Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <391d719f@news.povray.org> , "Marc Koester" <mko### [at] gmxnet>
> wrote:
> > or like Thorsten Froehlich:
> > "I will complain to GMX and ask them to close your account."
> >
> > With these and other statements you proved no better behaviour than mine.
>
> If you don't understand the concept of spam and why it is not acceptable,
> maybe you should not use the internet. Besides, GMX (like all free e-mail
> services) has anti-spam rules, and I am sure unsolicited e-mail to at least
> 328 people (I have the other two lists as well) qualifies as spam!
>
> So my complaint is justified, but for your deliberate action (after all you
> had to collect the e-mail addresses) there is no excuse. Not even for being
> new to this group.
>

We should perhaps not overreact about this. For somebody who is new to the
internet, the very concept of spam doesn't mean anything. In real life, someone
looking for this sort of help could very well phone to a lot of people or put
an ad in the newspapers. We also receive a lot of unsolicited brochures and ads
in our real-life mailboxes and AFAIK we don't sue the senders.

Some of the ethical rules peculiar to the net are absolutely unknown outside
it: unethical behaviours on the net may appear unethical only to those who've
been using it for a while. And there's no reading a FAQ about netiquette if you
don't know what a FAQ is (or a binary attachment).

Since Mr Koester didn't try to hide his identity and quickly apologised
(something real spammers never do) I don't see a need for further bad feelings.

G.

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