From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Freebies List Spammed
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 22:55:55 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: <ronkean at juno.com>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 10:13 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Freebies List Spammed

[...]
>
> There is someone in the Libertarian Party who accumulates the email
> addresses of her correspondents, and possibly also some other addresses.
> Then, every so often, she sends out some political blurb or announcement
> to the whole list of addresses, as 'undisclosed recipients'.  The number
> of addresses is probably no more than a few hundred, and may even be just
> a few dozen.  Each time she does that, she probably gets a few
> complaints, and I believe that she will remove from the list of addresses
> anyone who asks to be removed.  Also, she makes no effort to hide her
> identity, and she provides an adddress where she may be contacted.  So is
> that spam?  To me, it seems like a grey area.

Not to me.  That is much like those folks -- we all know some -- who send
out jokes periodically to a list which may well be made up of their entire
address book.

My definition of spam, pragmatically derived, is that a) it is sent out in
mass amounts (measured in the thousands and up), b) its sender is always
disguised, and c) it is, 99.9 times out of 100, a scam or ripoff.  The
person you describe sends out "mailings" which appear to meet none of the
criteria I gave.

--Ted White