Ten Reasons Spammers Are Not Ethical

1. They don't care about email privacy.
2. They generate immense costs for ISP servers.
3. They generate costs at end-users without asking permission.
4. They make you waste time downloading their messages.
5. They trick you into confirming your email address, just to flood your mailbox with more spam.
6. They want to trick you into purchasing obscure-quality services and products.
7. They hide under bogus email addresses and make their ISPs untrackable.
8. They lie about what they offer in the message header.
9. They expect to get rich on your expense.
10. They don't mind selling your email address to other spammers.

Oh, sorry, we forgot one: when you mailbox is spam-full, some important messages you've been supposed to receive will bounceback to the sender. These are, most of the times, business opportunities YOU lose. Try to estimate them in figures, and remember them when having second thoughts in reporting a spammer.

A Legal Point of View Over Spam

Internet users now have a legal instrument to fight back somebody who does nothing else but try to steal from them, just like criminals in real life. Some may argue that spam does not compare to murder. OK, maybe not, but it does compare to fraude, in fact it is fraude.

The Can Spam Act became law in the United States on January 1^st 2004. It refers to non-solicited pornography and marketing emails. The law gets thoroughly into regulating the right to 'opt out' when receiving an unsolicited commercial email (or spam) and less into the obligation for the sender to prove an existing request for subscription to that specific message.

Can Spam Act considers to be bulk email:

• more than 100 messages sent over in 24 hours;
• more than 1,000 messages sent over in a 7 days period;
• more than 10,000 messages sent over in a 30 days period.

The most important thing probably to be noticed about the Can Spam Act is that it doesn't forbid the unsolicited commercial messages (or bulk email messages) to be sent out. You only have to follow some specified rules:

• Do not hide your identity in the 'From:' field.
• Include an explicit postal address where you can be contacted (not an P.O. Box)
• Do not lie or mislead in the 'Subject:' field.
• Include a true, visible and easy to use 'opt out' field in your message.
• Process opt-out requests in a period of maximum 30 days.
• If the message has not been sent on an opt-in base, include a clear statement that you are sending an advertisement or solicitation.
• The adresses that provided an opt-out request should become unusable in any other form. You can not provide them to other users or use them in further campaigns.

Moreover, if you have the consent of the receiver to send promotional/commercial emails, you don't need to further specify this in the email body. The law also indulges the 'transactional and relationship emails' not to include opt-out request or physical postal address. The terms 'transactional' and 'relationship' refer to emails sent out to facilitate commercial transactions that were previously discussed with the receivers.