Re: But Facebook are not spammers [was: And Facebook sells user data, too ...]

[der Mouse <mouse () rodents-montreal org>]

> > [...Facebook...spam...]
> I find it fascinating that you refuse to even differentiate between
> spammers who illegally use resources such as botnets ([...]) and send
> completely forged emails with illegal scams in them, from emails sent
> by users through a web service that is equivalent to them, in their
> work environment, and sent each time specifically to one person whose
> email they type in.

Well, the question-begging involved in your implicitly equating
Facebook's mail with the latter aside, I don't refuse to differentiate
between them, *except* in the one respect that I still call spam spam
regardless of which one it comes from.

Content issues such as "forged" and "illegal scams" are pretty much
irrelevant when it comes to whether something is spam.  (Well, to me.)
Not quite totally irrelevant, since in some cases the content affects
(un)solicitedness and "substantively identical" is one line in the sand
for bulkness, but mostly.

> No matter how much you dislike what Facebook are doing, your refusal
> to differentiate between the two examples is something I can't
> comprehend.

Well, as I said, I don't refuse to differentiate between them in
general.  However, the discussion has focused on whether the mail sent
is spam, and in that one respect I don't see any difference.

> Further, you nor Rich specified complaints (which were backed up or
> followed up on) other than a generic dislike on how Facebook's emails
> work, other than the fact that they exist.

What?  There has to be something specific wrong with spam other than
its being spam?

> What I can't accept is your lack of arguments other than ad hominem,

What ad hominem?  Rsk came mildly close, but I don't think either Paul
or I (as the other two principal contributers to this side of the
thread) have gone anywhere near ad hominem.

> Web invitations when done by user request, and without "nagging" or
> skipping opt-in, are an acceptable industry norm.

Leaving aside the question-begging aspects of your implicitly equating
this to what Facewbook does, and the blatant question-begging of your
tagging "acceptable" onto that: being industry norm does not make
something either acceptable or non-abusive.  Spam is industry norm;
estimates of the percentage of mail traffic that is spam - even the
stuff even you would call spam - are generally in the high 90s, and I
don't know of anyone who puts it below 3/4.  And for other abusive
norms in the industry, we can start with the catastrophic mismatch
between authority and responsibility which is killing the Internet.

> Gmail does it.  Yahoo does it.  CNN does it.

I find it interesting that two of the three organizations you cite as
justification for your position are ones I've had to block in toto
because of blatant, egregious, and repeated abuse issues.  Citing them
in support of your argument is pretty close to an own goal, in my
opinion.

As for the third, it might be instructive to look at the differences,
because I can't recall ever getting such an "invitation" from them,
whereas I get them from Facebook often enough to have been exasperated
with them long before this discussion started.  Might be the statistics
of whom I know, but maybe not, too - something like half the Facebook
spam I get I get through mailing lists.

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