OT - Spam Opinion

[Jason Greenwood]

Ok all, I have some thought provoking spam related questions for you.

Our company just began offering a new service (business to business) 
that could be very useful to others in our industry. SO, I looked up 
these types of businesses in the online yellow pages and then went to 
their websites and got an email address and then emailed them all, one 
by one, by hand, to advise of this new service and the reseller program 
we had to go with it in case they were interested.

Now, that mailout was technically SPAM (unsolicited, bulk email). 
However, how is that different to a fax attack or a P.O. Box drop (both 
legal everywhere and both do not have the negative implications of spam) 
except that it was more targeted, which it could be argued is better 
than the other 2 above methods!

I hate spam as much as the next guy but one of the reasons I would hate 
to see it legislated (instead of letting it be dealt with through 
technology) is that there is such a varied definition for it. Plus, what 
keeps it being moved to being sent from some other less legislated 
country or to a country without the resources to enforce said 
legislation even if they have it. I think spam is a problem here to stay 
and realistically, all those who want it legislated IMHO are not taking 
into account governments (ALL) track record of not generally 
implementing wise and enforceable legislation.

Cheers

Jason