Processed Pork Product

The bottom line is that we don't like spam because of its unsolicited intrusiveness. It has neither explicit nor implicit permission to be thrust before us, forcing us to determine whether it is indeed spam or not.

Here are some examples of explicit and implicit permission.

If we sign up for a newsletter, particularly from a store or outlet we enjoy, that has products we want, we have given explicit information for them to send us their advertising. We want it. We've asked for it.

Most of us (the vast, thinking majority) recognize that value must be given in return for effort. We want something from someone else, we must pay for it one way or another. Sometimes we perform work in return, sometimes we barter for something of value we have to offer, sometimes we pay in a representative currency. There are undercurrents here that explain the absence of a free lunch even when someone else is paying for it, and the disparity of our current tax system, but I shall draw myself back to the topic at hand:

We recognize advertising pays for something we don't want to pay for directly, such as a website with information we might not have paid for directly. News is important, or game clues, or clever sayings, whatever. However most websites and their information are not things we would sacrifice our money for directly perhaps by joining the site and paying for the information.

So, the website allows advertisers, hopefully people whose products we do think are worth paying for, spending our hard earned currency on, to use some of their space. This is implicit permission. We are actively going out and looking for something we recognize as "for free" with the understanding that what makes it free is the fact that someone else is paying for our potential attention. It may not be so much voluntary (though that is debatable, perhaps another time) because we are unlikely to find what we want without some sort of advertising attached, but it is implicit permission nonetheless.

Spam acquires neither of these permissions, but by aggressive tactics finds where it can thrust itself in front of us without our consent.