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by blodovnik 2507 days ago
It’s not spam for a recruiter to send an email to a developer.

Spam is defined as “unsolicited bulk email”.

Https://spamhaus.org/consumer/definition

It’s a one off, not hulk, so recruiters emailing developer emails found on GitHub isn’t spamming.

Nor is the email address being sold in this case so that aspect of GitHub terms is not being violated.

So in fact you’re wrong and it’s perfectly legitimate for recruiters to use email addresses from GitHub and email them asking about jobs.
1 comments
dragonwriter 2507 days ago
> Spam is defined as “unsolicited bulk email”.

More commonly, unsolicited/unwanted commercial email, see, e.g.:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0038-spam

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DanBC 2507 days ago
The commercial aspect is a red-herring, because B2B where there's an existing business relationship are normally excluded from spam laws.

The UBE (unsolicited, bulk, email) definition is the one used by most blocklists and filters and ISP AUPs.

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dragonwriter 2507 days ago
> The commercial aspect is a red-herring

No, it's not

> because B2B where there's an existing business relationship are normally excluded from spam laws.

That's not just B2B, but that's part of the definition of “unsolicited”, it doesn't make the commercial part is a red-herring, either in general or in the context of this thread, which did not involve either a pre-existing business relationship or, since you unnecessarily called it out as relevant, a B2B interaction.

> The UBE (unsolicited, bulk, email) definition is the one used by most blocklists and filters

That's because “bulk”, unlike “commercial”, is easily detectable. (And also because because bulk has the most impact, because, bulk.)

> and ISP AUPs.

Virtually all ISP AUPs include prohibition on unlawful use which includes violations of laws concerning unsolicited commercial email.

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DanBC 2507 days ago
The "bulk" definition is more widespread and is the definition that's enforced more often. So, mentioning "commercial" is weird because most service providers don't care whether it's commercial or not, they care whether it's bulk or not.
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