RE: SPAM and HAM

[Rob McEwen]

> Dear Group Member, > Can anyone explain me the clear definition of SPAM and HAM   Most everyone agrees that spam is unsolicited e-mail sent from entities with whom you do not have a previously established business or personal relationship ...OR... where you've opted to not receive such mail and they still keep sending it.   For example, if you are member of an organization, it is NOT spam if THAT organization sends you something that "seems" unsolicited (assuming that you haven't already explicitly opted out.) Why? Because you have a previously established business or personal relationship with them.   Now... here is where it gets tricky... some factor into the equation whether or not the e-mail is commercial in nature. For example, they might consider that an unsolicited e-mail from the Red Cross is not spam because the Red Cross is a not-for-profit business. I think some go too far with this.   But SpamHaus does factor into the equation whether the e-mail is most geared towards benefiting the sender or the recipient. This is somewhat similar to "commercial" vs. "non-commercial" ...but not quite the same thing. For example, many "non profits" pay their board members and executives exorbitant salaries for little work and this can be a con job... (they are really for profit for all practical purposes). (If I named names of non-profits who operated this way, you'd recognize them! BTW - I mentioned Red Cross earlier, but I think that they are one of the "good" non-profits... so don’t apply this statement to them!)   At the same time, sometimes commercial businesses actually do "altruistic" things which are not profit-oriented. Of course, I know that most Leftists think that this isn’t possible! ;)   Overall, I do think that in "close calls", whether a message is from a non-profit, or seems to benefit the recipient more than the sender should be factored into the equation... but should not be an overreaching factor.   One other area where it gets tricky is whether the message is bulk or not. SpamHaus says that to be spam, a message must be both unsolicited AND bulk. The idea here is that a salesperson ought to be able to "cold call" hand-type a thoughtful and personalized e-mail to a potential customer without fearing that his entire company would get blacklisted. I agree with SpamHaus... but we have MANY "SpamNazis" on this list who think that that guy's entire company should be blacklisted just for a single such message sent! (But I do see how some try to "game" this standard by getting creative with sending out thousands of messages which attempt to "look" hand-typed and personalized. But... come on... these are easily spotted and form a pattern that distinguishes itself from a real hand typed personalized message.)   Rob McEwen PowerView Systems