I suggest you look at The Internet Patrol site featuring Aunty Spam who was involved in the passing of legislation against spammers. It has relevant histories in the archives including stories on spammers that were taken down by the courts. It has helpful information on all the internet’s banes.
There are legitimate ways to send out press releases, or email newsletters, using opt-in mailing lists, or official sanctioned channels in your field.
But finding a random list of email addresses on disc and sending out to them unsolicited crap that they have no relation to is the worst thing you could do.
I hope this doesn’t sound defensive, but I’d like to clarify. It’s not random and it’s not crap. Let me try two more analogies.
Let’s say I own the Fourth Street book store and I’m struggling to stay afloat now that Borders and B&N have opened several stores within a mile of mine. So every month I have an author of a history book speak at the store. And I get a list of every history professor and political science professor who works within five miles of the store. And every month I send out an announcement that says the name of the author and what he’ll be talking about and there is an unsubscribe option.
Or let’s say I just finished a residency in surgery at Harvard Medical School/Mass General Hospital and I’m moving to Los Angeles to set up a practice. I don’t know anyone so I send out anannouncement to physicians in Los Angeles telling them who I am. And every month or so I give a lecture to the medical community so I send out a mailing to let people know the time, date and topic.
That’s all. No V I A G R A. No Candy wants to chat with you…
I think that the word “spam” is a hot one and I think I understand the intensity of the reaction that it generates. I think that once I used that word in the title there’s no longer any possibility of talking about shades of gray. So this is a very helpful thread for me. If even 1% of my community reacts in a way predicted by this thread, it’s not worth it. So I’ll bring the thread to my partners and we’ll go from there.
But if anyone disagrees I’d be interested in hearing it.
I would not mind your fliers on the corkboard in the room where I do my laundry.
I would not mind them stapled to the telephone poles.
I would sort of resent them a bit if they were in my paper mail, snailmail mailbox. I would not read them, any more than read any of that CAR-RT Sort bulkmail stuff. But I would not go apoplectic about it.
I would resent it enough to get temporarily very annoyed with you if you tried to shove it into my face while I’m on my way to work in the morning and you’re standing on the sidewalk. (Offer it if you must, but if I do not reach for it, get it the fuck out of my face).
Start calling me on the phone or sending me unsolicited emails, though, and you’re seriously out of line. You don’t get to go there. You’re not in public space and unlike the US Mail, you aren’t in any way the financial lifeblood subsidizing the costs but instead are abusing the free ride that we all get, and taxing the resources by which the whole internet runs. Stay out of my inbox.
Targeted spam is still spam, still carries all the negative baggage of spam, is still illegal in some places and is still a really, really bad idea. Find a legitimate way to get your list out there and people who are interested will join it, but don’t assume they want to hear from you and add them without their expression permission. If you’re not already using a confirmed (or so-called “double”) opt-in list then you should reconsider.
It’s less offensive if you provide an unsubscribe option and make it VERY obvious, particularly on the first issue you send out (notice I said less offensive; I didn’t say not offensive). Is there a legitimate mailing list/newsgroup/message board that is frequented by your target audience that you could use to discretely direct attention to your newsletter (and as a result, make double opt-in practical)?
place ads in your local newspaper for “meet the historical author day”. Place an even bigger ad on the bulletin board at the history dept of the nearby university if you want to target a few dozen experts…
at your lectures, you ask people to sign in. Ask for their email address after stating in bold print that they will receive EXACTLY one and only one notice per month.
do NOT assume that just because you graduated from med school in Boston, 10,000 doctors in Los Angeles want to meet you. Place ads in the medical journals.
Spam isn’t just viagra. In fact, the viagra emails are the easiest to delete without hesitation.
It’s the things you don’t want to read, but the email heading looks legit, that piss people off. I post professional stuff on a message board for engineers, and the price I pay is spam–every day, ads from companies selling the latest engineering software.
Their product is legit–their spam in my inbox is not.
Dont do it!!!
I agree. A few years ago, a businessman sent unsolicited emails to addresses he harvested from a veterinary email list. The funny thing was, many of us would have been interested in his product if we had received his information in another format. You would not believe the negative publicity that was generated by his spam! Many of us on the list (myself included) vowed to never do business with the guy and as far as I know he is no longer around.