10 ms·

Spam generally includes unsolicited and unwanted emails, targeted or not.

growt 8y ago
Sure, but it also generally means large quantities of those (regarding email I don't think 30k qualifies as large quantities). My personal definition would be that the messages were sent without any thought if the audience might be interested in the content and that does not appear to be the case here. If your personal definition is that every email you receive ,that you did not ask for in some way yourself, is spam then thats ok. But as a general definition thats a bit strict.
- devdas 8y ago
  It's unsolicited bulk email, and bulk is generally > 10 or so for most people, > 1 if you are strict.
  - growt 8y ago
    I'm just trying to differentiate between this guy who is sending 30k emails to people that might likely be interested in his business and some viagra seller that sends ten million emails a day to any address he can get his hands on.
    - devdas 8y ago
      That's a question of scale. A drop of sewage in a barrel of wine or a cup of sewage in a barrel of wine have the same effect.
      - growt 8y ago
        What is the barrel of wine in your analogy? Your personal inbox or email as a whole? I don't think my inbox would be ruined by a single email from that particular guy.
- matty22 8y ago
  Your personal definition isn't what matters here. This is spam. See wikipedia for this definition: "Email spam, also known as junk email, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email"
  - growt 8y ago
    As I replied in another place here: It depends on what you define as bulk. My personal definition is what matters to me and everybody is free to have their own.
    - matty22 8y ago
      No, your personal definition doesn't matter. If you buy/scrape a list of email addresses, and send to ANY of those addresses, that's spam. I work for an email marketing software company. That's the definition used in the industry. >0 unrequested emails is spam. If you've never spoken to this person before, you have no business relationship with them, and they have not opted in to receive mail from you, you are an email spammer. You can mince words if you have to to sleep easy at night, but this behavior is wrong. The author of the article did something shady and you are defending him.
      - growt 8y ago
        Working for an email marketing company you will aknowledge that something like "email marketing" exists. So there is a way to do this right. Maybe I haven't read TFA closely enough, but I didn't see him mentioning scraping or buying the emails. Maybe that was implied by the number IDK. Initially I just replied to a comment mentioning 4% signup rate and categorizing that as spam, while I thought that rate looks actually quite good. It kind of escalated from there :)
        yellowapple 8y ago
        Email marketing can also include newsletters and emails to existing customers (in fact, the latter is the vast majority of the "email marketing" I receive). Of the two above, the latter is probably the spammiest, and might technically count as "spam" since they're unsolicited, but they're generally (in my opinion) targeted sufficiently well enough to be acceptable/tolerable. In excess, though, they can quickly cross that line into being unquestionably spam.

Sure, but it also generally means large quantities of those (regarding email I don't think 30k qualifies as large quantities). My personal definition would be that the messages were sent without any thought if the audience might be interested in the content and that does not appear to be the case here. If your personal definition is that every email you receive ,that you did not ask for in some way yourself, is spam then thats ok. But as a general definition thats a bit strict.

devdas 8y ago
It's unsolicited bulk email, and bulk is generally > 10 or so for most people, > 1 if you are strict.
- growt 8y ago
  I'm just trying to differentiate between this guy who is sending 30k emails to people that might likely be interested in his business and some viagra seller that sends ten million emails a day to any address he can get his hands on.
  - devdas 8y ago
    That's a question of scale. A drop of sewage in a barrel of wine or a cup of sewage in a barrel of wine have the same effect.
    - growt 8y ago
      What is the barrel of wine in your analogy? Your personal inbox or email as a whole? I don't think my inbox would be ruined by a single email from that particular guy.
matty22 8y ago
Your personal definition isn't what matters here. This is spam. See wikipedia for this definition: "Email spam, also known as junk email, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email"
- growt 8y ago
  As I replied in another place here: It depends on what you define as bulk. My personal definition is what matters to me and everybody is free to have their own.
  - matty22 8y ago
    No, your personal definition doesn't matter. If you buy/scrape a list of email addresses, and send to ANY of those addresses, that's spam. I work for an email marketing software company. That's the definition used in the industry. >0 unrequested emails is spam. If you've never spoken to this person before, you have no business relationship with them, and they have not opted in to receive mail from you, you are an email spammer. You can mince words if you have to to sleep easy at night, but this behavior is wrong. The author of the article did something shady and you are defending him.
    - growt 8y ago
      Working for an email marketing company you will aknowledge that something like "email marketing" exists. So there is a way to do this right. Maybe I haven't read TFA closely enough, but I didn't see him mentioning scraping or buying the emails. Maybe that was implied by the number IDK. Initially I just replied to a comment mentioning 4% signup rate and categorizing that as spam, while I thought that rate looks actually quite good. It kind of escalated from there :)
      - yellowapple 8y ago
        Email marketing can also include newsletters and emails to existing customers (in fact, the latter is the vast majority of the "email marketing" I receive). Of the two above, the latter is probably the spammiest, and might technically count as "spam" since they're unsolicited, but they're generally (in my opinion) targeted sufficiently well enough to be acceptable/tolerable. In excess, though, they can quickly cross that line into being unquestionably spam.