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Comment by gist | Hacker News Reader

> "You're receiving this email because you signed up on HackerNews" > That is a lie, and a tactic used by utter scum.

I think 'utter scum' is an extreme reaction. And it's not necessary to make your point.

So you're saying if I start spamming you, you wouldn't think I'm scummy? Send me your email address and I'll sign you up for a bunch of unsolicited newletters.

There's a difference between thinking someone has done something wrong and thinking they're 'utter scum'. And I do think there's a difference between someone sending me an unsolicited newsletter summarizing stories from a platform they know I'm on vs. random mailing lists that are wholly irrelevant to me (so signing me up 'for a bunch of unsolicited newletters' would be worse than equivalent for me). I don't think what this person did is right, but I do think the reaction to it seems overblown.

Please, lets be specific here. Is this an altruistic act: Signing up unwilling participants to a mailing list.

Is this ever a mistake? Can you accidentally scrape email addresses off of a website and accidentally create a mailing list to spam them?

Everything points to this being a malicious action. We don't need to give a spammer the benefit of the doubt.

Scraping emails and sending spam is passive aggressive and wrong. It is much more disruptive and hostile than calling someone a name, and nitpicking the use of "utter scum" here is drawing attention away from the real offender, the spammer.

If calling someone utter scum might get them to rethink how they are exploiting others, I will have no issue using it. OP did nothing wrong here.

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