Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Email / Spam / Lists / orgs

[Eris Weaver (eris]

Fred said:
                This directory contains email addresses for many of the 
communities
                 for the convenience of people pursuing cohousing. However 
collecting
                 many addresses from this directory and sending email to them 
would
                 constitute SPAM. Don't do it. Consider communicating via
                 Coho/US advertising or Cohousing-L.

I have a slightly different take on this.

Publishing your contact information in ANY publicly-accessible directory - 
online or print - opens you up to receiving communications from whoever finds 
you in that directory. That's why we do it, right? So people can find us? 
Hopefully anyone pulling contact info from the Coho/US or FIC directories will 
be using it for purposes related to community. But it would be naïve to think 
that just publishing the above disclaimer would stop anyone who really wanted 
to use the contact info there. 

I recently sent out a mailer and  email about a workshop I am teaching that 
would be of interest to cohousers and other communitarians. I have paid 
advertising on the Coho/US website and elsewhere, and also posted it to 
cohousing-l. I also used the directories to identify communities in the 
geographic area where the workshop will be held. Was that spam? Was that a 
mis-use of the directories? Or just using a common marketing technique? 

------------------------------
Eris Weaver, Facilitator & Group Process Consultant
FrogSong (Cotati, CA)
eris [at] erisweaver.info
707-338-8589
http://www.erisweaver.info


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