RE: [Asrg] Another criteria for "what is spam"...

[Bill Cole <[e-mail]>]

At 10:16 AM -0700 6/4/03, Hallam-Baker, Phillip  imposed structure on 
a stream of electrons, yielding:
>>  >>The student sends the same query for assistance to each of
>>  these people.
>>  BC> Oh, you mean survey spam?
>>
>>  No, this is nothing like a survey. A survey is a formal, structured
>>  measurement instrument.
>
>Actually that raises a point here, we want to allow reasonable surveys (for
>some definition of reasonable)

Yes.
I have a sneaking suspicion that your definition of reasonableness is 
quite different from mine. I would define a reasonable survey as one 
where the respondent has verifiably asked to be sent surveys from the 
surveying party.

The perfect example of this problem is Harris. They used to spam to 
conduct their polls. They claim (and indeed seem) to have ceased 
using spam, even though the result is that they are now polling 
people who choose to be polled.

>but you want to ban push polls where there is
>no actual interest in soliciting opinion, the purpose is to spread
>information or a political position "Do you believe that the tax cut that
>gives 99% of its benefits to rich Texas oilmen is fair or unfairly benefits
>the rich"
>
>There is no way for the end recipient to know the difference.

Which points out again that it is a bad idea to try to view spam as a 
content issue instead of a simple consent issue.

>>  I'm talking about someone trying to chat up some folk about a topic of
>>  interest.
>
>I think it is reasonable to poll larger groups, provided that there number
>of surveys sent is no more than is necessary for reasonable statistical
>accuracy and the subject is something the recipients are at least likely to
>not object to.

I feel no guilt for having damaged the academic careers of at least 2 
onetime PhD candidates clueless enough to have tried that bit of 
stupidity.

>I don't see why we should stop classes of high school kids doing Internet
>surveys for class projects. But there is no reason each high school should
>poll the entire net.

I like the simple reason that high school students should not be 
taught to use intrinsically flawed research methods which have 
built-in validity problems and steal resources from every potential 
respondent, even the ones who do not want to participate.

[...]>
>Also a jury of spam monitors could give a verdict on the conduct of an
>alleged spam sender and revoke a credential on the basis of that definition.
>
>
>[ObDisclosure, VeriSign Inc. has pending patent claims that may cover
>certain implementations of such a scheme]
>[ObFact, Filing a patent claim is empirically the only way to prevent the
>USPTO granting a patent to another party, so don't get tweaked yet]

My disclosure: I do no business with Verisign and regularly recommend 
that others do no business with Verisign.

Care to guess why?

The concept of Verisign running any sort of anti-spam system is mind-boggling.
-- 
Bill Cole
[e-mail]

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