wrong track. The definition of spam should be simple:
unsollicited bulk
email, period.
What do you define as solicited?
Any email that is sent to a number of recipients where at least a number of the recipients did not give permission to sent that email to them. You could even narrow it down to email making commercial offerings.
You're right in that the perfect definition of spam is a little hard to give. One persons spam might be another persons ham, but commercial unsollicited email is spam. It might even depend on the recipient: over here in the Netherlands commercial spam to private persons is not allowed, commercail spam to companies is still not prosecutable.
Since my question, I found what I consider a great definition of spam from spamhaus (http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html)
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An electronic message is "spam" IF:
(1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND
(2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; AND
(3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.
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-- Serge Knystautas Lokitech >> software . strategy . design >> http://www.lokitech.com p. 301.656.5501 e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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