Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : how do you define spam

[dmxconsult]

One thing I am trying to figure out is how is spam defined and what should I look for if a client is doing it? To me spam is what comes in the form of viagara ads, diet plans and body enhancements from xyzftpsomething@_.com. Has anyone had problems with people signing up for sites then use the bulk emails?
The other thing I can't figure out is if a business that hosts with you sends out a couple emails to people to sell say greeting cards or something and one of these people contacts you, the host company, and say they spammed me. To me that would seem innocent, but some recent material on the net abou the US changing spam laws makes me wonder if that isn't spamming too. What do you do, who do you contact about spammers or do you just shut the site down?
I really don't know how spam is defined, does anybody have any ideas?

[beachtrader]

Here you go--a thread just about this subject:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ht=define+spam

[pmabraham]

Greetings:

Unsolicited email.

Thank you.

[dmxconsult]

Thank you very much for the link and info. Now if they could do something about all those adverts that fill the mail post office box.

[IRCCo Jeff]

@ Spam Arrest (spamarrest.com)

Its a white list that requires anyone wanting to e-mail you to add themselves to the list manually. This prevents any automatic e-mails and e-mails without proper return addresses from reaching you. Any automated mail you *want* to receive you can create an exception for.

[developer]

for me:

spam = unwanted emails

[foogee]

Here is a link to the Spamhaus.org definition .

A key sentence is "To be Spam, a message must be sent Unsolicited AND Bulk."

foogee

[Kaumil]

Dictionary.com:

spam
n.
Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail

tr.v. spammed, spam·ming, spams
To send unsolicited e-mail to.
To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups.


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=spam

[uneedawebsit]

Spam is not the best term to use in describing unwanted email. A better term, in my opinion, is UCE (which means Unsolicited Commercial Email) in reference to bulk commercial email.

If you don't define 'Spam' as having both a bulk and a commercial nature, then almost any email you send could be considered Spam unless you get a request to send it (and then, wouldn't the request itself be Spam?).

I know it is all semantics but the point I am trying to make is that not all unsolicited email is Spam, even if I haven't asked for it. But, all unsolicited bulk commercial email is, regardless of the content.

[JYC]

I think many people get the wrong idea about spam. When people think spam, they think about a huge mailing list to thousands of people with ads for all sorts of products. Technically spam is synonomous to unsolicitated e-mail, meaning ANY e-mail that is not requested by the recipient. A personal e-mail, of course, would not be considered spam. Spam is generally commercial in nature but it doesn't have to be. In either case, spam is annoying.

If one of your clients are sending unsolicitated e-mail's or you recieve complaints about it. Have the recipient send you a copy of your client's e-mail, and if you consider it blatant spam, you could then e-mail the customer tell him/her that (s)he has been sending unsolicitated e-mails (wether (s)he considers them to be so or not), which violates your hosting TOS, and should refrain from doing so. Warn them that if they commit another offense that their account will be suspended, and that a third offense they will be asked to leave without refund.

If it seems like they have been sending "innocent" spam, I guess you should tone it down a little bit, and be a little milder such as asking them wether they knew it was considered spam or not and then asking them nicely not to do it again.

[Incognito]

Originally posted by JYC
Technically spam is synonomous to unsolicitated e-mail, meaning ANY e-mail that is not requested by the recipient. A personal e-mail, of course, would not be considered spam. Spam is generally commercial in nature but it doesn't have to be. In either case, spam is annoying.

This is not consistent with the definitions used by any major anti-spam organization or by most web hosts. The definition posted earlier is correct by those standards. That is, it is commercial and bulk. More specifically, Unsolicited Bulk Commercial Email.

[JYC]

does it really matter if its bulk or not? doesnt have to be bulk to be unwanted...

[danieljmccoy]

Spam, to many people, is anything they do not want. I think the definition depends on who you ask.

[CrazyTech]

The best way to define SPAM is unwanted email. It doesn't matter if the person that reports you is 1/2 or 1/10,000. In this day and age, it's SPAM.

[akashik]

Originally posted by JYC
does it really matter if its bulk or not? doesnt have to be bulk to be unwanted...

Unwanted e-mail isn't spam.. it's just unwanted.

Spam is Unsolicited, Bulk, Commercial, E-mail.

If you're reporting every single e-mail you get you 'don't want', even if it's a genuine approach from another company, then all you're doing is flooding networks with non-spam reports - which does nothing to aid the real hunt for spammers.

Now don't get me wrong. We had an assbag sign up last week who tried to blow tens of thousands of junk mails from our servers. (Was suspended 2 hours after sign up (including the hour of CC verification), and had his queue deleted so got virtually nothing out), and you'll find few people on this forum more aggressive when it coming to killing spammers, coupled with an upstream who are even more aggressive than I am.

However the fact is spam is Unsolicited, Bulk, Commercial, E-mail. When you start reporting e-mail that comes from a genuine single e-mail to your business it cripples the process and you're just adding to the problem.