically-speaking, let's say that I had access to their all their email addresses, but had never been given explicit consent by the vast majority to use them, and we're talking ~1000 homes in my neighborhood. Instead of going to every home and knocking on their door, I instead sent them an identical email, informing them of the situation.

Is that spam? Should I be "punished" for it?

I am not one of those people. I do know what spam is and it appears you don't. For instance, If I have bought a huge list of email addresses, and I pick one at random to send my "such-and-such is now being auctioned on eBay " email to, and it just happens to be you, then you say it's not spam, but it *is* spam. If I sent the same email to 100 or 1000 or 10,000 addresses from the list, you would probably agree that it's spam, and yet there is no difference between sending it to 1 (you) and sending it to many more.

I haven't been listening to anyone spouting off. I think for myself and draw my own conclusions. As a matter of fact, I don't recall ever reading a definition of email spam. I've been involved in discussions concerning search engine spam and, like you, some people tried to write a globally accepted definition but, like all other attempts at defining what is spam, including the one we are discussing, and including your definition, it failed. All that people can do is define these things for themselves, for their company, for their group, for their whatever, but there is no widely accepted definition of any of the various types of spam.

We can all agree that certain things are spam (e.g. the viagra emails), but different people have different opinions about the ballpens, so writing a globally accepted description of spam cannot do anything other than fail, and there is no authority to write such a definition.

That would be a very very small spam, yes, but still a spam.
Probably not. If you went around putting up signs on telephone poles warning about it, you'd probably be breaking the law, but nobody would expect you to be punished for it. Tossing kleenex out of your car is littering. It's technically illegal. Unless you hit a cop with it, I don't think you're going to be fined... even if you're seen doing it.

When it comes to law, the principle of "de minimis curat lex" applies. That concept applies elsewhere. But even if it's "too small to care about", it's still spam.

Saying something is spam doesn't mean it's something you should be sanctioned for. It just means that it's spam.

Definitely not spam, but some would argue that it is.

I see that someone already argued that it is

What some people fail to take into account is the desirability of receiving unsolicited emails. In your case, Talarus, it would be very desirable for each household in the neighbourhood to have that information. In the ballpen example, it would be very desirable for retailers to have the information.

If you just send one message, ever, it's not spam. It doesn't matter how you came up with my address. If I'm the only one you sent it to, then the damage you have done to the net is the same whether you send me a love letter, a hoax, an advertisement, or a threat. I might not like the message, but it's still a single person-to-person message. It scales... there's only so many single person-to-person messages you can send, and there's only so many single person-to-person messages I can receive.
Sure there is. You might as well say there's no difference between igniting a grain of black powder under me, and igniting 10,000 grains of black powder under me. You might as well say there's no difference between sending one ping packet to my router and smurfing me off the net. A difference in quantity can completely change the nature of a transaction. One is a practical joke, another is murder. One is a check to see if I'm online, the other is a denial of service attack.

Speaking as someone who has, in a previous job, been the guy who got all the ballpen information and all the "helpful" warnings about the Good Times virus, I gotta say you absolutely have not thought this one through.

"Very very small"? 1000 messages? O.o



Well, the problem is that your rulesets and their application are absolute, so there is no actualization of "de minimis curat lex" at all. "If it fits the rules, it is spam; if it is spam, it is bad; if it is bad, it should be stopped." That's what I have been getting from your side of the argument. If that's not the case, then I hope you can clarify using different words, because the previous ones thus far tell a different story.

So, in both my hypotheticals, should they be sanctioned for it or not? Is there a true difference in labeling something as "spam" and actualizing against it?

If there isn't, then that's why I have problems with calling such things "spam", because if people are going to be punished for doing good because their behavior exceeds an arbitrary ruleset, then I am inclined to characterize their behavior as not exceeding the ruleset until such time as the ruleset is amended to not punish them anymore.

That is where you are so wrong. Whether or not emails damage the net is irrelevant. It's the content together with the recipient that makes an email spam. The fact that I sent you an unsolicited email about something that I have no indication is of interest to you, makes it spam. And it doesn't matter if you are the only recipient or there are tens of thousands of recipients.

Oh but I have thought it through - in depth and over time.

/me jumps up on the kitchen counter, knocks the open can of Spam on the floor upside-down, noses the empty can aside and gobbles down some delicious Spammy goodness.


Now that I've eaten, I have one thing to say about this horribly derailed thread: If LL says it's spam, for all practical purposes in Second Life, it is spam. If I may modify a quote from the great Jumpman Lane:

"It's the Lindens' world, you just in it!"

If it wasn't a matter of the volume of spam you get, spam wouldn't be a problem. It's the volume that damages the net by making email, usenet, or whatever communication channel that is getting flooded with spam useless. It's the fact that it makes the channel useless (you lose mail, you can't find postings, you lose IMs to a cap) If it wasn't for the volume, then the fact that you got a message you don't want to get would be a personal issue. Someone who got a lot of junk would get a couple of messages a day, maybe, mostly from "friends" trying to be "helpful".

Without volume, there is no problem. Without a problem, there is no spam. It's volume that makes spam an issue.

In email, yes, 1000 messages is a tiny spam run.
Yes.
No.
I have said about a couple dozen times that not all spam is actionable.
Absolutely.

The problem is that you didn't say that not all spam SHOULD BE actionable. There's a big difference in what that means versus what you said.

"Not all spam is actionable because it is not feasible to, but it is still bad." Not a quote of yours, but demonstrating that saying "not all spam is actionable" is not giving due credit to situations which, I believe, justify its use.

Do you believe that there are no situations which justify its use?

I've yet to see you say "not all spam is bad"; in fact, my objection is that calling something "spam" automatically is implying it is "bad", because the default connotation when the word "spam" is used is a negative one. That's the DEFAULT. Calling something benign, useful, and relevant something negative is simply wrong.