One of the big stories of the last two days: Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine, got fed up with the amount of unwanted, irrelevant and targeted PR (spam) press-releases he was getting he compiled a list of 300 or so PR people whose addresses he had blocked. He then published the list of blocked emails on his blog.
Insanity quickly followed. Three comments were quickly posted on his post fighting over the rightness or wrongness of 1) Sending spam 2) Emails sent to purchased mailing lists aren’t spam or 3) Is it ok to “out” all those people and publish their emails. A lot of people are upset / angry / embarassed / happy / scared / crazy. Its all very funny. Check out this catfight. Chris’ response to the aftermath is here.
Lesson learned: never ever send out a mass email unless you are absolutely positive that every single recipient will be thrilled to receive and read it. No exceptions.