Expert: Joerg Droege - 6/12/2006

Question
Thanks for answereing the question. Should I expect to be in trouble for sending these religious e-mails because it only happened over one weekend or should I be fine as long as I stop now. I've only done it on two occasions.
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Followup To

Question -
"Where would I be able to go to find out about anti-spam laws. I use my e-mail to spread Christianity, but I don't want to be breaking spam laws. I am always careful not to be offensive to none Christians but I add imformation like looking uo Chaplet of Divine Mercy on google. Please let me know if you know the laws or where I could go to find them out. I've already sent out a series of these religious e-mails to places that have their e-mails advertised on-line like Playboy, Atheist sites, Anti-Christians sites, etc. I only e-mail the ones who already have their e-mail posted on line, but let me know if this is okay, if you know or where to go to find out.

Answer -

Hello Michael!

Thanks for your question!

Spam is mass mailing to people. Famous kinds are pron, sales, couple sites, viruses, hoaxes, spreading religious ideals, yadda-yadda, and so on.

So you are breaking laws here. That email addresses are published online does not mean it allows you to send them the same email like all the others.

Spam:

So, sending one email to tons of people and orgs is spam.


In contrast are single emails:

Sending the same email directed to a person/company and only to this person/company (like "Dear PlayBoy creator, I  believe in God, ... etc etc) is not spam. (I mean really a non-automatic email customized for the person/comapny you write to so to only 1 person/company at a time)



I received emails spreading relegious views or sectes views or membership offers, etc, and they are all emails sends to tons of people, so they are rated and marked as spam and reported to email providers.

Me and most of my friends rate and report unwanted emails as spam, too and if you follow the media, AOL, Microsoft and a few others did successful lawsuits against spammers!



You can see the laws of each country, explainations and even example cases at http://www.spamlaws.com/, they even link to the anti spam organizations of the countries.
The homepage is created and maintained by a Associate Professor of Law.


Personal sidenote:


I am not religious, and I respect everybody who is. Even those who love PlayBoy, etc.
To me we should respect each other in any case.
I don't think sending emails to such organisations or people is very helpful and creates only anger instead of understanding.


Hope this helps!
All the best!
Bye!
Joerg

Answer
Hello again Michael!

You are welcome!

No, I don't think you have to worry about that, that much.

But I also hope my personal point of view was a bit understood, too :)

One doesn't get that fast and soon in trouble, in the law cases, they mostly spoke about millions.

Hope this helps!

All the best!
Bye!
Joerg