I work for a company whose domain name is synonymous with the concept of bulk email. (We're not spammers. We hate spammers with a passion. We were doing academic discussion lists on BITNET before the Internet as we know it existed, and certainly long before the Web. Spammers give our business a bad name.)
Yet every day, on my work accounts, I get dozens of spam messages from people trying to sell me bulk email services.
You'd think they wouldn't waste their time. But I guess it's quantity over quality, or "how many emails can we shove out the door today?"
Assholes.
If spammers employed the same databases to target their email that junk snail mailers do, they'd only be as reviled as junk snail mailers. I ritually destroy every credit card offer we get, but other unsolicited bulk snail mailers get a bit of slack. If I realize that's a product we actually use before I can walk from the mailbox to the trashcan, I keep the mail. Otherwise it goes in the trash.
At the moment, the only junk mail that doesn't go in the trash can are those that contain baby formula and diaper coupons. I was wondering how they could know to send those without HIPAA privacy being violated, then I realized the answer was the Kroger Plus Card.
However if someone sends me an unsolicited bulk email, I'll never buy from them. If I already have a relationship with them, and have given them my email address it's not a problem. However, I am more and more selective with who I give my email address to.