On 1/20/2011 4:17 PM, David F. Skoll wrote: > On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:12:58 -0500 > Bowie Bailey <bowie_bai...@buc.com> wrote: > >> Of course it is. You subscribed to it. If you don't want it anymore, >> unsubscribe. > I disagree. When you subscribe to a list, there's an implicit understanding > of the content you are signing up for. If the list owner violates the rules > and posts marketing material, that's spam. > > Concrete example: If I posted an ad for our commercial anti-spam system > on the MIMEDefang list, that would be spam. If I posted it on this list, > it would be spam-squared and I'd probably be banned. :)
Public discussion lists are bit different. In that case, it is the individual post that is being considered spam rather than considering the list spammy. Since there is no overall control over the content of the posts, public lists are vulnerable to being filled with spam if the list owners are not paying attention. When you sign up for a company's email list, you get whatever they decide to send you. If they decide to start sending marketing to the list, I would not consider that spam because they own the list and they can decide what to use it for. The recipients signed up to get that company's emails and if they no longer want to receive them, they can unsubscribe. And as I said before, if the unsubscribe function doesn't work, then the emails become spam (regardless of the actual content). -- Bowie
