By definition, "spam" is unsolicited email that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. This definition is relevant to 8i users due to the Mass Email feature. While the Mass Email feature is a powerful tool for reaching many contacts at once, it is important to distinguish between contact communications and spam for both legal and practical reasons.
Legally, the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires unsolicited email messages to be labeled (though not by a standard method) and to include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address. Individuals who violate the provisions of the Act expose themselves to both criminal and civil consequences.
Note: The Unsubscribe feature of Top Producer 8i allows you to abide by the opt-out requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act by enabling email recipients to remove themselves from your Mass Email mailouts. When you attempt to use the Mass Email feature to email one or more unsubscribed contacts, a dialog box will provide you with a list of the unsubscribed contacts. While you can override this setting, you should do so only if you are responding to an explicit request for information from the contact.
From a practical point of view, even if legal proceedings are never brought to bear, many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) monitor the source and volume of email traffic through their mail servers and blacklist email addresses with traffic patterns that suggest they are being used to distribute spam. If your email address is blacklisted, you will not be able send email - mass or personal - to addresses hosted on the blacklisting server.
To avoid being classed as a "spammer", follow a few simple rules:
A lways use a template that includes your physical address and contact information in the footer.
Perform several small mailouts (fewer than 200 recipients) over several days rather than one large one on a single day. This will allow you to both target your audience more effectively and prevent the large block of email traffic that raises a red flag for ISPs.
Always examine the messages you are sending and ask yourself if they will actually be relevant to the recipients. The Mass Email feature is only as effective as the content of the messages you send.