Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Comes from the (thankfully brief) Month Pythom sketch. Set in a diner, a customer faces a menu with all dishes containing spam (ham) and neither the owner nor any of the other patrons can see a problem. It degenerates into an annoying song about spam.
Most spams are unrealised spams. Someone replies to a spam, and sends to all of the groups or addresses that the original spam went to, without realising it. Or some snoty-nosed kid just discovered the net, and chain letters, and is too foolish to know there is no such thing as easy money. All spams should be considered accidental, and if you don't like it, politely inform the sender that what they sent IS a spam, and WHY.
The other class of spam, and the one that gets control freaks the most upset, is the deliberate spam. However free speech says that anyone can spam anywhere, anytime. There is nothing you can (nor should) do about it, beyond politely letting the sender know how you feel. No one is under any obligation to respect your feelings.
Supporting Free Speech on the Net.
There is an excellent "Alternate Primer on Free Speech" (not exact quote) to Usenet.
Personally I consider free speech a basic right, and sign of a mature society, but I still object to the mechanism of distribution - the net allows idiots to be more widely heard than ever before - and illegal content, like chain letters. Hence I'm not a champion of free speech.
Spamming is at the very least impolite. Don't react maliciously, because that makes you worse than any spammer - what people say can't harm you (unless you choose to let it), while malicious acts are deliberate attempts to cause harm.
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