Re: Let's try to be productive...

On 10 Jan 2014, at 20:10, John Levine <[email protected]> wrote:

>> I like your effort but if we can't agree on what is spam, and I think
>> you'd be surprised, it's difficult to recommend where to put effort.
>=20
> The usual definitions are unsolicited bulk mail or perhaps unsolicited
> bulk commercial mail.

Not in Europe, where the definition is "unsolicited communications for the =
purposes of direct marketing by means of electronic mail" where marketing e=
ncompasses all sorts of promotions: commercial, charitable, political, etc.=
 BULK doesn=92t come into it.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/22/made

The UK legislation is based on the European Union=92s Directive on Privacy =
and Electronic Communications, which are separately legislated in each EU c=
ountry. "Privacy" might seem odd in this context, but OED includes "freedom=
 from interference or intrusion" in the definition, not just "a state in wh=
ich one is not observed".

BULK has nothing to do with the annoyance to me as a recipient: nobody has =
a right to spam me just because they=92re not spamming other people. Also, =
when investigating spam, I should not require access to third party network=
s in order to demonstrate that an email was spam.

Clearly some unsolicited email has to be permitted, as do unsolicited phone=
 calls. It=92s a feature of email that the recipient doesn=92t have to be e=
xpecting the incoming email. That=92s why it=92s just "marketing" that=92s =
forbidden. Email to "business addresses" is excluded from the "prior permis=
sion" part of the UK legislation, and we have a problem where I work: sende=
rs tend to assume that all sussex.ac.uk addresses are business addresses. I=
=92d argue that you have to look at the left hand side: "i.eiloart@=85" is =
not a business address, but "postmaster@=85" is.

--=20
Ian Eiloart
Postmaster, University of Sussex
+44 (0) 1273 87-3148

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