by Dale Williams » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:44 am
Randy,
I'd call neither of those spam. I'd call them irritating, obnoxious, and bad business, but not spam. I realize I'm fighting a losing battle here, everybody just calls all commercial emails spam, but the term was based on its unsolicited indiscriminate nature. The most famous early case wasn't email, but the Green Card ads on Usenet newsgroups. The commercial nature wasn't the issue (that would have been a smaller fight if they were posting to immigration fora), but the fact is was posted on every available forum - wine, pets, kinky sex, British history, etc. The email form of this - where spammers sent millions of emails to every email they can harvest (or in some cases based on just common combinations of letters/names added to a domain name) is what drowns the system.
Assuming Peter didn't sign up with Benchmark, Brentwood, or their affiliates, it is likely they bought a "wine" list from a marketeer. As they say "you signed up", that makes them dishonest and is certainly a mark against them. But I was just pointing out that targeted lists are NOT what is straining the infrastructure, and I doubt seriously one could find any internet professional who would take that stance.
