Is It Spam?

We recently sent an email marketing campaign about a webinar we hosted with the folks over at Google Apps. Soon after we sent the email, an angered customer of VerticalResponse emailed me telling me how disappointed they were that we were "soliciting something that wasn't from our company" and that is spam.

I replied that we aren't soliciting anything, we're not asking for money (the webinar was free) and we were not getting paid by Google. In fact I told them that there are a ton of Google Apps that are free. I told them that we use Google Apps and we just think that our customers can benefit from knowing about how they can use these products with VerticalResponse.

Then I found this from the Spamhaus Project:

Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Whether the UBE message is an advert, a scam, porn, a begging letter or an offer of a free lunch, the content is irrelevant - if the message was sent unsolicited and in bulk then the message is spam.

So we emailed our users about something we were doing, with Google, that they could benefit from for free. I think that's pretty far from the 100's of spam messages I get in my inbox that I never signed up for. So I told this customer if they were so offended they could unsubscribe.

P.S. I noticed this customer got a huge ratio of spam complaints on one of their mailings...now who is the spammer? ;-)

Comments

[Carsten]

WHAT??? If you annoy someone with your advertisements without having the person's consent, this is SPAM.

Your policy is just typical egoistic thinking: As long as you have a benefit, you don't care how many people you are annoying. You are stealing time and resources from other people.

[William]

I dont think its spam at all. I have purchased bulk email lists for sale from www.thedatasupplier.com and have had great results with email marketing!

[Patricia Callaway]

Wow I find that accusation totally baffling, considering that the whole webinar was focused on ways folks can use Google Apps to help with their email marketing programs!

We talked about collaborating on content with Google Docs, or sharing spreadsheets of email lists internally, not to mention the VR Gadget which allows you to glance at your stats from your iGoogle page.

Oh and we mentioned that we were gonna talk about all of those topics in the offending email too! Just for the record :)

[Andrew Kordek]

Amen to that. Spam is like the word "love"..it is so overused and so misunderstood. People freak over the little things and they need to chill out. What you did was perfectly acceptable and I would not sweat it.

[Matt Soreco]

Not spam at all. Keep up the good work!