OK, was just curious. I only think of it as unsolicited mass email. If something's tailored to me or a call, I just think of it as part of doing business.
Spam is any communication the recipient doesn't want. The definition is by the recipient, not the initiator.
The term has moved to other forms of mass unsolicited advertising.
The first spams weren't email but Usenet (notably Cantor and Siegel's "Green Card" spam, which I remember, though that wasn't the first[1]).
We've now got email spam, Web spam, forum spam, SMS spam, phone spam, etc., etc., etc.
The only requirements are that it be mass (some define that as > 1 target) and unsolicited.
Keep in mind that robocallers (which may have an automated or human at the other end) are dialing billions of numbers in the US per month[2].
Amongst other considerations: spammed networks die as those who find them intolerable defect from them. Phones (and Usenet, and email) were once exclusive, and hence, where intelligent and desired communications were to be found. As costs of utilisation and access fell, that is no longer the case. An instance of the Jevons Paradox as well as Gresham's Law: falling costs leads to increased use, falling barriers to participation makes bad usage drive out good. Direct-dial, universal-access telephony is teetering on the edge of death.
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Notes:
1. Brad Templeton has a history and etymology dating to at least 2001, which makes clear that the term arises from any unspecified "net abuse", with his first instance being in 1978. The phone system is itself a network. "Origin of the term "spam" to mean net abuse" <https://web.archive.org/web/20120716231643/http://www.temple...>.
> Spam is any communication the recipient doesn't want. The definition is by the recipient, not the initiator.
If this is also true:
> The only requirements are that it be mass (some define that as > 1 target) and unsolicited.
Say I send an unsolicited email by typing it to a businessperson I want to sell my product to. They get my email and didn’t want to receive it. But it wasn’t mass and it was unsolicited.
> I'll trust in your capacity to resolve any concerns with what I wrote.
Yes, that is what I would do as well if I didn't want to answer a clear question.
> But yes, it is spam.
So then you retract this, "The only requirements are that it be mass (some define that as > 1 target) and unsolicited." because the only requirement is that the recipient see it as spam?
There’s documented UCE from before, but Cantor and Siegel is regarded as the first sustained spam campaign. As for the term itself, it comes from the BBS era, referring to flooding a chat with the traditional Viking chant of “spam spam spam spam”
I mean there's a legal definition of it. I personally don't think cold calling someone to make a sale is spam. The caveat being that if they tell me to not call again, I won't.
And LinkedIn messages don't bother me as long as they follow the rules of the site which don't prohibit cold outreach.
Strong disagree. My personal number has also leaked and I get 5-10 cold calls per day. They call during important work meetings. They call during dinner with my family. They call when I'm away on vacation. I will never, ever willingly buy any product from these calls.
Don't know when that will get here, but when it does (and better AI-powered spam filtering), I think a lot of these problems will disappear, and a lot of sales teams are going to have to rethink.
Based on the social contract that calling people unasked for to try and sell them stuff is unacceptable. Only assholes need this explained to them, normal people inherently understand it, the fact that you don't says something about your character or your intelligence.
For LinkedIn specifically, not only does it not prohibit cold outreach, but Sales Navigator, which is specifically set up to give you broader access to do cold outreach, is a major part of the product.
You're signing up to be sold to when you sign up to LinkedIn.
