Spam Is What I Say Is Spam

One of the (many) bad side effects of the CAN SPAM legislation is that it "defined" spam. The problem is that spam is very much in the eye of the beholder. Even someone at the FTC said (before CAN SPAM was signed into law) that spam is "anything I don't like." That still is how most people view it. If they don't like the mail, it's spam. That's the common definition. Of course, the legal definition is quite different and that's leading to all sorts of problems on all sides. For some reason, email marketers seem to think that people obviously must be okay with any emails that comply with CAN SPAM because legally they're "not spam." That, of course, is ridiculous -- since, if people don't want it, they don't want it, no matter how legal the email is. That's why we get silly lawsuits from spammers, saying people can't filter out their spam. It's also why a politician who claims he's tough on spammers doesn't understand why people are so upset that he spammed voters himself. Anyone sending email needs to realize that spam is very much in the eye of the beholder. Of course, this works both ways. Just because I think something is spam, doesn't mean everyone else agrees with me. That's why some of these anti-spam blackhole lists run into trouble. If just a few people dislike an email, and report it to a list, it can cause problems for legitimate mailers, and the people who actually do want to receive those emails. There isn't necessarily an easy answer to this -- but a good first step is for people to realize that spam really is only defined by the recipient, and each recipient may be different.