Spam From Event Organizer?

[+WhipArtist]

I just got email from a local cacher that started, "Our team has visited your cache. We are hosting an event this weekend. We would love it if you were able to attend."

 

Is this a typical and/or reasonable use of the gc.com site?

[+protocoldroid]

i don't think it's unreasonable. imho, i think it's nice to get an invitation

[+Team Cacheopeia]

While it's not my place to determine reasonable usage of the site, I think the email sounds perfectly OK. It's not trying to goad a buck out of you, it's not indiscriminately sent to bulk unknown addresses, and from what you posted, it won't even effect your bandwith or email storage since it's so short.

 

Sounds like nice people communicating on a mutual hobby... and if you decline, they'd probably be quite respectful of that.

 

I have never gotten an email like that (to answer your question about if it's typical), but I have met up with others while caching who have extended friendly invitations to come to events. It's typical for people to reach out.

 

If you're worried about being plagued with spam as a result of caching, you can put your mind at ease... they were probably just being nice.

 

Jaime

[+CYBret]

Sounds like a nice gesture to me, too. It would be too much of a hassle to try to "spam" just for an event.

 

Besides, since it's THIS weekend, that gives you no excuse to not attend my event the next weekend!!!!

 

Bret

[+bigredmed]

I am president of Nebraskache, our local group. When a player logs one of my caches, and I don't recognize them from the group, I email them to let them know about it. As the sport is still growing here, many new people don't know about us.

[+carleenp]

I has been pretty common for our group to try to email new cachers about events in case they are not signed up for weekly cache notifications or do not know about us. That way we assure that newcomers to the sport have the opportunity to come and meet people if they want to.

[+briansnat]

It's not uncommon and I think very reasonable. I received an e-mail that invited me to join a VT geocachers group even though I live in NJ. I guess because I found a few caches in VT. I thought it was nice that they thought of me.

 

And like Bigredmed, I also send welcoming e-mails to new geocachers who log finds on my caches.

 

To me spam is unwanted solicitations from unwelcome and anonymous sources. E-mail from fellow geocachers is always welcome, even if they are strangers. I've received updates on the condition of my caches, recommendations for caches to try, requests for advice, invitiations to events and just friendly chit-chat. If you feel differently, its easy enough to block e-mail from this site, but you might miss out on some opportunities to make new friends.

Edited May 11, 2004 by briansnat

[+WhipArtist]

I see a big difference between a personalized, "welcome to the sport" sort of message, and hitting lots of people with the same message.

 

The definition of spam is, "unsolicited bulk email." I certainly didn't solicit event notifications from this person, and it was a bulk message sent to lots of people rather than a personal message to one individual.

 

Sure, I could block all gc.com mail, but I don't want to do that. I don't, however, want to receive mass email sent through the system.

[+briansnat]

I certainly didn't solicit event notifications from this person, and it was a bulk message sent to lots of people rather than a personal message to one individual

 

If you find his invitation to be offensive, I'm sure a simple request that he refrain from future e-mails to you will end the practice. If not, an e-mail to abuse@geocaching.com should put a stop to it.

 

I don't, however, want to receive mass email sent through the system.

 

Is that even possible? I thought the e-mail system only allowed e-mails to one individual at a time.

Edited May 11, 2004 by briansnat

[+briansnat]

[Personal attack, profanity and graphic sexual references deleted]

Edited May 11, 2004 by briansnat

[+southdeltan]

So reply to the person and ask that they don't send you any furthur emails.

 

I often send out emails to new cachers in my state and area. I don't often go into much detail so I'm sure it sometimes looks like it's "bulk" email (cut/pasted) since I basically send a variation on a few simple welcome messages.

 

I got emails when I first started and I was VERY glad I did.

 

southdeltan

[+Gloom]

The definition of spam is, "unsolicited bulk email."

One thing you're missing in that definition is that "spam" is almost exclusively used to describe commercial emails where the intent of the message is to get you to purchase a product or service. This email is simply a nice invitation for you to come to an event.

 

The fact that is was sent to more than one person at a time shouldn't be relevant as it only served to save the sender time (and bandwidth on the internet for that matter). Would you be as upset about it if your name was the only one in the "to:" list?

 

If so, you might as well give up using email because you will always get some type of email where you didn't specifically ask to be emailed.

 

***edited fo seplling***

Edited May 11, 2004 by Gloom

[+Stunod]

The fact that is was sent to more than one person at a time shouldn't be relevant as it only served to save the sender time (and bandwidth on the internet for that matter). Would you be as upset about it if your name was the only one in the "to:" list?

If it came thru the GC mail system, then it can only be sent to one person at a time. In fact, I think there is a system in place to limit the amount of mail sent by any GC account within a specific time period.

[+carleenp]

The definition of spam is, "unsolicited bulk email."  I certainly didn't solicit event notifications from this person, and it was a bulk message sent to lots of people rather than a personal message to one individual.

 

Sure, I could block all gc.com mail, but I don't want to do that.  I don't, however, want to receive mass email sent through the system.

As Brian said, simply email back and ask that you don't receive any further notifications. I doubt the sender considered it spam and would be happy to agree not to send you any future notices. In the alternative, delete it and forget about it.

 

Also, I don't know of any way to bulk send through the system. As far as I know it was set up to prevent that by allowing only 10 emails to be sent a day unless the person logs out and logs back in.

 

Edit: I missed Stunod's post before writing this. Sorry for the repetition. Looks like we both posted at about the same time.

Edited May 11, 2004 by carleenp

[+briansnat]

Also, I don't know of any way to bulk send through the system. As far as I know it was set up to prevent that by allowing only 10 emails to be sent a day unless the person logs out and logs back in.

 

In which case is it possible that this might have been a personal invitiation, rather than "spam"?

Edited May 11, 2004 by briansnat

[+trippy1976]

I think it's a nice gesture and really - if it's used to ask you to attend an event you're only likely to be "bothered" by this kind of email once per year.

 

Measure this one, well intentioned, possibly cookie cuttered email from a fellow cacher against all the emails you get for prescription drugs, body enhancement, free OEM software, etc, etc, etc and really - it's the nicest "bulk" email you're likely to receive this year.

[+archaeor]

I recieved the same e-mail in question. I personally don't view it as spam, it was politely written and, if you read the last sentence in this paragraph I pulled from the e-mail, your course of action is made clear:

 

BTW, we are sending this email out to those of you who visited caches in our

area. If you would like to get future notifications of our events please

send us your actual email address.  Likewise, if you know of someone else

who might want to be added to our contact list, email us back with their

information.  It'll be easier than retrieving it from their profile page.

If you'd rather not get these notifications, just let us know.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Rick

[Colonel Mustard]

If the invitation is a problem, I'd venture that you shouldn't plan on attending the event.

[+Mopar]

I'm gonna be the bad guy here (so what else is new?).

After reading the quoted part of the email archaeor posted above, yes, it's unsolicited bulk email, so it's spam, and should not be sent through the website.

Sure, I agree it's probably the NICEST spam you'll ever get, and the most well-intentioned, but its still spam. I am particularly concerned about the part archaeor made bold:

If you'd rather not get these notifications, just let us know.

Multiple email notifications that you did not sign up for, and must opt out of to be removed from future mailings, however well intentioned, is most definitely spam, and the worst kind.

The fact that this emailing is useless also leads me to add it to the spam pile. If I'm an active geocacher in the area, I already know about the event. It's been mentioned to me every week since it's been listed, in the weekly email from gc.com that I did agree to receive. It's also been at the top of my newest local caches for the same time period, possibly months. I know there is an event, and if I didn't post to the event page already, I'm probably not going, or not sure.

If I didn't see the event listed in my PQ, in my cache listings, on my state page, on my event calender, and in my weekly notification, I am probably not an active cacher right now, and not interested in your event at this time.

Either way, your well-intentioned spam email soliciting your event was not needed.

[+Renegade Knight]

That's how you have to drum up support to build groups. You don't want to leave anyone out. Quite frankly having missed an organization in my efforts I'd rather incure the wrath of 100 SPAM avengers than miss out on the one person willing to help out.

 

Still that they gave you an out is their way of saying "sorry, this is how we have to get the word out but we don't want to take up more of your time if you are not interested".

 

Even though it was "mass produced" they had to take the time to look up your profile and jump through the hoops. It wasn't bulk mail in any form. If it was it might look more like "Joiin 0urr Gro\/p"

[+WhipArtist]

I think I may have found my personal solution.

 

If you spam me through gc.com, then I will adjust my procmail recipe so that I never receive anything from you that was sent through gc.com. You're contacting me about one of my caches? Too bad... I don't want to hear from people who spam.

 

Opt-out is *not* a valid mechanism for using email these days, nor is JHD.

[+briansnat]

I think I may have found my personal solution.

 

If you spam me through gc.com...

I'm still not clear on how someone can be spammed through GC.COM, since bulk e-mailing is not possible.

Edited May 11, 2004 by briansnat

[+bons]

I'm still not clear on how someone can be spammed through GC.COM, since bulk e-mailing is not possible.

Let me remind you what spam is:

To me spam is unwanted solicitations from unwelcome and anonymous sources.

In this case, it's unwanted although not anonymous. Sure, it's not bulk spam, but it's still unwanted mail.

 

Personally, I'm thinking that a better solution would have been to put a link on the cache page that points to the local organization instead of e-mailing everyone who logs a find. But that's just my opinion.

Edited May 11, 2004 by bons

[+Marky]

I'm gonna be the bad guy here (so what else is new?).

After reading the quoted part of the email archaeor posted above, yes, it's unsolicited bulk email, so it's spam, and should not be sent through the website.

I'm going to agree with Mopar here. Everyone who might be interested in attending is already well aware of the event and has read the description. Probably 90% of the people that this email was sent to (me included) has already made up their mind on if they were going to attend or not. This cacher is a nice guy and enthusiastic but it still bothered me when I got the email. When I see a "<so&so> is contacting you" e-mail, I always go to it first because it usually is important. I do think this is somewhat an abuse of the geocaching e-mail system, even though he had to click on each user manually and select e-mail and then paste in his message. I'm sure he wasted more time doing this than I did reading the message...

 

--Marky

[+Renegade Knight]

...Let me remind you what spam is:

To me spam is unwanted solicitations from unwelcome and anonymous sources.

...

Crap, that sounds like sexual harrasment. How the heck do you know until it's too late?

 

Come to think of it the invitation to be spammed or that you are open to a wanted sexual advance are also SPAM and harrasment if you don't want to be in reciept of that invitation.

 

Too much hair splitting. WhipArtist can just filter me out now. I tend to send an unsoliticted email via the GC.com system every now and then.

[+TeamSpaz]

First off, here is the complete email I sent:

 

Hi there,

 

TeamSpaz has decided to try it again. We will be hosting our 2nd event on

May 16th, 2004 from 5pm - 10pm. We have arranged with the owner of PIZZA

ITALIA to have all you can eat pizza for ONLY $6 each adult and $4 for

children 12 and under. This event is called the "F.A.M.E." CacheIn -

TrashOut

Event.(http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f2255a6c-2339-4895

-aac1-0f6ec3ff06b2)

 

The idea behind this event is for a bunch of us to CITO on the same weekend,

and therefore clean up some of the local parks. We have hidden 8 - 10 NEW

"CITO caches" around the East Bay. We hope that these will be convenient,

easy to find, caches that will provide a simple way to CITO a park near you.

These caches have been filled with CITO kits. Each of these caches has been

placed in an area that needs some cleanup or near the entrance to large

regional parks.

 

We have also hidden some neighboring caches to insure that you have some new

ones to visit while you are doing your CITO. These neighboring caches range

from micro to regular and from easy to hard. We hope this gives everyone

something that they will like. We are very sorry that the co-ordinates for

some of the "Happy Birthday JoeSpaz" series caches were off. Our whole team

has double checked each of these new co-ordinates, to avoid it happening

again.

 

We are trying to arrange for all these caches to be approved at 5pm on

Friday May 14th. Of course they may be approved at a slightly different

time. Please check out the web-site

(http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f2255a6c-2339-4895-aac1-0f6ec3ff06b2) for more event info and information on the new neighboring

caches. If, possible, post a reply to the event page and let me know if you

can attend, so I can give the restaurant owner an anticipated number.

 

BTW, we are sending this email out to those of you who visited caches in our

area. If you would like to get future notifications of our events please

send us your actual email address. Likewise, if you know of someone else

who might want to be added to our contact list, email us back with their

information. It'll be easier than retrieving it from their profile page.

If you'd rather not get these notifications, just let us know.

 

We hope you can all make it to the "F.A.M.E." CacheIn - TrashOut Event on

May 16th!

 

TeamSpaz

 

p.s. If you would like to participate but this schedule doesn't work for

you, please let us know...we can be flexible.

[+TeamSpaz]

Second off, an email I got from Groundspeak:

 

Hi TeamSpaz

 

It has come to our attention that you are sending unsolicited emails to

geocachers through the website. Please respect our user's privacy and do

not send these emails - we consider it abuse of the site.

 

Drumming up interest in your events or organization will take a little

time. Eventually you'll have a good following and will not need to resort

to this type of advertising. You'll have great success by throwing great

events and word of mouth will draw a crowd. If you like you can edit your

event description to request users send you their email address to be

informed of future events. Thanks very much for your cooperation.

 

Happy Geocaching!

 

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

 

Nate

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

[+TeamSpaz]

Third off, my response:

 

Thanks for the warning. I didn't know this would be a problem. I was including

a note asking people if they wanted to be added to a mailing list for future

events, and also asking if they didn't want to be contacted anymore.

 

I guess this will be the last time I do it this way. Hopefully the word of

mouth will do the trick.

 

I never seem to look farther than about 10 miles from my house when I check the

site. So I would not know if there was an event going on somewhere else.

 

Once again thanks for the heads up, I hope I didn't bother anyone too much.

 

Cya,

 

JoeSpaz

[+TeamSpaz]

Lastly off, some of my thoughts:

 

I really was just trying to be nice.

 

I have gotten lucky and met some fellow cachers, so I was told of the last local event hosted by BADGES, otherwise I could have easily missed it. I thought by sending this email to a bunch of people it would help to make sure people knew about it.

 

I did have to go through a big hassle to eamil each person, there was only one email sent at a time. I did copy and paste the same message and I didn't know everyone that I was sending emails too. I did send a couple of different versions, one to people who had visited local caches, one to people who had been to an event I went to in Reno, and one to each of the owners of caches I had visited.

 

I am really surprised that WhipArtist( who I have met) and Marky (who I consider my geocaching mentor) would take offense. This was definately not my intention.

 

I have put more time in to sending the emails (about 4 hours) then it would take for anyone to read it. I also have put dozens of hours into preping this event. It appears that it has all been wasted time, because even after sending the 300 emails I have not gotten EVEN ONE "I will attend" response yet.

 

I thought that geocaching was going to be different than when I worked with a local dart league. There I would plan big event, call people, send emails, make flyers, etc and the people loved attending. (They of course were a bunch of jerks and teated you like it.) Here I am trying to do something new, different, and fun and some people want to take offense. (But these people are all nice folk, I know because I have met them before.) I don't know what to do....I am at a loss.

 

Maybe this is some kinda message from above. I have been spending too much time playing this game, and trying too hard to do for others. You can bet this will be the last event I host for awhile.

 

ONCE AGAIN, I AM SORRY IF I MADE ANYONE MAD. I WAS JUST TRYING TO DO SOMETHING FUN. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS, AND....(if someone wants me to plan an event in there area let me know, maybe it will be more appreciated.....jk....kinda.)

[+Renegade Knight]

TeamSpaz.

 

Thumbs up for your efforts.

 

Everthing needs to be taken in it's context. There is no reason to expect that people involved in geocacing wouldn't want a local to email them an unsolicited notice that their cache has a problem, or that a TB was missing that was listed in the cache, or that their cache was stolen, or that you had to pull the cache because you were muggle jumped, or that there is a cache event you would like them to attend.

 

What do they all have in common? THEY ARE NON COMMERCIAL FOLKS! It's a non issue. The only real issue is that someone took time to complain about a non issue and wasn't told "It's a non issue we allow the use of the GC.com mail system for non commercial geocaching related purposes"

Edited May 12, 2004 by Renegade Knight

[+Ambrosia]

I feel so bad when I read this discussion. TeamSpaz obviously went out of their way to do something nice for someone else. If Whip Artist does not like it, they should of emailed the TeamSpaz and told them politely that he would not like any more emails in the future. Why in the world would you go and hurt someone's feelings by posting this thread and smearing your dilsike all over the country via internet? When has the world gotten so bad, that all we can do is constantly say bad things about people all the time? We wonder why people are not so nice anymore. Maybe, it's because when they try to be nice, they get penalized for it. How sad. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

 

TeamSpaz, don't give up thinking of others. Somebody will appreciate it.

[+GeoKender]

I agree with Renegade Knight. Way too much hairsplitting here. It is nice to be invited to an event. It's just a simple invitation to a party/gathering for a good cause, which you don't have to attend if you choose not to. If you choose not to attend, simply delete the message! That's all. It's not demanding a reply from you. As a matter of fact, the email is not demanding anything of/from you.

 

-GeoKender

 

ps- Would this reply be considered an 'unsolicited' spammer post?

[+TeamSpaz]

I think it is a little too late.

 

You know part of the reason that I sent out emails is because of some of the problems this event has been through. It was originally planned for CITO weekend, but didn't get approved early enough for me to get everything in place, so I ended up postponing. Then I posted a note with a possible date, but posted a Sept. date as a temp until I could get the May date approved. Next thing I know the event was no longer listed. It took me a few weeks to get it listed again, then I am sure tons of people were confused.

 

Even if I hadn't taken the time to look up 300 peoples profiles so I could email them I would have still sent this notice to WhipArtist and Marky. These are two of the nicest people I have met in a long time. The fact that they were annoyed makes me worry about how upset some of the people who were strangers to me must feel.

 

I am thinking I should just cancel the event once and for all. It appears that no one is going to be able to make it anyhow. I will just release the new "CITO caches" a bit at a time. Oh well I tried.

[+Ambrosia]

Shame, shame, shame.

[+fizzymagic]

Thanks for the warning.  I didn't know this would be a problem.

If you had read the note I posted to your thread about this event, just a few hours after you announced that you would be sending unsolicited emails (and a couple of days before you actually did it), you would have known. I practically begged you not to do this. I still got the emails.

 

Here is the link. Hope that helps.

[+WhipArtist]

Joe,

 

I'm sure lots of people appreciate the time and effort that you've put into creating this event... organizing events is a good and wonderful thing, and I know it's lots of work. Let me see if I can put my reaction in context for you.

 

I personally spend a fair bit of my free time working to combat spam. I don't mean filtering it out (JHD), but instead actively working to get ISPs to shut down their spamming clients, getting spam-zombie machines cleaned up, thinking about spam-fighting technology, lobbying lawmakers, educating people about proper email techniques, etc. It is an active crusade for me.

 

Because of this, receiving a mass mailing through a site I consider trustworthy and from someone I've met really torqued me. While I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really think you chose unwisely in one of your techniques.

[+Cherokeecacher]

I NEVER would have considered an e-mail sent through the GEOCACHING.com system about GEOCACHING would, in a million years, be considered spam.

 

Now it is my turn to be the bad guy.

If you do not want to receive e-mails about GEOCACHING through the GEOCACHING.com site, place a note in bold on your profile that says do not send me e-mails unless my cache has been blown up by the bomb squad, or you need a hint. I know I am a GEOCACHER but I do not want any e-mails about GEOCACHING to be sent to the e-mail address I have registered with GEOCACHING.com and is part of my public profile. Is it truly unsolicited when it is from someone that is a member of the community, and you have placed the information in a public access area of that community, and the correspondence was about that community?

 

I am glad people around here do not get this upset when someone is trying to be friendly. Talk about offensive. E-mailing a report of abuse to GC.com instead of just doing as the e-mail sender suggested and send a note asking to be removed from future e-mail lists. Do you report local stores to the Postmaster General, when they send you special deals based on your buying habits in their stores?

 

Believe it or not, not everyone spends as much time cruising the GC.com website as some of us do. Not everyone gets PQ’s sent to him or her because they are not a premium member. Not everyone knows all the ins and outs of the GC.com site to sign up for the alerts. Not everyone searches 100 miles away from there home coordinates for caches, but might be willing to go that far for an event, and the chance to meet other cachers. I would. To assume any, or all, of the above would be absurd, arrogant, and naive.

 

There are obviously different ideas about this topic but good heavens; we do not have to bring the wrath of the geocaching forum on someone who was just trying to be NICE.

 

Rant over. Now like I tell my kids, I still love you. Thanks for listening.

[+Marky]

Joe, please don't take it personally as I know you had the best intentions. Don't let this diminish your enthusiasm. In my previous post, I was only stating how I felt when I received the e-mail. I'm hoping that we will be able to attend, although I'm really bad when it comes to planning in advance. If we don't make it, it's not because of the e-mail. I hope it's a big success since our parks will benefit from the resulting cleanup.

 

Keep on cachin'!

 

--Marky

[+Marky]

receiving a mass mailing through a site I consider trustworthy and from someone I've met really torqued me.  While I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really think you chose unwisely in one of your techniques.

Now that you mention it, I guess that's what kind of bothered me too. I consider Joe my friend, and getting a bulk e-mail instead of a personal e-mail might have been part of what bothered me. If it had bothered me a lot, I would have sent Joe a note saying so. I guess maybe I should have stayed out of this discussion...

 

--Marky

[+Ambrosia]

And I guess that's why this whole thread bothered me. Why, especially if these cachers know each other, was this not cleared up in a personal e-mail? Why was the whole world dragged into it?

[+Bull Moose]

I NEVER would have considered an e-mail sent through the GEOCACHING.com system about GEOCACHING would, in a million years, be considered spam.

I concur with that.

I hate actual spam as much as the next guy. I don't care that I'm going bald, I have financing for my house, and my... uh... parts are fine the way they are.

 

A message like that, though, what's the harm? I like being contacted by people with the same interests as me. If you don't like it you'll have to move your mouse 1/4 inch to the delete button once.

The whole thing seems like a mountain from a mole hill.

[+WhipArtist]

If you do not want to receive e-mails about GEOCACHING through the GEOCACHING.com site, place a note in bold on your profile that says do not send me e-mails unless my cache has been blown up by the bomb squad, or you need a hint. I know I am a GEOCACHER but I do not want any e-mails about GEOCACHING to be sent to the e-mail address I have registered with GEOCACHING.com and is part of my public profile. Is it truly unsolicited when it is from someone that is a member of the community, and you have placed the information in a public access area of that community, and the correspondence was about that community?

I'm perfectly happy to receive personal correspondence from other geocachers. I think the part you're missing is that it was a form letter sent to hundreds of local cachers, not a personal message. It also contained no information that wasn't readily available elsewhere.

[+Mopar]

I NEVER would have considered an e-mail sent through the GEOCACHING.com system about GEOCACHING would, in a million years, be considered spam.

 

Now it is my turn to be the bad guy.

If you do not want to receive e-mails about GEOCACHING through the GEOCACHING.com site, place a note in bold on your profile that says do not send me e-mails unless my cache has been blown up by the bomb squad, or you need a hint. I know I am a GEOCACHER but I do not want any e-mails about GEOCACHING to be sent to the e-mail address I have registered with GEOCACHING.com and is part of my public profile. Is it truly unsolicited when it is from someone that is a member of the community, and you have placed the information in a public access area of that community, and the correspondence was about that community?

 

I am glad people around here do not get this upset when someone is trying to be friendly. Talk about offensive. E-mailing a report of abuse to GC.com instead of just doing as the e-mail sender suggested and send a note asking to be removed from future e-mail lists. Do you report local stores to the Postmaster General, when they send you special deals based on your buying habits in their stores?

 

Believe it or not, not everyone spends as much time cruising the GC.com website as some of us do. Not everyone gets PQ’s sent to him or her because they are not a premium member. Not everyone knows all the ins and outs of the GC.com site to sign up for the alerts. Not everyone searches 100 miles away from there home coordinates for caches, but might be willing to go that far for an event, and the chance to meet other cachers. I would. To assume any, or all, of the above would be absurd, arrogant, and naive.

 

There are obviously different ideas about this topic but good heavens; we do not have to bring the wrath of the geocaching forum on someone who was just trying to be NICE.

 

Rant over. Now like I tell my kids, I still love you. Thanks for listening.

"The word "Spam" as applied to Email means Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE").

 

Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.

 

A message is Spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk.

 

Unsolicited Email is normal email

(examples include first contact enquiries, job enquiries, sales enquiries, etc.)

 

Bulk Email is normal email

(examples include subscriber newsletters, discussion lists, information lists, etc.).

 

This distinction is important because the Direct Marketing Association, the pro-junk group who lobby on behalf of the junk email industry, try to dupe politicians into thinking anti-spam organizations want "Unsolicited Email" banned, in order to dupe policitians into voting against anti-spam laws." from the spamhaus project.

 

All users agree not to:

(e) Upload, post or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation. From thegc.com terms of use.

 

The mail sent was spam, TPTB warned the sender. Case closed. Move along, nothing more to see here.

[+TeamSpaz]

I still don't think it was "spam." The list of things that aren't suppose to be sent is longer than just "spam."

 

I do agree that it may have been wrong to send the emails. That is why I told gc.com that I won't do it again.

 

My question is what is allowed. If I had only sent it to cachers that I have met, and then addressed them by name would it be o.k.? What if I only sent it out to people who attened my last event? what if I invited people that had been to my caches? Was it the length of the email that was the problem? Should I have jsut said "I am planning an event soon, let me know if you want details."?

 

So many questions, and all I wanted to do was clean up some parks and have some fun.

 

Well it is all a mute point now. I have canceled the event.

 

No one said they were coming, and I made some people mad.

 

Oh well....maybe next time I'll do better. (But it will be quite awhile before I try again.)

[+Cherokeecacher]

"The word "Spam" as applied to Email means Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE").

 

Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.

 

A message is Spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk.

 

Using this definition…

 

One might concur that verifiable permission was granted when the recipient, willingly and knowingly, posted an e-mail address as part of a public profile on a member message-board. Coupled with the fact that the e-mail contained only information that is in the context of the message-board from which the sender obtained the e-mail address, and the sender is also a participating member of the same group. The sender would also be covered under justifiable reliance in most states.

 

Unsolicited Email is normal email

(examples include first contact enquiries, job enquiries, sales enquiries, etc.)

 

This e-mail could easily be considered as a “first Contact Enquiry”.

 

Bulk Email is normal email

(examples include subscriber newsletters, discussion lists, information lists, etc.).

 

This e-mail could also easily fall under “Information List”, as the contents were directly related to the acceptable topics of the shared interest group, in this case information about Geocaching.

 

This distinction is important because the Direct Marketing Association, the pro-junk group who lobby on behalf of the junk email industry, try to dupe politicians into thinking anti-spam organizations want "Unsolicited Email" banned, in order to dupe politicians into voting against anti-spam laws." from the spamhaus project.

 

Your interpretation of this might be very accurate, and I happen to agree with you, but it appears to be the currently accepted legal interpretation.

 

All users agree not to:

(e) Upload, post or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials,…

 

Most of us have violated this one when we post pricing information about GPS units and software, but especially when we post a promotion that a company is running. E.g.: Coke GPS promo.

 

…"junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation. From thegc.com terms of use.

 

Well heck, according to this we better not send an e-mail through GC.com asking for a hint on a cache. The owner of the cache usually has not given “verifiable permission” (junk mail) and most do not say in the cache description to e-mail them for hints (unsolicited)

 

The mail sent was spam, TPTB warned the sender. Case closed. Move along, nothing more to see here.

 

I think we covered the “junk mail” and “Spam” designation already.

 

Yes TPTB warned the sender, but according to your own definitions, the sender was not in violation. But according to TPTB the sender was in violation, and they set the rules and get to enforce them as they see fit for the good of the Geocaching Community. It is a shame that they had to get involved in the first place. I am sorry, but what really gets me, is this whole thing could have, and IMHO, should have been handled in a more adult fashion, And TPTB should have not been brought into this, unless the sender ignored the recipient’s request to be removed, and it should not have been posted here for public humiliation.

[+cache_us_if_you_can]

<snip>

 

Yes TPTB warned the sender, but according to your own definitions, the sender was not in violation. But according to TPTB the sender was in violation, and they set the rules and get to enforce them as they see fit for the good of the Geocaching Community. It is a shame that they had to get involved in the first place. I am sorry, but what really gets me, is this whole thing could have, and IMHO, should have been handled in a more adult fashion, And TPTB should have not been brought into this, unless the sender ignored the recipient’s request to be removed, and it should not have been posted here for public humiliation.

Well said.

[+New England n00b]

I cannot believe how infantile some of my fellow cachers are - and I don't mean that in a good way like I normally do.

 

WhipArtist, why was it necessary to do this in public? The ONLY people who had to know about it were TPTB, the sender and the receivers. This public branding/burning at the stake is disgusting.

 

A simple email to the abuse contact would have finished this.

 

TeamSpaz; while it is not something I would have done, I have great respect for you for making some sort of effort to improve our resources, both environmentally & good will with land managers. I'm sorry this had to turn into a witch hunt.

Edited May 12, 2004 by New England n00b

[+briansnat]

WhipArtist, why was it necessary to do this in public? The ONLY people who had to know about it were TPTB, the sender and the receivers. This public branding/burning at the stake is disgusting.

 

A simple email to the abuse contact would have finished this.

 

I disagree. A simple e-mail to the "spammer" would have been the tactful way to take care of it. If it continued, then GC.COM should have been contacted.

 

Still, I think its a stretch to call someone sending e-mails to geocachers, through the geocaching website about geocaching, a spammer. If he wrote some sort of bot to send random e-mails, sure. But he wrote individual e-mails to mostly local geocachers about a local geocaching event. If something like this is spam, then I'm going to have to start reporting a lot of people to the abuse address and I probably should have had my own arse reported countless times.

 

I think TeamSpaz learned a valuable lesson. There are a lot of people walking around with chips on their shoulder looking for reasons to be insulted, or indignant. He found one.

Edited May 12, 2004 by briansnat

[+New England n00b]

Point well stated and conceded... first the author, then the abuse contact.

[+bons]

On a slightly different note. While I understand that many people may only look for caches near their house it pays to check the state listing every now and then. This cache, as are all upcoming event caches for the state, is listed on the first page of the "California" listings, (aka newest caches in California).

 

The newest by state may not be the best choice to find a nearby caches (especially in the larger states) but it's really nice for finding events.