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>almost all companies will spam your email address, even if you check the box asking them not to. I find this very hard to believe. "Spam" has a specific defin

>almost all companies will spam your email address, even if you check the box asking them not to. I find this very hard to believe. "Spam" has a specific definition; the most important bit of which is that it is unsolicited. Mails landing in your inbox that you'd rather not get, but which are not unsolicited (say, by you signing up for an account and confirming your address), are not spam by definition. "Almost all companies" would find themselves unable to send email in short order if what they were delivering was spam. Definitions are important. Let's not misuse them.

AlexandrB 5y ago
As a user, I don't at all care about the technical/legal definition of spam. As with obscenity spam is a case of "I know it when I see it".
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SahAssar 5y ago
Most email I get from services is unsolicited. While I did sign up for the services I did not solicit every newsletter, marketing email, "notification" and so on. For 98% percent of services I use I mainly want my email for one thing: a way to reset my password. Often I need to unsubscribe from each of them individually and then navigate some sort of "notification preferences" interface. Even after that has been done a lot of them seem to default any new newsletter or preference to on instead of deriving the preference from the closest existing option.
- Karunamon 5y ago
  Yes you did. When you open a relationship with a company (by signing up to use their services), they are allowed to market to you, send you newsletters, and so forth, until such time as you terminate that relationship. It isn't spam because you don't want it. If you actually don't want it, then click 'unsubscribe' - and if they continue to bother you afterwards (which, FWIW, I've seen a reputable company do a grand total of once in years), then and only then, is it spam.
  - teakettle42 5y ago
    > It isn't spam because you don't want it. It isn’t not spam because you want to send it. You’re departing substantially from both the historical and commonly understood, contemporary definition of spam.
    - Karunamon 5y ago
      I see little historical precedent or common understanding for the HN definition of 'email I'd rather not have in my inbox' equating to 'spam'.
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      - pooper 5y ago
        This is the subject line of an email in my inbox right now. Sure you could say the sender allows me to opt out but I shouldn't have to opt out. This isn't legally spam but I want to know what you would call this unsolicited, non-transactional commercial email. » Your Prime Membership: {{first name}} {{last name}}, discover the latest in deals and entertainment included with Prime
        Karunamon 5y ago
        >I want to know what you would call this unsolicited, non-transactional commercial email. Commercial email, differentiated from spam in that you have a commercial relationship with Amazon that you initiated and agreed to (i.e. solicited), and as such, they are allowed to market to you until such time as you ask them to stop. I can see my opinion on this matter isn't a common one on HN.
        teakettle42 5y ago
        > I can see my opinion on this matter isn't a common one on HN. Your opinion isn’t common among anyone other than marketers trying to justify sending spam.
teakettle42 5y ago
> Mails landing in your inbox that you'd rather not get, but which are not unsolicited (say, by you signing up for an account and confirming your address), This itself is a redefinition of “spam” to exclude the types of spam businesses want to send. There’s a two-part test I use to define “spam”, which I think is aligned with both the historic definition, and how most users perceive it: 1) An e-mail is a marketing e-mail if, on the balance, the e-mail primarily benefits the sender, not the recipient. 2) A marketing e-mail is spam if the user did not explicitly opt-in to receiving them.
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dragonwriter 5y ago
> "Spam" has a specific definition; The legal definition of spam arose as a distortion of the preexisting concept lobbied for by spammers to allow as much spam as politically possible while allowing politicians to be seen as “doing something” about the spam problem.
olliej 5y ago
Behold the dictionary definitions: Merriam-webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam) "e-mail that is not wanted" Oxford (via google https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oxford+english+dictionary+spam&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oxford+...) "irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the internet to a large number of recipients." Neither is your absurd definition. And to be clear, entering a business agreement for a product or service you sell, is not me soliciting anything other than that product. Marketing emails, "product updates", etc are not the product or service I am paying for.

AlexandrB 5y ago

As a user, I don't at all care about the technical/legal definition of spam. As with obscenity spam is a case of "I know it when I see it".

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SahAssar 5y ago

Most email I get from services is unsolicited. While I did sign up for the services I did not solicit every newsletter, marketing email, "notification" and so on. For 98% percent of services I use I mainly want my email for one thing: a way to reset my password. Often I need to unsubscribe from each of them individually and then navigate some sort of "notification preferences" interface. Even after that has been done a lot of them seem to default any new newsletter or preference to on instead of deriving the preference from the closest existing option.

Karunamon 5y ago
Yes you did. When you open a relationship with a company (by signing up to use their services), they are allowed to market to you, send you newsletters, and so forth, until such time as you terminate that relationship. It isn't spam because you don't want it. If you actually don't want it, then click 'unsubscribe' - and if they continue to bother you afterwards (which, FWIW, I've seen a reputable company do a grand total of once in years), then and only then, is it spam.
- teakettle42 5y ago
  > It isn't spam because you don't want it. It isn’t not spam because you want to send it. You’re departing substantially from both the historical and commonly understood, contemporary definition of spam.
  - Karunamon 5y ago
    I see little historical precedent or common understanding for the HN definition of 'email I'd rather not have in my inbox' equating to 'spam'.
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    - pooper 5y ago
      This is the subject line of an email in my inbox right now. Sure you could say the sender allows me to opt out but I shouldn't have to opt out. This isn't legally spam but I want to know what you would call this unsolicited, non-transactional commercial email. » Your Prime Membership: {{first name}} {{last name}}, discover the latest in deals and entertainment included with Prime
      - Karunamon 5y ago
        >I want to know what you would call this unsolicited, non-transactional commercial email. Commercial email, differentiated from spam in that you have a commercial relationship with Amazon that you initiated and agreed to (i.e. solicited), and as such, they are allowed to market to you until such time as you ask them to stop. I can see my opinion on this matter isn't a common one on HN.
        teakettle42 5y ago
        > I can see my opinion on this matter isn't a common one on HN. Your opinion isn’t common among anyone other than marketers trying to justify sending spam.

teakettle42 5y ago

> Mails landing in your inbox that you'd rather not get, but which are not unsolicited (say, by you signing up for an account and confirming your address), This itself is a redefinition of “spam” to exclude the types of spam businesses want to send. There’s a two-part test I use to define “spam”, which I think is aligned with both the historic definition, and how most users perceive it: 1) An e-mail is a marketing e-mail if, on the balance, the e-mail primarily benefits the sender, not the recipient. 2) A marketing e-mail is spam if the user did not explicitly opt-in to receiving them.

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dragonwriter 5y ago

> "Spam" has a specific definition; The legal definition of spam arose as a distortion of the preexisting concept lobbied for by spammers to allow as much spam as politically possible while allowing politicians to be seen as “doing something” about the spam problem.

olliej 5y ago

Behold the dictionary definitions: Merriam-webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam) "e-mail that is not wanted" Oxford (via google https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oxford+english+dictionary+spam&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oxford+...) "irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the internet to a large number of recipients." Neither is your absurd definition. And to be clear, entering a business agreement for a product or service you sell, is not me soliciting anything other than that product. Marketing emails, "product updates", etc are not the product or service I am paying for.