mainsleazespam.com: Here Come the Mainsleazers. June, July, August 2004.

Here Come the Mainsleazers! June, July, August 2004.

The "Here Come the Mainsleazers News Roundup"

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The Mainsleaze Party Line: What I Do Is NOT-SPAM.
    Despite exegesis by many experts, the Can-Spam act passed last year remains a mystery to circulators, at least judging by the questions some asked in June at the Circulation Management Conference & Exposition. And they can hardly be faulted.
    For example, one wondered if a free controlled-circulation subscription offer is covered given that there is no sale for money. “It is, in my opinion, not covered,” said Jim Conway, vice president-government relations for the Direct marketing Association. “If you're selling, you have to have a clear, conspicuous opt-out.”
    Then there was the question of whether renewal notices qualify as sales messages. Conway noted that sending a renewal notice by e-mail before the subscription has lapsed is informational, and not covered. “If it does lapse, then you're selling the renewal,” he said.
    “You have to allow people to opt out,' she said. “But you probably don't want people receiving (your emails) if they don't want them. When in doubt, include opt-out.”
         Can-Spam Conundrum. Online Article from Circulation Management, August 1, 2004.
    [Ed. Note: In other words, according to the Marketdroid Conway quoted extensively, anything he does is not spam. Of course, the "You CAN-SPAM Act" pretty much legitimized spam, so it encourages this sort of thinking on the part of relentless marketing operations that are contributing to the demise of email because of the spam pandemic. I am tempted to call Mr. Conway an idiot, but I won't, I don't want to insult that class of the population. For instance, if there is any one thing that is clear in this travesty of a law, it is that absolutely the legislatively now permitted unsolicited bulk email must have a clear and functioning opt-out mechanism. One has to wonder after reading the above quotes if Conway is capable of reading, or much less actually read the law.

    CAN-SPAM ‘Needs More Time’ to Work
    The jury is still out on the CAN-SPAM Act, as seen by the fact that consumers’ inboxes aren’t any emptier than they were before Jan. 1, when the law took effect. That’s the consensus from a panel discussion at last week’s fourth annual Information Privacy Forum.
    "Capitol Hill’s perspective is that it needs more time," Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association, told attendees during a session on privacy legislation. "The law itself won’t find a solution. The FBI may be coming out with a big law enforcement. At least I hope they will."
         Direct Market News Online, July 19, 2004.
    [Ed. Note: Needs more time? For what? So email can be totally dead before a solution to the spam epidemic is put in place? Congress was wrong. These boneheaded marketers are wrong. Any bulk email of any sort that is unsolicited, not subscribed to ahead of time with a confirmed opt-in procedure, must be declared illegal and unacceptable. And any ISP that allows is customers to spam or that supports spam operations should have its traffic blocked and refused by the rest of the legitimate Interent. It will come to that eventually, as a result of the continued efforts by marketeers and corporations and Internet criminals to destroy email with spam.
and spamm