In message <Pine.SUN.3.95.971204084820.15385L-100000@netcom16>, you wrote:
>On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>
>> If you send E-mail to people who have not themselves _asked_ to have
>> anything from you, then you are a spammer
>
> When I setup HWA-QA, I merged at least six, and probably more
> like ten lists, that dealt with the same, or similar topic,
> into that one. The lists had been inactive for a period of
> time ranging from three months, to three years. << I was
> taking them over, from various list-owners, who asked me if
> I was wanting to do something with their list. >> << None
> of the lists I took over were run on mailing list software,
> such as MajorDomo, or ListProc. >>
>
> So was my sending each individual on each list, spamming
> them? Or not? & explain your answer.
That was not spamming.
The individuals who had been on the original lists had (I presume) _asked_
to be on those lists. I also assume that their E-Mail addresses had not
merely been fished at random out of USENET news or out of related USENET
newsgroups, but had been sent, voluntarily, by their owners, to the original
list owners along with requests that they receive (mostly non-commercial)
information on some very specific topic.
You took ten voluntary opt-in mailing lists which had low traffic volume or
zero traffic volume and merged them into a single list which actually might
have a broad enough interest to survive and be active. The result is still
and opt-in mailing list, but one with a somewhat broader focus and readership.
Ideally, when you began this new list, you started out by sending a single
messge to each of the people that were on the predecessor lists, explaining
the situation to them and asking them if they would like to now be subscribed
to the new successor list (and assuming a default response of `no'). But
even if you didn't do that I would still not characterize what you did as
spamming because at some point in time the subscribers _did_ in fact ask
to be on a mailing list for a directly relevant topic, and you were merely
renaming and broadening those predecessor lists.
When someone has expressed no particular interest in a given topic DIRECTLY
to the information sender (or someone associated with him, even if only
loosely) then sending information to that person is ``unsolicited'' and
the messages themselves are spam. (I have been careful to say that the
recipient should express interest DIRECTLY to the information sender.
Merely posting something to a newsgroup, or on a web page, or to a different
active mailing list doesn't count.)
-- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc.
-- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/
-- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/
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