I just got a message with this (within the body) header (not from Michelle,
this is a separate quote):
>This mail is not Spam and is intended to serve as a resource to businesses
and
>professionals seeking top quality Internet services. This mail conforms to
>the most recent government ruling relating to unsolicited e-mail. If by
>receiving this e-mail you have been offended, we sincerely
>apologize. If you would prefer not to receive additional mail from us,
>follow the instructions at the end of this document.
Of course, the mail is spam, and the senders are filthy liars. My point is
that the mail has to be judged by the receiver, not the sender.
At 04:04 AM 2/27/99 -0800, Michelle Dick wrote:
>I feel much better now that I have an objective non-spammer-type
>reason to not classify Topica's email as spam. Does this explanation
>seem right to others as well? How about you, Nick? Also, since this
>explanation wasn't proposed before, I don't see Nick's accusation of
>"spam" absurd.
I've been on the net for so long I remember whe it was non-commercial.
If someone sends me one-on-one unsolicited e-mail to verify information
that they are not going to use for commercial purposes, or, in an extreme,
that they are using to get backup for an article that they plan on selling,
I'd certainly say that is likely not spam.
I tend to cut one-on-one mail, that is, mail addressed to me by a human and
composed for me by a live human a lot of slack. I think most folks do. I
cut machine generated mail little or no slack.
When someone sends me e-mail to try and get me to assist them in a
commercial enterprise (and they are not trying to hire me), and that mail
is not a one off composed by an individual to me, but is, instead machine
composed and sent, I consider that to be passing the test for spam.
Especially since I've gotten three copies so far.
Vince was real up-front about topica being commercial. I've got to give
them that. But these e-mails they are sending are to further their
commercial enterprise and not to verify your public information.
> Especially when the first arguments offered him were
>the very same ones we used to hear from Spamford. Nick just didn't
>take into account that we make an exception for UCE that is purely
>journalistic and no one offered it is a reason.
If you read the e-mail from topica in particular, they are trying to get
you to "opt-in" to making their service more valuable by adding your data
to their site. I don't see any aspects of journalism or research in that.
I shoot black powder cowboy guns for a hobby. Black powder fouls like
crazy compared to smokeless powder and it combines with modern lubes to
form hard lumps that will jam your revolver. I found an excellent product,
called Ballistol, that is water soluble oil and never forms hard lumps -
the fouling stays soft and you can wash a gun off and spray it with
ballistol and it will emulisfy the water off of the gun and dry to leave an
oil film. And it is accepted as food safe so that you can use it on
kitchen appliances. It also makes a good leather preservative.
I was really disappointed when I was spammed by the US Distributor, since I
felt that once I ran out of stock, I would find some other way to get it
(there is now someone else importing it, I'm told, so I can buy from them).
I guess my point here is that the quality of the product has little or
nothing to do with the evil of spamming. Before they spammed me, I really
wanted their product to succed, so I'd tell people about it on the cowboy
lists and when I was shooting. This was absolutely the best product for
this sort of thing that I or anyone on the cowboy lists knew about, and
they are still stinking evil spammers.
--
"I've got guns. I can't hit crap with them." - Howard Stern
Nick Simicich mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or (last choice)
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World!
