Can you conset to spam?

With unsolicited email, this excuse is usually a lie, but not always.

"The reason you are getting this message is that at some point in the past, you signed up to receive these offers. Your address may also have been obtained via a third-party who you agreed to allow us to share your email address with other marketing providers."

You can almost hear them laughing, but can you really say for sure it's not true? Surely, at one point or another you scrolled through a license agreement and clicked "yes" without really reading. Can you say for sure that by installing that shareware, you didn't consent to being spammed?

Once you're on a spammer's list, your inbox will never be quite the same. Email filter software can help with this issue, but the missed spam can still lead to aggravation.

In the most frustrating cases, your "friend" might have signed you on to a spam email list by sending you an e-card. If you, "punched the monkey" in order to get a free MP3 player, you almost certainly signed yourself up for spam. Nice work.

Thanks to a law passed a few years ago, your click can be as legally binding as your signature. But still, what can you really consent to?

What if you went to a restaurant and on the receipt, they printed a, "usage agreement."

"By paying for your meal with your credit card, you agree that we can bill your credit card a penny ($0.01) a day from now until eternity. If you don't agree to this, check the box above. We may also provide your credit card to other parties who may do the same. You may cancel these charges at any time, however you will have to deal with any third-parties separately. The third-parties may also share your credit card with other parties, for which we may not be held responsible for."

This isn't that different from what spammers do. Once your email address is out of the bag, they seem free to profit from it indefinitely. Legally, you can tell them to stop, but there's no requirement or method for them to retract it to others they've sold it to.