[Karunamon]

What I "accept" is that getting an email I'd rather not have gotten is not a day-ruining event worth rudely snarking at strangers on the internet for, and the level of entitled rage and piling on generated in response to a calmly stated ask (let's save 'spam' for things that actually meet an objective, commonly-accepted standard used by most groups that actually try to stop it) is ridiculous.

[CRConrad]

In a way you're perfectly correct: You're only wrong in the tiny detail that you think it's your narrowly legalistic definition that is the objective, commonly-accepted standard one. It isn't. (BTW, how did the fact that nobody else here accepts it not tip you off that it's not commonly-accepted?)

But, sure, say we go with your wishes and, as someone else suggested, call your spam something else than "spam" -- let's go with their suggestion and call it "trash email". Then the category -- or, now, categories -- of stuff that we want to get rid of from our inboxes become, in stead of just "spam", the more cumbersome "spam and trash email".

I'm sure you see the problem that immediately rears its ugly head: Language is lazy. "Spam and trash email" will in daily speech, inevitably, shortly become... "Spam". You may try to resist that, and as a longtime linguistic prescriptivist I extend you my sympathies... (But, psst, spoiler alert: This quixotic struggle is doomed to fail.)

But, anyway, you are of course perfectly free to keep campaigning for your cause. Only, in the name of all that is decent, be honest about it and call it for what it is: You're not defending spam, "only" trash.

Maybe after a while you'll realise why the rest of the world sees no difference in your distinction.

[teakettle42]

> let's save 'spam' for things that actually meet an objective, commonly-accepted standard used by most groups that actually try to stop it

Your definition is based on what’s legal under the “established business relationship” exemption in the CAN-SPAM act, not any “commonly-accepted objective standard” of what spam is.

[Karunamon]

Spam fighting existed long before a 2003 US law. RBLs came into being in 1997, Spamhaus in 1998. You'll note precisely none of these organizations (in any country) blacklisting Amazon, or any other company, because they send marketing emails to their existing customers.

[CRConrad]

> Spam fighting existed long before a 2003 US law.

So then it wasn't originally defined as per your preferred legal wording, now was it?

> RBLs came into being in 1997, Spamhaus in 1998.

And did they coin the expression, or was the concept itself around long before that...? (A: AFAIK, at least a decade earlier.)

> You'll note precisely none of these organizations (in any country) blacklisting Amazon, or any other company, because they send marketing emails to their existing customers.

Ah. So it's not actually the legal definition that is important, but the corporate one. OK, gotcha, that is of course so much better. (Blindingly obvious: /s)

[Edit: Added missing quote marker > ]