In cases like these, it is hard to give an exact definition of e-mail.
I agree this is less bad than the indiscriminate e-mail you receive quite often, which are often fraudulent (for instance: "increase the size of ...", or the infamous Nigerian scam), and still a burden, even if they come from otherwise legitimate businesses.
However, the problem remains that if e-mails to specific groups were allowed (1), people would still have to wade through hundreds of unsolicited e-mails.
Some countries already seem to have laws that allow sending unsolicited spam, as long as there is a way to remove yourself from the mailing lists. For instance, that's what the spam I get from Perú claims. Quite ridiculous, of course - since I will still be receiving, perhaps once only, e-mail from thousands of companies.
The tendency, therefore, is to make
all unsolicited, and massive, e-mail illegal.
(1) Of course, they are currently allowed, but there is a general movement to make spam illegal. For instance, within Europe, unsolicited e-mail will be illegal, starting November or something.
>I could use a little feedback on what others think about receiving un-solicited email. I should start out by saying I am probably the first one on the block to hate working through junk email several times a day.
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>However.... if you have a software product that is geared toward a particular industry group, is it really that 'offensive' to send a couple of people within the company a MAX of one email offering your product and services? In other words, if you don't: 1) call them or 2) send them a snail mail or 3) visit them in person or 4) send an email, they will never know about the product and services.
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>I'm personally not offended by getting an occasional email offer such as this - its just all the 100's of offers to work at home, etc., etc., etc., that drive me nuts.
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>I am asking here - as I don't want to offend the company(s) so much that I might lose their business in the future.
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>Thanks for any general thoughts, comments, etc.
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>Mel Cummings
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
