Campaign E-Mail or Spam?

Joe Wilcox | August 21, 2003, 07:29 AM

This morning I received an e-mail from the Bush-Cheney `04 campaign about the launch of the new GeorgeWBush.com Website. Frankly, I had no idea the president and vice president had set up a campaign Website. A check of Network Solutions' WHOIS database suggests a legitimate entity.

So the question: Is this spam or is my name on some conservative mailing list somewhere? If the latter, I wonder how it got there as I don't participate in any conservative groups or attend any political functions (I did vote for Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney in 2000).

I'm not angry about receiving the e-mail, merely surprised. But I do think it raises questions about how information is passed about among marketing groups--or in this case, political campaigners--and how much privacy regular Internet users have (None). Campaign `04 may be the most online focused yet, and campaigners may want to excerise good e-mail marketing judgment given the growing anti-spam sentiment. Those well-intended e-mails could cost votes rather than encourage them.

Anyway, I'm now pretty sure who Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates voted for three years ago: Office Outlook 2003 did not treat the Bush-Cheney `04 e-mail as spam. :)