Junk Email is bad, but won anti-spam efforts stop us emailing anyone?
As we explained above, spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email. However, when spam is discussed the emphasis is often on the “Unsolicited” – which can lead people to conclude, quite logically, that anti-spam efforts would prevent sending any email which wasn’t explicitely asked for. So you wouldn’t be able to send a birthday greeting to your auntie in Australia, or a private email to someone you know from a newsgroup. But this just isn’t so. But remember that the “Bulk” part of the definition – in neither of these cases would the message be sent in bulk, and thus it wouldn’t be spam. Of course, just because an email isn’t spam doesn’t mean that it will be welcomed by the recipient – just that it isn’t abusive of the structure of the Internet. 2.
As we explained above, spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email. However, when spam is discussed the emphasis is often on the “Unsolicited” – which can lead people to conclude, quite logically, that anti-spam efforts would prevent sending any email which wasn’t explicitely asked for. So you wouldn’t be able to send a birthday greeting to your auntie in Australia, or a private email to someone you know from a newsgroup. But this just isn’t so. But remember that the “Bulk” part of the definition – in neither of these cases would the message be sent in bulk, and thus it wouldn’t be spam. Of course, just because an email isn’t spam doesn’t mean that it will be welcomed by the recipient – just that it isn’t abusive of the structure of the Internet.
