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Hi Sparkes<BR>
<BR>
Ooh My favourite subject<BR>
<BR>
What was the mail? (notice I did not use the word spam)<BR>
Is there an unsubscribe notice on the mail?<BR>
Do they reveal who they are and what they want? (I know you have the address what about phone etc?)<BR>
<BR>
This is a great subject one mans supposed spam is another mans advertising.<BR>
<BR>
This should open the floodgates discussion wise,<BR>
<BR>
I currently run a database of 7000 + email addresses all of which have supplied their email addresses and have the opportunity to unsubscribe.<BR>
<BR>
The email addresses are collected by telesales they are asked for their mailing address and if we can send some info (now comes the slightly dodgy bit) we don't exactly tell them we are adding them to our mailing list but seeing as they give the address freely and say "yes you can send some info" they have opened the door in my view.<BR>
<BR>
They do have the opportunity to unsubscribe and it is done manually and immediately, we reveal who we are and how to contact us.<BR>
<BR>
Now this generates very good business however we do from time to time get accused of spamming which gets up my nose. <BR>
<BR>
I am no solicitor but according to the recommendations (nothing is fixed yet) we do not fit the spammer definition.<BR>
<BR>
Unfortunately joe public has watched Lynn Folds-Wood on catch that crook tea time tv, learnt the word spam and now spews it out at every opportunity to show what clever cloggs they are because they must be an expert seeing as they know the terminology, bit like the guy who rang me the other day saying he wanted lots of ROM's in his machine (he meant RAM by the way) you would be amazed at the amount of people who phone start the conversation with "you regularly send me junk but on this occasion this has caught my eye") I personally think people should look at the bigger picture, <BR>
at the moment we have the FPS ((fax preferential service) so you cant fax) thew TPS ((telephone preferential service) so you cant phone) new laws are due regarding email and Internet.<BR>
<BR>
If a business cannot promote itself how do they survive? The FPS advised putting adds in the paper now with the greatest respect I cant see the head of say ICI responding to an add in the black country bugle.<BR>
<BR>
So I will now wait for every one to hurl abuse at me.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 20:03, sparkes wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="#737373"><I>On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 17:14, Matthew Revell wrote:
> Just had a spam from a company claiming to be at 20 Temple Street, in
> our beloved Wolverhampton.
>
> Any suggestions as to what I should do? Whether you reckon I should
> report them to a particular org or go round with a big dog, your
> thoughts are welcome!
forward it to me and I might pop around tomorrow ;-)
sparkes
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Regards
Peter Cannon
peter@cannon-linux.freeserve.co.uk</PRE>
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