The more "technically advanced" are both more likely to be the ones
with mailto on web sites, and incidentally the ones more likely to do
something unpleasant when you piss them off. Yes, you have a right
to e-mail whoever you please. We also have the right to send you 50
back... Basically spamming is annoying and rude. If the mail has
some tenuous connection with the mailto then that's more acceptable.
However have a robot wandering around mailing every mailto is crass,
and irritating. Selling these robots is foolish as well.
I would also like to point out that I DONT LIVE IN THE USA, and
consequently DONT CARE what "federal courts" have said. I do agree
that free speech is important, however the more mindless stunts
pulled like this under the umbrella of free speech the more trouble
we will have keeping free speech. I would like to suggest that you
try to:
(a) Comply with robot protocols.
(b) Find a method that will annoy fewer people. You've had lots of
positive mail because they are the people who can be bothered to mail
you back. How many people swore when they got your e-mail and
promptly went off to reconfigure their server?
(c) Stop going on about the benefits of junk mail. Very few
ordinary people like junk mail, that's why we call it "junk".
(d) Try to avoid using up bandwidth and disc space by e-mailing
people with no connection with whatever you are advertising. If I
ran a site about Windows software then sending me e-mail about it
would be OK, but spamming me about how cool your art site is not
relevant to my mailto. You might as well just go looking up random
e-mail addresses!
Nick Dearnaley,
AutoNomy.
autonomy@stjohns.co.uk