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Nick
Almost a certainty.
So email them personally. Don't send out a 'rubber stamp' mail. Email them a one liner asking if they would mind talking to you...
Nick
>from various chat rooms and guest books of people that may be interested in my very limited service
I am guessing that these people didn't offer their addresses to you? So leave them alone ;)
40 emails is hardly worth taking ANY risks for, let alone getting a spammer label.
Not much, but if you word it correctly I'd not worry too much about it. Personally I'd sift out all the ones with persoanl domains (as opposed to ISP's) and get phene numbers from whois.
Nick
Junkmail goes in the bin
Spam goes in the bin
I don't worry about it other than to use some filters to stop the really persistent ones...
Nick
SPAM or UCE is unsolicited commercial mail - i.e. the person you send it to did not request it, give you their email address or in any way authorise you to send them stuff.
Like when you send a polite link request from one webmaster to another and get reported to SpamCop, as happened to me last week. How many here would do that?
Being in the UK you need to beware of the privacy laws there. Take a look at the Data Protection Act and what you are allowed to do with personal information that you have collected.
Also the ASA (advertising standards authority) is starting to to take complants about spam. It is unclear what they are going to with the complaints.
The difference between spam and junk mail is who pays for it. With junkmail the bulk of the cost is on the sender. With spam the bulk of the cost is on the reciever.
>Like when you send a polite link request from one webmaster to another and get reported to SpamCop, as happened to me last week. How many here would do that?
Erroneous spam reports are just as bad as spam itself. If your email in no way resembled spam, SpamCop (and other anti-spam groups) will ignore it. Just cause someone reported you doesn't mean you are immediately banned or anything.
>How many here would do that?
I don't think this forum is a place to point the finger. You reap what you sow.
I rest my case.
SpamCop (and other anti-spam groups) will ignore it.
I have had a SpamCop reporting account and an email account for as long as I can remember and ignoring a report is the last thing they will do! In this case I got an email from networks at the hosting site reminding me of the TOS and saying next time your account is closed. I helped them to understand that it was not 'spam as we know it' so I am back to a clean slate. But it took me more time to sort out than the complainant took to originate the problem.
I don't think this forum is a place to point the finger.
I agree - I was doing the opposite - asking for a show of hands. I can see both sides of the problem that I had and I am interested in the views of others on the subject.
<edit>If I learn to spell, will someone give me a medal?</edit>
Link exchanges are a grey area. Most of the time this is unsolicited, but you're not pushing a prouct or service so I guess it's not really spam.
I have a very straightforward policy on emails. I NEVER send unsolicited mail to anyone. If I have a mailing list or newsletter, it is populated with opt-in subscribers who have easy methods of removing their addresses and also a clear privacy policy. Because I am in the UK, I also have to conform to the Data Protection act.
For this reason, I also expect that other emailers will treat me with the same respect and not send me unsolicited mail either. Well not expect - hope.
I don't have any detailed knowledge of SpamCop and so I can't talk about your particular incident, and from what you say it certainly sounds as if you were the victim. But if you accept abuse@ emails you regulalry come across misleading or incorrect reports, and I believe SpamCop have methods to prevent malicious reporting. (Anyone know any details about this?)
I get erroneously tagged once or twice a year. Before I raise my hand any further, a little background is in order:
I run a public/private network of websites for a group of towns and small resort areas. It's been on the web since 1995 and its purpose is to collect online request forms for travel and relocation information. These are official websites for these communities, yet I own them because the plan was that it must support itself by sponsorships. It works (some communities say too well) and we collect and redistribute tens of thousands of very detailed travel and real estate leads annually. Communities and sponsors are then allowed to respond to specific requests under a very, very strict license agreement. (Are you sensing the problem yet?)
Yup, you guessed it, we get tagged a few time as year as spammers. The complainants evidently do not read the disclosure, which is on the form twice, nor do they read the email address advisory listed immediately beside the ''enter email'' area on the form (not required, 100% optional), nor did they contact me directly through our complaint system. Nope, I just get the complaint notice from Spamcop.
Now, I have a stock reply ready for Spamcop showing all of our forms and disclosure and policies. So far they've taken me off the list quickly. But what if I miss an email notification for some unforeseen reason?
Also, I have a problem that reared its head recently; the complainant actually used a site with a hyphen in the domain but when they filed the complaint they mistakenly left the hyphen out (yep, that's my domain). Luckily, they were also mad enough to fire off a blistering email to my site admin address and through some clues (they mentioned email being *required* and number of spam emails they had received) I was able to piece together what had happened and verify with the offended visitor that our networks wasn't the culprit.
Don't take this the wrong way, because I can see that you are in the right in this situation. People easily forget details on forms they have filled in and may not expect your email - it would be very easy to mistake it for spam in this instance, hence the reason you get the SpamCop warnings. If you send out a large volume of email, this is a risk.
>show of hands
I think this is starting to get a bit confused because were not talking about the same issues. The title of this post is Spam? Should I do it? My argument is that if you spam people, they have every right to report you and get you banned/whatever, and I very much want this to happen.
Your argument is related to whether spam reporting services accurately filter out incorrect spam reports. I would report neither georgeek's link request email, or rcjordan's email if I filled in his form. Neither of you are spammers so none of what I have said relates to you. Whether or not spamcop harm the innocent is another issue.
