George,

Slashdot is carrying a post today titled "Is the Dean Campaign Spamming?"

It reports:

"It appears that the campaign is outsourcing their email with some dubious marketing partners who are then using notorious spamhauses to send out the actual email. Why does a supposedly "net savvy" campaign even think for one second that this approach is acceptable?"

See: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/08/17/1624206.shtml?tid=103&tid=111&tid=126&tid=99

The crux is that the Dean campaign paid a third party, who promised they were sending to opt-in lists. While the campaign did the right thing after the fact (firing their contractors), it still doesn't buy a lot of credibility with me. After all, how much of the spam in _your_ mailbox claims to be "opt-in"?

Tom McCrystal (electronic mail, August 17, 2003)