A brief reminder:

[theweaselking]

All unsolicited bulk or marketing messaging is spam.

All spam is bad.

All spammers should die, and will be First Up Against The Wall.[1]

Anyone who disagrees with any of these statements is suspect.

[1]: Not to be confused with Perl coders who do not adequately comment, who will be the first up against Larry Wall.

Comments

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. however I'm not sure if I should be sorry for the programmers or Larry Wall.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I have a question.

How do you define "unsolicited"?

For example. A couple of years ago I signed up for a website. Part of that involved my email address, as is normal.

I received no unwanted communication from them for a while. Then, some time ago, they sent out a newsletter--their first. This included, as its first item, a message that to unsubscribe from the newsletter, one had only to visit the website and say so in the account--a thirty-second procedure. It went on to be, well, a newsletter.

Someone claimed that this was spam: "It was unsolicited. It was bulk. It was commercial."

Thoughts?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Unsolicited, yes. Bulk, yes. Commercial, who gives a shit? Unsolicited + bulk = Spam = THEY MUST DIE.

If they had said "You got this newsletter because you gave us your email address on this site, for more newsletters you MUST reply to be added, if you do not reply you will get nothing more", then that would *almost* be acceptable.

[mcfnord.livejournal.com]

Oh, so you're saying unsolicited and bulk = spam.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Unsolicited commercial = spam.
Unsolicited bulk = spam.
Unsolicited non-commercial and personal = not spam.
Solicited commercial and/or bulk = not spam.

[zastrazzi.livejournal.com]

If they solicited your email address and fully disclosed that they might send you email, it's solicited. The fact they didn't reconfirm your address at some point before starting to actually do it makes them largely clueless when it comes to ESP best practice and marketing - but still solicited. Ergo, not spam.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

This is why I ask such questions.

[the-trav.livejournal.com]

I thought 'solicited' in the context of 'solicited email' refers to scifantasy asking to be sent the emails.

If the case is that the sign-up form says 'when you sign up I may/will send you newsletters/bulk email' then scifantasy is soliciting the email meaning it's not spam.

Scifantasy didn't mention such a statement so I'd assume there wasn't one

[zastrazzi.livejournal.com]

Since scifantasy said it had been a few years ago, I assumed they didn't remember the terms they signed up with. Which I think is a much safer assumption if you're going to make one at all.

[the-trav.livejournal.com]

Having an account on a web site is not a solicitation for bulk email, opt out is almost always an indication of spam.

I'd call your situation a spam and say it's a no brainer

[mcfnord.livejournal.com]

Not meaning to pause the hysteria, but what is bulk marketing that differentiates it from unsolicited marketing?

[the-trav.livejournal.com]

bulk = sending it to many people
unsolicited = sending it to people who haven't asked for it.

They're completely different terms with different meanings and are not mutually exclusive.

Unsolicited + Non Bulk = typically targeted, higher cost to produce so typically lower volume, more likely to be of value to recipient. Still annoying but less so than...
Unsolicited + Bulk = low quality, high quantity, unlikely to be of value to recipient
Solicited + bulk = Typically something I've asked for but also something that's probably not of much interest to me, not really annoying unless I have trouble stopping them from sending it
Solicited + non bulk = I've asked and I'm getting personal attention, this is the ideal form of marketing, so much so that I'd almost push it out of marketing and into customer service.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

The Bush Administration lawyer who wrote the secret memo that it's appropriate and legal for the Chief Executive of the United States to deploy the military against domestic US entities without a Congressional declaration of war is the first up against the wall. Sorry, no offense: He just is first against the wall.

Spammers can be a close second.

[zastrazzi.livejournal.com]

Bulk is not spam. Unsolicited bulk is spam.

Amazon and ebay send a crapload of email, pretty much redefining bulk. It's not spam, because it's solicited and part and parcel of the service they provide.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I said unsolicited or bulk marketing.

I meant unsolicited bulk or marketing.

Unsolicited commercial = spam.
Unsolicited bulk = spam.
Unsolicited non-commercial and personal = not spam.
Solicited commercial and/or bulk = not spam.

[endotoxin.livejournal.com]

Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

DAMN STRAIGHT!

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

http://bash.org/?6824

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

While I'll not dispute that spammers are going up against the wall come The Day, I will argue over whether they'll be first.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Who would you put first?

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

My brain keeps going odd places with this debate; for instance, the mental image of this naive rube of an email on his first trip to Usertown being stopped by a mail client in a low-cut dress saying, "Hey, sailor, got the time?"

That's not what solicited email should mean.

-- Steve really needs some fresh air.