EDITED VERSION: Why spam is bad. An explanation for the clue impaired.

------BEGIN SIMPLE ENGLISH MESSAGE-----

You spammed. You do not get it. I will tell you. I hope you will get it.

We do not like spam. Spam is bad. Spam hurts the net. We like the net.
So we do not like spam. In fact, we hate spam.

What is spam? Spam is the same thing lots and lots of times.

What is lots and lots? We will not tell you. Why? We think you might post
one less, and then say it is not spam. But we will tell you this: count
the things on your hands and feet. It is near that.

What is spam not? Spam is not a bad post. Spam is not a bad post lots and
lots of times. Spam is not a post in the wrong place. Spam is not a bad
post in the wrong place lots and lots of times.

Spam is the same thing lots and lots of times.

We do not care what is in a spam. We do not care if it is in the right
place or the wrong place. If we cared, that would be bad. If we did not
like a post, we could say it is bad, so it is spam. Or we could say it
is in the wrong place, so it is spam. That would be worse than spam.
So we say a thing is spam if it is the same thing lots and lots of times.

One more time: spam is the same thing lots and lots of times.

Why is spam bad? The more times it is there, the more room it takes on
each site's disk, and the more time it takes to get it to all of the
sites. It should take just a small bit of room on each site's disk, and
take just a small bit of time to get there. So spam is a lot of waste.

Why else is spam bad? The more times it is there, the more times we have
to see it. Some folks pay for their news by the note, or by the byte, or
by how much time it takes them to get it. Some have to pay for each post
in a group they read, and their site does not care if they read the post.
So spam is not fair.

Why else is spam bad? Spam makes folks mad. They post notes and say that
they are mad. Lots and lots of notes. We call these notes "flames." So
spam makes lots and lots of flames.

Why is a small spam bad? Some folks think that if a small thing is not
bad, then the same thing big is not bad too. So if a small spam is not
yelled at, then there will be lots and lots of big spams.

What did you do? You sent the same thing lots and lots of times. So you
spammed. Spam is bad.

We do not care what you said. We do not care if it was in the right place.
You sent the same thing lots and lots of times. That is spam. That is bad.

Some folks like to get rid of spam when they see it. We think that is
good. We like them. We think they are good.

When they get rid of spam, they get rid of all of it. They do not try to
think if some of the posts are in the wrong place and just get rid of
those ones. That would be bad. As bad as to say that a post is spam if
they did not like it. No, they get rid of all of them. That is the right
way to get rid of spam.

Why are we mad at you? You spammed. But there is more: when we said we
were mad, you said you did not spam. And you said few of us were mad.
And you said your spam was not bad because it was in the right place.
And you said that we should not get rid of it. Or that we should not get
rid of the ones in the right place.

You said you will do it no more. We do not know if we think that is true.
Why? You said things that we think are bad. You did things that we think
are bad. So we do not trust you. We think you might do it the next time
you think of a thing you want lots and lots of folks to hear.

How can you make us think you will do it no more, and that you are good
folks?

1. Say that what you did was spam.
2. Say that what you did was bad.
3. Say that you feel bad since you did this bad thing.
4. *Then* say that you will do it no more.

Then we might trust you. Then we might not be mad at you.

That is not too hard for you to get, is it?

------END SIMPLE ENGLISH MESSAGE-----

What you just read is based on an original work (c) Copyright 1995 by Henry Neemanby.  

For more information on its history, see: 

From: http://spam.abuse.net/others/simplespam.shtml 

The original post is (c) Copyright 1995 Henry Neeman and is being used with his 
permission. Mr. Neeman has given permission in a reposting to copy the essay 
for use in web pages, etc. as long as he is credited as the original author. 
Persons wishing to use the essay in for-profit works should of course contact 
Mr. Neeman.

History: Mr. Neeman originally wrote this back in 1995, dealing with a 
particularly dense bunch of spammers known as Democratech. It was explained 
by many folks on news.admin.net-abuse.misc (including myself) that what 
Democratech did was in fact spam, no matter how well-intended.

They still did not Get It. Henceforth, the post which would soon be known 
as "spam is bad" was posted, and became a minor cult classic on NANAM to the 
point it was reposted in 1996 due to popular request. (It was at that time 
Mr. Neeman gave permission to use this in replies to spammers, archival on web 
pages and the like.)

------------------------------- 

What Is Spam?  by William Guynes

  If you have made your e-mail address public by placing a classified ad, or if you have inquired about a
  specific offer that interested you, or if you have participated in a newsgroup or a chatroom, or even if you
  simply have a webpage with your e-mail address on it, your name has been harvested, placed on e-mail
  lists, and sold indiscriminately to internet marketers. Even if you have not in any way expressed an
  interest in any products or services, you will most certainly find yourself the victim of spam.

  What is spam? Technically the term is used to define unsolicited commercial e-mail that is sent in
  bulk. The key word, however is UNSOLICITED. No matter what the e-mail is trying to sell you - whether
  it's an illegal pyramid scheme, a solicitation for donations to a children's fund, or a reminder that God
  loves you, - and no matter if it's addressed only to you or to 100,000 people - if you didn't request the
  information, it is unsolicited. Does this mean that the surprise e-mail from your cousin Harry is spam?
  Of course not. Certainly we don't have to solicit correspondence with friends, family and business
  associates. But if you don't know Harry and he e-mails you asking you to visit his website, you've been
  spammed.

  Why Is Spam So Annoying?

  The currently overwhelming amount of spam is an annoyance to everybody. How would you feel if a
  parade of salesmen came knocking on your door every day, and most of the same ones kept coming
  back time after time? Or if your phone rang all day and night with sales calls? Would you put up with
  salespeople jumping in front of you waving sales flyers in your face every time you walked down the
  street? Isn't unsolicited e-mail just another version of this type of rude intrusion?

  For people who work on the internet, spam creates even more of a problem. If you have a physical
  (non-internet) business, most likely you have put a No Soliciting sign on your door and hired a secretary
  to screen your visitors and phone calls. If you didn't, salespeople would interrupt you on a regular basis,
  wasting your time and impeding your ability to run an efficient office. When an internet marketer has to
  stop work and check mail to find 10, 20, maybe 50 pieces of junk per day, day after day, this
  marketer's ability to earn a living has been impaired. The spammer's cry of just hit delete doesn't wash
  when you know you have to take the time to load all your mail into your reader, scan through it to find
  the messages you DO want to receive, and then delete the junk. And what if you're out of town, dialing
  in long distance on your laptop? It is a waste of time, a waste of resources, a waste of bandwidth - and,
  therefore, a waste of money. YOUR money.

  Some people feel that the reason the Spamwars has escalated to the highly emotional issue that it now
  represents is because of the type of commercial e-mail we all receive day after day. Fully 95% (if not
  more) of this junk consists of nothing more than pyramid schemes, get rich quick scams, offers to click
  here to see my bazooms (which appear just as often in the e-mail of an 8-year-old as they do an adult),
  and mailing lists or software tools to recruit more spammers. Not only that, but most of this spam is the
  SAME offers from countless different people, over and over again. The number of people claiming to be
  Christopher Erickson, Karen Liddell, or a retired attorney peddling pyramid schemes could populate a
  small town. Most of this stuff is so repetitive, those of us who spend much time on the internet can
  recite it by heart. And some spammers seem to believe that if they send the EXACT SAME SPAM to
  us 5, 20, or 100 times, we will somehow be hypnotized into buying it.

  What About Targeted Advertising?

  However, the real issue is not one of content. Even if all commercial e-mail was truly targeted and all
  e-mail marketers sold legitimate products, we would still be inundated with countless numbers of
  unsolicited advertisements. Right now, most ISPs have strong policies prohibiting their customers from
  spamming, and when they receive the hundreds (or thousands) of abuse reports that result from each
  incidence, they will either warn the spammer or immediately cancel his account. Imagine what would be
  happening right now if this were not so and UCE was an acceptable form of internet marketing.

  If only 5,000 companies (a miniscule percentage of what's out there) decided to try this form of free
  advertising and send out only 100,000 pieces a week, there would be 500 MILLION pieces of junk mail
  being pushed through the system each week. How long would you be prepared to wait to load 500+
  pieces of spam into your mail reader every time you logged on? How many pieces of valid e-mail from
  friends and relatives would you be willing to bounce due to your mailbox being filled to capacity with
  junk mail? Will the request of just press delete be asking too much when you are doing it 1,000 times a
  day?

  Oh, but if it was targeted e-mail from legitimate companies, you wouldn't get that much of it, right?
  Well, let's see. Do you use toothpaste, read books, wear clothes, write with pens, get colds, have pets,
  drive a car, use a telephone, watch TV, use a printer, play games, have children, shave, cook, eat food,
  go on vacations, listen to music, wash your hair, do laundry... are you starting to get the picture?

  Is It Ever OK To Advertise By E-Mail?

  The only acceptable form of e-mail advertising is called opt-in. This is when you SPECIFICALLY
  REQUEST that a company put your name on their mailing list. And this is only acceptable if there is a
  good confirmation process to determine that YOU - and not somebody trying to get either you or the
  marketing company in hot water - are the one who actually submitted your e-mail address. Right now
  it's very common for morons to submit other people's e-mail addresses to opt-in lists either as a joke or
  an act of revenge.

  Another important requirement for an opt-in list is that the confirmation process require a REPLY TO
  CONFIRM, with a specific code imbedded in the subject line for security purposes - again, to ensure
  that the reply is from YOU. A no reply should automatically remove your name from the list. Why is this
  important? Think about it - how many times have you been spammed with the instructions to reply to
  remove your address? Almost every spam? This is a traditional spammer trick to harvest live, active
  e-mail addresses to sell to other spammers. Therefore, nobody will ever trust an opt-in list that requires
  a reply to remove.

  Many e-mail marketers are pushing the idea of opt-out. The way this supposedly works is that an
  advertiser sends you UCE with instructions for removal of your name from their mailing list. Some of
  them even try to lend legitimacy to this method by requiring that the spam be labeled as Advertisement,
  assumedly to make it easier for you to determine whether or not you want to read it. This is
  UNACCEPTABLE for two main reasons:

  Many people are already receiving upwards of 50+ pieces of spam per day, all from different advertisers.
  As noted above, if Unsolicited Commercial E-mail became an approved method of marketing, these
  numbers would skyrocket. The victimized netizen would be spending ever-increasing amounts of time
  requesting to be removed from mailing lists that he never wanted to be on in the first place.
  It's been attempted before and proven unworkable. If you request to be removed from a mailing list, you
  are depending on the moral standards of the spammer to honor your request. So far the vast majority of
  spammers have shown themselves to be completely devoid of any ethics. Anybody who has requested
  removal from a mailing list can attest to this - a removal request normally INCREASES the amount of
  spam received because it has historically been used as a validation of the requestor's e-mail address.
  Not only will the spammer not honor your request, but he will then have yet another "fresh" e-mail
  address to sell to other spammers.

  A Word About "Opt In" Offers

  You receive an unsolicited offer by e-mail for 100% Business Opportunity Seeker Addresses. The word
  opt-in is all over the offer. What do you do?

  If you have any sense, you'll report it. If you have been SPAMMED with an offer for opt-in, you can be
  absolutely sure that the addresses on that list are harvested without the permission of the targets. In
  other words, if you spend money on that list and send your offers to it, YOU will lose your accounts for
  spamming.

  Right now, some of the most persistent spammers who lie about the origination of their lists are
  Cashfromhome.com, Consumer Connections, Email King, Pavilion Advertising Services... well, actually,
  you can pretty much assume just about anything you receive unsolicited in your own e-mail is bogus.

  A good rules of thumb is to NEVER e-mail anybody with an offer unless you can PERSONALLY verify
  that they requested your information.

  But Isn't Spam Just Exercising Freedom of Speech?

  Spammers cry about freedom of speech and point fingers at anti-spammers, whining that we are a
  small group of anti-commercial fanatics who wish to impose censorship on the poor small businessman
  just trying to make a living. What they don't seem to understand is that their right to swing their fists
  ends before our noses begin. Every American has the right to speak up and express his own views
  without interference from the government (which is literally what freedom of speech is all about - the
  right to speak out against the government without the threat of being shipped to Siberia). However,
  NOBODY has the right to barge into my living room to give a shpiel on a vacuum cleaner without my
  invitation. One may also be prohibited from making a speech about fertilizer in a business meeting
  scheduled to discuss the company's new personnel policy. And just try to yell Fire in a crowded movie
  theatre and see where your whining about freedom of speech gets you.

  Censorship? Hardly. Let's look at a highly controversial example - pornography. Granted, there are
  groups who would like to see porn banned from the internet. This certainly would be censorship, and is
  not in the least a part of any agenda item in the anti-spam movement. There are plenty of
  anti-spammers who enjoy pornography, as well as those of us who wouldn't touch the stuff with a
  ten-foot pole. But as long as the advertisements are not sent UNSOLICITED into our e-mail, we could
  care less. This is not about censorship - it's about protection of our private property, and OUR
  FREEDOM of choosing what we want to receive. As noted before, it doesn't matter if it's an invitation to
  a porn site or a Bible study class - if it's unsolicited, THAT MEANS WE DON'T WANT IT.

  As for being a small group of fanatics, there is plenty of proof to the contrary. Ask any ISP with a past
  record of even one spamming incident how many abuse reports they received. Surveys have shown that
  over 70% of all internet users do NOT want to receive spam. In my opinion, most of the other 30% are
  people who haven't been online long enough to get any, and the rest are spammers themselves.

  Isn't Spam Good For Small Businesses?

  Spam is not a freedom of speech issue - it's a theft issue.

  Some people try to compare postal junk mail to UCE. Postal mail is paid for by advertisers and helps
  support the U.S. Post Office. It is illegal to place postal mail in a mailbox without postage. Spam is
  paid for in part by the unwilling recipient. In addition, it does not in any way help support the system,
  but instead seriously abuses it by overloading servers and causing the necessity of additional non-profit
  producing staff to deal with the problems caused. Ask the sysadmins of small ISPs who have to deal
  with spam-crashed servers how wonderful it is for small business.

  TV and radio ads are also paid for by advertisers and support the service so that users may enjoy it for
  free. If we don't want to see TV commercials, we can pay for cable. In the case of spam, the opposite
  situation exists. Because of the cost-shifting aspects of this practice, the more spam there is the more
  the end users will have to pay for their connection costs. Many ISPs right now (especially the small
  businesses who can't absorb the added expense) are barely making it because of the added burden of
  spam. Do you wish to pay more for your service just so you can get more junk mail?

  Magazines are also supported by advertisements. How much do you suppose a $3.00 magazine would
  cost you if ads were placed for free? How many fledgling entrepreneurs would be able to start a new
  magazine - that's small business, folks - by footing all the start-up costs with no income from
  advertisers?

  Spam also costs the unwilling recipient in lost time loading the gobs of it into their mail readers and
  wading through it to determine if any of it is solicited information or correspondence from friends and
  customers. And small business people working on a shoe-string budget normally are the chief cooks
  and bottle washers, without a staff to assist them. This lost time spent on dealing with spam can
  greatly impact the building of a small business. If you make your e-mail address public by placing ads
  and registering with search engines, you know I'm not talking about a couple of pieces of UCE a day -
  more like 50-100!

  How Can A Small Business Advertise If It Is Not Allowed To Spam?

  The internet IS a great opportunity for small businesses without seed money. There are free or very
  inexpensive websites, free and low-cost ad sites, free banner exchange programs, free webring
  programs, free newsgroups (the appropriate ones) to post in and make contacts, free search engines
  and link directories to be listed in. But you know what? There is no get rich quick scheme that will
  work. Anybody can start a business on the internet today without money, but not without work, effort,
  time, dedication, persistence and patience. Anybody who believes that spamming (whether in bulk or
  one at a time, theft is theft) is the only way they can start a business is probably not business-owner
  material in the first place. Spammers are not only looking for a free ride, they are hijacking other
  people's vehicles to get it.

  If you want to advertise by bulk e-mail, compile an opt-in list. Again, this would take time and effort.
  Place ads, put a sign-up sheet on your website, speak to people in (appropriate) newsgroups, and have
  a solid confirmation process to ensure that the e-mail addresses you have received were submitted by
  the owners. Sorry, no free rides in this world. You want a business? WORK for it.

  If you can't put in the time and the effort to start an honest, ethical, legitimate business, then learn how
  to say, Do you want fries with that? By the way, anybody who believes that annoying the majority of
  their prospective customers is good business practice SHOULD be asking people if they want fries.

  What Can I Do About Spam?

  If YOU have ever felt angry about these annoying pests and wanted to do something about it but didn't
  know how, read on!

  The following is a list of what NOT to do when you receive spam.

  Do NOT try to follow remove instructions! In most cases, one of two things will happen. (1) You will have
  affirmed that your e-mail address is valid, and therefore will receive even MORE spam, or (2) You will
  receive a follow-up e-mail from the appropriate Postmaster that the e-mail address you replied to is
  invalid.

  Do NOT flame, mail-bomb, or otherwise use terrorist tactics to get back at the spammer. In a rock fight,
  both parties end up with bloody heads. Not only will you leave yourself open for retribution (in some
  cases this means legal recourse), but you will have discredited the efforts of other anti-spammers by
  bringing the Anti-Spam Campaign down to the same level as the irresponsible spammers themselves.
  Besides, most of the e-mail addresses that spammers use are not valid and your efforts will be wasted.
  To help rid the internet of this annoying, unwanted waste, do the following:

  Contact your internet service provider and inquire about their Acceptable Use Policies on spamming and
  what they are doing to block the transmission of spam to you.
  Report all spammers to the appropriate authorities. The easiest way to do this is to register with
  Network Abuse Clearinghouse (abuse.Net) and let them do the legwork for you. Many spammers forge
  their e-mail addresses and headers, making tracking them down time-consuming and frustrating.
  Strengthening ISP policies and reporting spammers will certainly help, but the only way to
  PERMANENTLY stop spam is to contact your Representatives and urge support of opt-in anti-spam
  legislation.



Replies: 

Date sent:          Sun, 25 Jul 1999
From:               Bob McClenon on SPAM-L Mailing List
Subject:            Definition of Spam

I have a few more thoughts on the definition of what is spam.  Spam is
offensive largely because it violates the social contract or consensus
that defines the character of the medium, and attempts to convert a
subscriber-controlled or narrow-band medium into a broadcast or
advertiser-controlled medium.  A distinction is sometimes made between
'push' and 'pull' media.  This distinction is useful but inadequate.
It fails to identify why spam is offensive.  Email is a 'push' medium
in the restrictive sense that the author of an email note determines
its content.  Usenet is a 'push' medium in the restrictive sense that
the author of a post determines its content.  However, both email and
Usenet have, since their introduction, been recognized by their
communities as media for the peer-to-peer exchange of information.
They are not 'push' media in the more precise sense of being media
where there is a contract entitling a sponsor or advertiser to 'push'
commercial messages at the subscribers.  The subscribers, and not any
sponsors, determine the content of Usenet or email.  Spam violates
this consensus by attempting to use a peer medium to 'push' or
broadcast messages at subscribers.

A more realistic and complete categorization of media would identify
broadcast, peer-to-peer, and query-driven media.  Customers pay for
connectivity to peer-to-peer media.  They do not traditionally pay for
connectivity to broadcast media, which are financed by the
broadcasters or sponsors.  Spam is an attempt to convert a
peer-to-peer medium into a broadcast medium.  Telemarketing
(unsolicited commercial telephone calls) are one of the few media that
is generally considered as offensive as spam.  Like electronic spam,
telemarketing is an attempt to convert a subscriber-financed
peer-to-peer medium into a broadcast medium.  Telemarketing and spam
are both attempts to use a subscriber-financed peer-to-peer medium as
a commercial medium.

In the United States, 'cost shifting' is commonly used as an argument
why spam is bad.  I think that the 'cost shifting' argument is
accurate but incomplete.  The real problem is that spam is a misuse of
a medium which is meant to be used for subscriber-funded peer-to-peer
exchange of information, not for the 'pushing' of (usually false)
information.

Spam is an effort to attempt to bypass market control of a medium
while appearing to be appealing to the free market.  Broadcast TV,
cable TV, and radio are media which have always had commercial
messages.  They also give the user the ability to change channels.
Spam is (in general) an attempt to avoid the voice of the free market
by exploiting a medium that is not meant to be controlled by a
sponsorship market.

Any attempt to define spam should reflect the consensus or social
contract of the medium that is being spammed.  In general, spam is any
effort to misuse a medium by using a subscriber-financed medium for
unilateral distribution of information.

In particular, the definition of email spam is simply Unsolicited Bulk
Electronic Mail.  Most UBE is also UCE.  However, religious UBE is
also spam.  On the other hand, a truly individual commercial
electronic message may be offensive, but it is not spam.  This
definition reflects the character of email.  Email is meant to be a
peer-to-peer medium, not a broadcast medium.  Opt-in mailing lists
comply with the peer-to-peer concept.  There may be such a thing as an
honest opt-out list, but I have never yet seen it.  In any case, the
transmission of an opt-out list to non-subscribers violates the social
contract of the medium.

The definition of Usenet spam is almost as clear.  Any message that is
off-charter and either multiply posted or cross-posted is spam.  I
would submit in defense of a very few messages that a message must be
off-topic to be spam.  However, the concept of what is 'off-topic'
should be interpreted very strictly.  The BI>=20 is the test of
cancelable spam, not of spam in general.  Any message that is multiply
posted or cross-posted that is off-charter should be considered spam.

Another type of spam is chatroom spam.  I would suggest that any
message intended for commercial or other benefit in a chatroom is
spam.  In other words, if you aren't sure whether it is chatroom spam,
it is chatroom spam.

Is telemarketing a form of spam?  Yes.  It differs from other spam
only in that it uses the telephone rather than the Internet, and
predates Internet spam.

In summary, the definitions of specific types of spam should reflect
the general concept that spam is an inappropriate attempt to change
the character of a medium from a peer-to-peer medium into a push
medium.  Email spam is:  Unsolicited Bulk Electronic Mail.  Usenet
spam is:  Off-topic MP or CP.

I hope that this answers some questions.

     --   Bob McClenon