Spam is That Which We Don't Do

Each statement in the following list has been offered as proof that some unsolicited bulk email messages were not spam or that a service provider dislikes spam or spammers, often but not always in or about mail sent to someone at Rhyolite Software. Of course, any and all unsolicited bulk mail is spam. An excuse for sending unsolicited bulk email does not make unsolicited bulk email other than spam. Endlessly repeating, as many spammers and spammer supporters do, "Spam is that which I and my friends don't do," doesn't make it true.

not-us: This is not spam, because we would never do that.
not-us-2: I'm not a spammer. I'm a commercial e-mailer.
not-us-3: The unsolicited bulk email we send on behalf of our clients is not spam because we are a responsible ESP.
not-us-5: I do not spam and neither do my co-workers, although people reject our email as spam and we cannot buy Internet services that are not in DNS blacklists
one-time: This is not spam because it is a one time mailing.
one-time-2: This unsolicited bulk mail is not spam because it is a one time mailing, and it really is a one time mailing.
one-time-3: This unsolicited bulk message is not spam, because it is a bona fide auto-response.
one-time-4: The invitations to our conferences are not spam. We cannot wait for people to come to our email management system, because good quality people do not have time to do that. We just ask them once if they would like to be on our list, very politely, and we never contact them again (except those good quality people we have contacted dozens of times).
legal: This is not spam because it complies with all of the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.
legal-2: I have committed no crime whatsoever.
legal-3: My unsolicited bulk mail does not violate my Internet service provider's terms of service or any law.
legal-4: I do not send spam, because any unsolicited copies of my bulk advertising are sent in error, without malice, and are a far cry from 419 schemes and Viagra ads.
legal-5: So sorry you feel that way. However, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 specifically excludes political campaign messages. Perhaps if you did your homework or simply hit the big unsubscribe button or link it would have saved you the time, trouble and keystrokes.
political-speech: It's political speech. We're not selling anything, and we're not being deceptive. We love the First Amendment, and there's nothing more powerful than political speech.
political-speech-2: My unsolicited bulk mail with forged headers and sent through an elementary school in Chonnam, Korea was not spam. It was an innovative, legal way to use the Internet.
political-speech-3: My unsolicited bulk email is not spam. It is not selling something weird. It is an update to the voters who elected me.
political-speech-4: That unsolicited bulk email advertising a professional demagogue's book was not spam, because I agree with it. Because you say you did not subscribe to that stream of advertisements and demands for money to save the world, either you are lying or someone broke into your computer and subscribed you.
unsubscribe: This is not spam, because you can easily unsubscribe.
unsubscribe-2: This is not spam, because other recipients have unsubscribed.
unsubscribe-3: This is not spam, because fewer than 0.35% of the addresses we harvested successfully used our miss-configured state of the art list management software to unsubscribe.
opt-out: Our unsolicited bulk mail is not spam, because opt-out advertising is not spam.
opt-out-2: This is not a spam email; it's our marketing campaign email.
opt-out-3: You would think that people as Internet savvy as you all would know how to use the remove link in an email.
opt-out-4: My contacts are legitimate. My unsubscribe link is valid and I never send email to people who unsubscribe. I send newsletters that are informative and only about my company.
list-manager: Our unsolicited bulk mail is not spam, because we use state of the art list management software.
list-manager-2: Our unsolicited bulk mail is not spam, because the opt-out message we sent you did not bounce.
list-manager-3: Our unsolicited bulk mail is not spam, because we paid someone else to send it.
just-hit-delete: If this does not interest you, just hit delete. It's not worth getting excited about.
just-hit-delete-2: There are far bigger streams of spam that you should be worrying about.
just-hit-delete-3: There are far bigger crimes than spam that you should be worrying about.
just-hit-delete-4: The time, money, and effort you've spent complaining about that unsolicited bulk email far exceeds any harm it did.
just-hit-delete-5: Why contact his boss? It's not like he's on a rogue e-mail campaign, obviously the company told him to do this. Why not focus on more significant spam?
no-list: This is not spam and your address has not been added to a list.
not-me: The unsolicited bulk commercial advertising email you received from us was not spam, because we never send spam.
reconfirmation: This unsolicited bulk email message is not spam because it is re-confirming that you have not subscribed to advertising from this new lead generating customer of ours.
try-not-to-spam: We are not spammers, because we minimize the number of unwilling recipients of our unsolicited bulk email.
try-not-to-spam-2: We do not want spammers as customers. If you find that one of our customers is a ROKSO Spammer, we will terminate its services. Never mind that we won't check the ROKSO list ourselves before signing up a new customer.
try-not-to-spam-3: We do not want spammers as customers. We terminate any customer that is a spammer as shown by valid news.admin.net-abuse.sightings reports. Never mind that we never check NANAS ourselves and cannot be bothered to write the trivial code to check new NANAS reports to trigger investigations.
try-not-to-spam-4: We do not want spammers as customers and we terminate any that send unsolicited bulk email. Never mind that unlike most blacklist and spam filter systems, we have no spam traps and make no other efforts to detect spam from our customers.
try-not-to-spam-5: We are not spammers and we have a strict anti spam policy (or terms of service).
working-with: They are not spammers, because only some of their bulk mail is unsolicited and I am working with them to educate them.
my-vendor: Their unsolicited bulk email sent to you is not spam, because I buy things from them.
IPO-thanks: That unsolicited bulk mail could never be spam no matter who sent it or to whom, because it was mail I would like to receive someday.
no-complaints: Our mail is not spam, because we have received few or no complaints.
no-complaints-2: My unsolicited bulk email is not spam because few people send similar messages.
no-complaints-3: We are not spammers, because 262 separate tests including SpamCop confirm that we're not listed anywhere.
no-complaints-4: We are not spammers, because we have a 100% acceptance to every domain that we send to, we're not listed anywhere, and we are whitelisted with AOL.
thank-you: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because one or two recipients have thanked us for it.
narrow-market: Our unsolicited bulk email messages are not spam, because our services are too expensive for spammers in general.
spamfighter: I hate spam as much as the next person.
bitch-list: My unsolicited bulk mail is not spam because it is needed to force a spammer to stop spamming me.
challenge-response: My C/R challenges may be unsolicited and bulk, but they are not spam because they keep spam out of my mailbox.
challenge-response-2: The unsolicited bulk email from my C/R system is not spam, because so few people use C/R systems that misdirected challenges to forged spam are not a significant problem.
callout-verification: My callouts are not abusive even if callbacks are swamping your mail system. I have the most advanced spam filter on the net and I'm an expert.
callback-verification: My callbacks are unsolicited, unprovoked, and part of a DDoS attack of callouts on your mail system, but they are neither spam nor abusive, because there is no intent to deliver a message and they are being used to block spam.
relay-tester: Thousands of the messages I send to check for open relays are unsolicited, unprovoked, and identical, but they are not spam, because I am helping fight spam.
relay-tester-2: Some of the dozens of the unprovoked, unsolicited mail messages that I sent your mail system to see if is an open relay landed in your postmaster mailbox, but they are not spam because I am fighting spam.
open-relay: We are not spammers and are not responsible for the unsolicited bulk email sent through our relay or proxy.
SPF: We bounced the forged message to you so you'd know someone is spoofing your email address protected by SPF. We even provided you with the source IP address and SPF result.
no-spamware: That unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because I did not use "spamware" or other software prohibited by my Internet service provider.
public-spirited: My unsolicited bulk mail is not spam, because it includes a public service message.
public-spirited-2: Most of the virus warnings from my firewall are sent to people who have nothing to do with the messages that trigger them. While they are unsolicited and bulk, they are not spam, because they make the Internet safer.
public-spirited-3: We feel people would rather have one e-mail from us than repeated e-mails from unscrupulous spammers when their details fall into the wrong hands.
public-spirited-4: Our misdirected reports of spam that have nothing to do with you except by bad parsing of forged or the wrong headers are not spam because our intent is to inform you of a possible problem that you might want to look into.
public-spirited-5: The unsolicited bulk email sent to the mailbox we got from a company acquired years ago was not spam, given the importance and trickiness of alerting customers to a major security upgrade.
academic: Please excuse this intrusion. It is not spam, because there is no other way to collect input from netizens like yourself. With your help, our research will have profound effects.
academic-2: This survey is not spam because our research (or ethics) committee said we could do it.
free-speech: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we have a message of vital importance that must not be blocked or censored.
bonded: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because it is bonded not to be.
just-following-orders: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because someone paid us to send it.
just-following-orders-2: I'm not a spammer. I was just following the boss's orders. There are no other jobs available around here.
hacker-X: We are not spammers and are not responsible for the unsolicited bulk email sent from our IP addresses. Our system was broken into by a hacker.
hacker-X-2: We do not send spam. We were previously affiliated with a spammer, but no longer do business with that person. We have done our best to remove all the illegitimate email addresses from our database.
plausible-deniability: Unsolicited bulk email advertising us is not spam, because we did not send it and we have no idea who did.
affiliate: That bulk email advertising us was not spam or was not our fault. It came from a rogue affiliate that we will terminate as soon as you disclose your spam trap address for list washing.
megacorp: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we are a large, respected company.
alms-giver: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we contribute to charities.
spamfighter-2: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we sued a spammer.
nonprofit: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we are not selling or advertising anything.
free-provider: Spam involving our free mail drop-boxes is not our fault. Never mind how much spam you avoid by blacklisting us.
tradeshow: You asked for our advertising when you gave us your business card at a trade show; never mind that you've never heard of the business we're in and have never attended its trade shows.
your-friends: One of your friends subscribed you to our newsletter or gave us your address.
your-friends-2: This isn't spam because we got your address from an acquaintance. Never mind that we had to trick them out of their freemail password before we could harvest their address book.
your-friends-3: You or some one (sic) you know has willingly given your information to [the company] to notify you of upcoming sales and promotions, so instead of bashing the company who has followed all legal obligations on their part. I would snap your brain back into your head and start contacting everyone who has your email because their (sic) the real spammers!!!
you-are-senile: Our newsletter is not spam. You have forgotten that you subscribed to it.
you-are-senile-2: Our mail advertisement was not spam. You have forgotten that you sent mail asking for it.
not-helpful: We do not support spammers. Any spam you receive from our customers is your fault, because you have not been reporting spammers to us.
helpful: I am not a spammer, but if you would give me your addresses, I would make sure you never receive any unsolicited bulk email from me.
victim: I am no spammer! I don't host spammers! I've spent untold hours getting my IP cleaned up after a hijacker got hold of a form and sent out some spam 3 weeks ago on one of my domains. Everything has been fixed.
small-time: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam because it is not sent to millions of people.
targeted: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam because it is only sent to people who need to know about our products and services.
targeted-2: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam because some of it is wanted by the people who receive it.
targeted-3: We do not send or support spam. This unsolicited bulk email is sent to you because you have been exclusively selected.
targeted-4: This unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because entering your email address into a search engine produces 70 hits.
G-rated: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam because it does not advertise pornography.
honest: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam because it was sent from our own mail system and involves no forgery.
authenticated: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because it is authenticated and digitally signed.
personalized: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because while the copy sent to you was substantially identical to millions of others, your copy was personalized with your name.
asset: This unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we purchased your address from another company.
asset-2: This unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because we obtained your address when we purchased another company.
transaction: You subscribed to our newsletter when you gave us your email address while asking about, buying, or registering a product, and never mind your explicit request to not receive our newsletter.
transaction-2: You subscribed to our newsletter when you complained about spam, which of course we did not send because we would never do that.
transaction-3: My unsolicited bulk advertising is not spam, because it is considered a transaction. Never mind that we have never before done any business or communicated with each other.
not-acquisition: Our unsolicited advertising is not spam because we are not using email for acquisition but only as a method of communication.
sleepwalking-the-web: You have received this email because you visited our site or one of our partnered sites and commenced registration to receive our newsletter.
kiboze: This is not spam because you mentioned us, our web site, or our unsolicited bulk mail in netnews, a mailing list, or a web site.
blocked: That unsolicited bulk mail was not spam, because it was not delivered to the intended target.
social-network: This bulk mail is not spam, although you never asked for it and its return address is forged. We got permission from someone with whom you might once have exchanged mail.
social-network-2: This bulk mail sent to several mailing lists is not spam, because we forged the return address of one of the newest members of our social network.
social-network-3: Our unsolicited bulk email is not spam, because that business-oriented social networking site sends it, not us.
social-network-4: You can find me on Facebook and so know that this message that was sent to tens of thousands of people isn't spam.
big-bank: That unwanted bulk mail advertising credit card balance transfers was not marketing but account management communication.

The paragraph headings are HTML <A NAME=> elements. For example the URL //www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/that-which-we-dont.html#one-time can be used to refer to that entry.

Thanks to various people who have suggested improvements or additions to this list. Do not make suggestions if you would need an explicit acknowledgment or if publication of your observation or suggestion here would violate any copyright owned by anyone.

Contact Vernon Schryver at vjs@rhyolite.com.

$Date: 2016/12/27 14:46:42 $