Well, the argument for it (or actually the email it can generate) being spam is pretty obvious, presumably?
By pressing I guess it is two buttons on that screen, I can cause a generic "come join Facebook!" message to be mailed by some third party to everyone in my whatever-it-is address book. If I upload a list of addresses to some site, knowing that that site is then going to send unsolicited mail to everyone on that list, is there spamming going on? I think the answer is "yes". It's slightly fuzzier who's actually doing the spamming (me, or the site that actually sends the mail), but it seems pretty clear that there is spamming going on? If I manually send a note to everyone in my address book, saying "sign up for service X 'cause I like it!", am I spamming? I think so. If I use a third-party web service to do that, am I spamming, or is the web service spamming? Distinction without a difference, I think: we (that is, me + the web service) are spamming. It's a conspiracy! :) Now if I only have five people in my addressbook, and I send them all email saying "wow you'll love this band" because I think that all five of them really will love it, is *that* spamming? That's so de minimus and borderline that I'd say "probably not". But given how big your average facebook user's email address is, and how generic the "Join Facebook!" message is, I don't think it's de nearly so much minimus. The argument that it is spam is, at the very least, plausible. But presumably you disagree? I'd be interested in hearing which bits you disagree with... DC
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