Absolutely not!

Unfortunately, since spam has become such a huge problem, if you're sending the message to me and I have not explicitly given you my email address or permission to send me email, I'd trash it. In fact, I'd bounce it back as undeliverable.

I have even gone to the trouble of establishing throwaway addresses to use in signing up for newsletters on the net. Once the publishers have proven themselves trustworthy in safeguarding my email address, and have shown they have something worthwhile to send to me (ads included), I unsubscribe the throwaway and subscribe with a good address.

Of the 35 messages I received today, only 7 were from people/newslists I wanted to receive. And while some had interesting Subject lines, it is my rule of thumb to ignore any message to me that I didn't invite.

Of course, if someone references a post of mine, or states his own name (From Dien at SOWPUB, From Boyd:, e.g.) then I download it and read it.

Anything else just gets dumped.

Marye