[Scspamcop] Re: hillary clinton campaign spam

[Tim McGraw]

Twayne wrote:
>> geekyguy wrote:
>>> I'm receiving these campaign support requests at an email address
>>> that was somehow harvested or obtained against my will.
>> The U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 exempts political speech and, therefore,
>> bulk email sent by politicians.
> 
> Can you cite a source for that information please?

Your quoting somehow overlooked me, but since it was my statement you 
are challenging (not geekyguy's) I'll respond.

<quote>
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

...

(A) IN GENERAL- The term `commercial electronic mail message' means any 
electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial 
advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service (including 
content on an Internet website operated for a commercial purpose).
</quote>

> There is no such thing as "force-subscribed".

There most certainly is.

This passage in a tutorial at http://www.databack.com/tutorials.htm is 
typical:

<quote>
Why Mailing List Subscription Confirmation a.k.a. "Confirmed Opt-in" Is 
Required

When someone requests to join your list, they are first sent a 
"confirmation message". They must reply to that message before they are 
added to the list. There are several reasons why this is required.

1. If you use a public form on your web site to accept subscription 
requests, anyone can enter any address into your form. Without 
confirmation, this means that anyone's address could be 
"force-subscribed" to your list.
</quote>

>> It is almost always true that one does not want to unsubscribe from a
>> list they never subscribed to in the first place. However if I were
>> receiving this - which is legitimately from the HC campaign - I would
>> try to unsub first and report them only if the unwanted emails
>> continue.
> 
> Irrelevant.

The source is entirely relevant - you just said yourself "There is more 
to it than just content, which is one of the worst ways to tell what 
spam is, IMO." If an email is what Mike Easter calls "straightup" it 
could be a simple mistake. Not everyone who administers lists is a 
techie. Educating those who do administer lists is more productive than 
isolating them.

> N E V E R  unsubscribe to anything you didn't subscribe to. 

Never say never. Being flexible means knowing when to recognize the 
exception.

> By definition it is impossible to unsubscribe from something one has not subscribed to.

A silly and unhelpful semantic argument. If I subscribe twayne to a list 
that doesn't use a closed-loop confirmation then you are subscribed, 
like it or not. You then have the power to unsubscribe, and even 
enlighten the administer. No, it's not something I do very often, but 
there are times when it is appropriate.