How do you respond to those who call this spam?
By whose definition? Source?
> Unsolicited commercial email -- "UCE," or "spam," in the online vernacular -- is any commercial electronic mail message sent, often in bulk, to a consumer without the consumer's prior request or consent.
It’s often in bulk, but needn’t be to meet the definition of Unsolicited Commercial Email, aka spam.
That's the key. The FTC defines spam as something sent to a consumer; in this case, the receiver is not a consumer but a business.
Again, there’s a wide spectrum from v14gr4 p1ll5 to a legitimate vendor in my job space reaching out to me. They’re not all alike. But if it’s commercial, and unsolicited… it’s still spam.
> Despite its name, the CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t apply just to bulk email. It covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. That means all email – for example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the law.
That doesn’t specifically mention spam, but it does indicate how strictly regulators define what they consider to be commercial email. And if it’s unsolicited commercial email, i.e. UCE… it’s spam.
Here's my basic criteria for spam:
1. It's unsolicited.
2. It's trying to sell something / exploit people.
In my grading scale I classify you as a spammer. A "bespoke" spammer perhaps, but I still do not want to waste time reading anything you send me, or waste time even clicking "mark as spam", unless I ask for it. You would be stealing my mental CPU cycles (which are few and precious).
Are these synonymous?
The CAN-SPAM Act does not forbid explicitly selling something. Rather it requires an opt-out mechanism and identifiers for who the sender is.