As someone who works in social media marketing, my definition of ‘spam’ isn’t aligned with the definition among techie purists. This is mostly because I think “talk to someone unless they tell you to go away” is a completely legitimate way to behave, in life as in work, whereas techie purists tend to think “don’t talk to anyone, ever, unless they beg you to talk to them” is the way the world should be. Yes, stereotypesLOL.
I can certainly make common ground with techie purists on the concept of how fucking annoying it is when you do tell people at nominally legitimate companies (not talking “send your money to Nigeria for Viagara” crap here, all of my email addresses are on the web and I’ve not received that kind of spam for years. FILTERS: THEY WORK) to go away and they don’t.
However, given the utterly pisspoor state of lists at nearly all companies of all kinds, and the utterly urchin-child-intern nature of the poor sods who generally end up processing lists at PR firms, it seems unreasonable to get angry at the individual on the end of the email (*). So I don’t.
My recentest response to such an email is here, partly for public edification, and partly so I can Google it next time.
Dear [xxx]s as an organisation, please remove me from all of your press lists of all kinds and add me to your (DPA-mandated, so you must have one, right?) list of people who have requested that you never contact them again – obviously, apart from the email to confirm that this has been done.
Dear [yyy]l, I’ve asked your predecessors to take me off their lists before but apparently my address has still been passed on to you. Apologies for sending you a grumpy message due to wider organisational problems that aren’t your fault, please don’t take it personally.
Sorted.
(*) far more unreasonable than, say, a comedian getting angry at a heckler who’s deliberately choosing to be part of the comedy act, rather than some poor sod who’s getting paid and doesn’t want any trouble. People who get personally lairy at customer service operatives are the lowest of the low.