Re: [Asrg] No, we're not going to define spam

[Alessandro Vesely <[e-mail]>]

John Levine wrote:
>>I suspect that if we are not even able to agree on a definition of
>>spam, there will never be much efficient anti-spam research by our
>>group.
> 
> The world hasn't agreed on a definition of spam in 20 years, and I see
> no reason to think that anything has changed that would make it
> possible to do so now.

The European directives on privacy arrived around the turn of the 
century, so they are new in that respect. They may have all the 
defects that European directives usually have, but provide 
definitions. Not for spam, as I mentioned upthread; however, spam can 
be treated in that framework.

> Fortunately, all of the popular definitions (UBE, UCE, UBCE, mail
> recipients don't want) in practice tend to describe roughly the same
> mail.

I'd say they just largely overlap. I'd guess one line of disagreement 
would be what kind of well behaved direct marketing, if any, should be 
considered non-spam. That is, whether the "U" in the above definition 
may be considered implicit, on the argument that recipients cannot 
solicit something whose existence they ignore.

MRDW (I'd propose to pronounce it "mérde-u", if that's the correct 
acronym for the last definition), although practical, is horrible.

I'd also add botnet/zombie generated, spam to that list.

>  So my suggestion is that documents discussing anti-spam
> techniques say which definition they're using, if it matters, and
> leave it at that.  Readers specifically don't get to complain that
> it's the wrong definition.

+1

That way, at least, we know what we're talking about. In addition, 
this suggestion leaves room for an eventual informative paper listing 
those popular definitions.