I prefer the designation UCE instead of spam, 'unsolicited [bulk] commercial
e-mail'. This includes get-rich-quick schemes, sex sites, and so forth.
The three major characteristics of UCE are that they are never requested
by the recipient and not often welcome, that they are always sent to mass
quantities of people (generally at trivial costs), and they always have
profit as a motive for the sender.
Of these, the factor that most separates them from postal bulk mail is
the low cost factor involved. A bulk mailing piece may cost fifty cents
or more per recipient by the time production and mailing costs are
added up.
Regarding mail from my long-lost aunt, it seldom arrives bulk rate.
I actually sort my mail based on the permit. 1st class I tend to open
the same day it arrives, magazines go on the reading stack in the
bathroom, catalogs go on the reading stack in a different bathroom,
bulk mail from companies I've never heard of are likely to go into the
wastebasket unread, bulk mail from companies I have heard of, including
newsletters, may eventually get opened but not immediately.
And as I keep pointing out, bulk mailers are at least paying the majority
of the costs of distribution of their stuff, bulk e-mailers are not.
Fax users got the government to pass laws dealing with unsolicited faxes,
because the recipient bears a significant portion of the cost of delivery,
and it was tying up people's fax capability.
I think e-mail deserves similar economically based considerations, though
I personally would prefer it not be handled by force of law but by force
of economic rationality on the part of the Internet. But I am a lonely
voice in the wilderness on this issue.
--
Mike Nolan
