This "inquiring mind" wants to know.
In preparation for this premier issue of OmegaZine: Popular Culture and Crisis in Crazy Times, I e-mailed all of my 900 some-odd PlanetAll contacts. These individuals agreed to share contact information with me and I agreed to share information with them--things like birthdays, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. Thing is, they agreed to be contacts of mine, whether they actually knew me or not, or whether they are in any of the PlanetAll groups I am. Further, PlanetAll has a method for me to simultaneously e-mail all of my contacts, provided these contacts are on the same mailing list. Now, it takes a while to get all 900 or so contacts on the same list (at least for me), but PlanetAll makes it possible to do this.
Of course, not all of these contacts will agree to be on my list to tell about the URL for this e-zine. I didn't expect all 900 plus contacts would have the time to look this zine over, or care. So, of course, I included in my e-mail a "remove" choice. About fifteen or so wished to be removed. Fine. Polite. "Remove me." No problem.
Only one response was negative to the rude: one "gentleman" from Denmark e-mailed back very quickly--"...you are spamming, you moron, no matter what you call it! Didn't you read the Membership Agreement before you signed it?"
Actually I feel lucky. A few of my PlanetAll contacts have: had many rude responses; had their PlanetAll accounts cancelled; and one soul lost his ISP over this, but found another one a short time after. Their only "offense" was to e-mail their contacts, not to sell anything or promote an MLM or biz-op, but to give out a URL.
It can be surmised that these unfortunates had their accounts cancelled because PlanetAll does not allow members to bulk e-mail their contact lists. To find out, I e-mailed PlanetAll's spam-abuse administrator to find out why PlanetAll closes accounts of those accused of "spamming" while using the bulk e-mail function, when PlanetAll has such a function in the first place! This was the administrator's reply:
Not really. This is what the pertinent sections of the agreement say regarding use of e-mail through PlanetAll:
Section Three, part 3: "Member agrees to deal with information available in a lawful manner, and (member-ed.) agrees not to use PlanetAll to: (a) join groups he or she is not a member of, send e-mail to people in said groups, or otherwise solicit, harass, or approach such persons."
Now, this answers the question of whether or not members of PlanetAll can use PlanetAll for e-mailing their contacts. Simply put, they can't, not without risk. It appears that rude soul from Denmark is correct--about the agreement, that is, not about me being a moron.
So again I ask: why does PlanetAll have a bulk e-mail function if they do not allow bulk e-mail? Part 3 (d) of the Agreement reads that member agrees not to: "advertize (a URL for instance-ed.) or offer to sell any goods or services or engage in surveys, contests, chain letters, or for any commercial purpose."
Now, was this editor "advertising" a URL? NO! What I did--and if you are reading this it's because of that e-mail--was to ASK PERMISSION from contacts to send them the URL of this e-zine when it was ready (and not on time, but over a week late! Sorry). However, it still appears ANY use of PlanetAll's e-mailing services can be construed as spamming if any particular contact deems it to be spamming, and "turns in" the e-mailing offender.
So, is one "spamming" when one sends "unsolicited bulk e-mail" (of any kind), "unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail", or when one sends ANY e-mail that a recipient calls "spam"? Apparently, the latter is true. Spam is what the recipient considers spam, and the vaunted "freedom of speech" we hear so much about on the internet, isn't.
So, if you want to subscribe (it's free) to OmegaZine!, don't forget to submit your e-mail address to get on our mailing list
Deborah Lagarde
Editor, OmegaZine!