Issues 
Ethics
Internet Advertising Digital Library
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Spam
Privacy - Legal Issues
Direct marketing via email and newsgroups is one of the advertising practices that has aroused the most consumer resistance. Using these techniques can give your company a bad name.
Direct Marketing (Spam)
Direct marketing via email and to newsgroups can be a very tempting way for a new site to get the word out. Such messages can reach great numbers of people for little cost. However, most of the people so reached do not want to hear your message. Many or most people who find UCE (unsolicited commercial email) in their mailbox or spam in their newsgroup will be annoyed or angered by it. Some will be annoyed enough to complain to your ISP and try to get your account removed, or get your name added to any one of various blacklists. Spam does not create a good first impression for your company; most companies who resort to such tactics are rightly seen as unreliable, fly-by-night operations.
Spamming is also ethically questionable, if not yet illegal. Unsolicited commercial messages overwhelm legitimate traffic in newsgroups and can choke people's mailboxes. Transmitting and storing them places a strain on servers. Using these tactics has been described as comparable to posting a billboard for your company on someone elses' lawn -- and expecting the lawn's owner to pay for it.
There are ethical ways to direct market. Let visitors to your site opt in to a continued relationship, and send them email. For newsgroup advertising, there are appropriate places to post ads. The marketplace newsgroups, such as alt.comics marketplace or biz.marketplace.computers.workstation, welcome appropriate and targetted advertisments which are not posted too frequently. Focus on providing a useful service with your advertising, not on attacking consumers with a message they don't want and can't get away from.
For more information, browse the following links:
- The Netizen's Guide to Spam, Abuse, and Internet Advertising
- Understanding Junk Email
- Usenet spam thresholds and guidelines
