A few months ago I was approached by Whitebox Express (Colin Brown - ex PC Company) about going on their mailing list, but they didn't just start sending me mail without asking, I got an email saying would I like to be added, and if I DID want to be added then I could reply saying so. They didn't just add me and then expect me to unsubscribe if I didn't want to hear from them.
What you describe is exactly what I did. It was always an OPT IN mailing list.
Where did we opt in to receive the original message ?
All people received was a relevant, targetted and professional ONE OFF INVITATION.
Sorry, that thinking doesn't wash with me. What difference does it make whether a specific source of UCE is "one off" or recurring ? Spam is spam. If you were the only person on the whole planet sending "one off" messages there wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately there are a seemingly endless supply of spammers sending "one off" messages, ("you will never hear from us again after this ONE OFF message!") in addition to the blatent repeat offenders, and the end result is still spam, even if you never see spam from the same spammer twice. Browsing through my Spam folder (unfortunately I have to do this from time to time... ugh) shows that around 70% of my Spam is stuff that I get regular repeats of (at least two or more copies per day of basically the same thing) while the other 30% are messages that are largely unique and then aren't seen again. (Eg, "one off") The "one off" excuse doesn't work when everyone is using it... As someone else said, I don't know you at all, so I have nothing personal against you, but you really need to rethink your stance on this whole issue. Perhaps if you had spent significant time being on the receiving end of Spam, having to put systems into place to fight it, you would see the situation in a different light... Regards, Simon