Update, March/April 2006: Info on AOL's 'email tax'
One of the most hotly-contested issues in the realm of law and technology, spam is viewed variously as a privacy-invading barrage of junk, a resource drain, and a legitimate method of reaching consumers. Generally defined as unsolicited, bulk, commercial mail, spam isn't a problem with tidy solutions. Drawing a line between spam and non-spam, or, more importantly, deciding who gets to draw that line, is a tricky problem that invariably implicates free speech.
Fundamentally, EFF believes that email recipients should control when and how they receive their mail. To the greatest extent possible, anti-spam measures should be controlled by end users, and any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all non-spam messages reach their intended recipients. When antispam measures prevent activists and nonprofits from sending and receiving bulk noncommercial mail, EFF considers this a problem commensurate with the problem of spam itself. Another problem arises when antispam measures sacrifice a citizen's ability to engage in anonymous free speech,