Sorefingers, you referred to "except where the client has asked for it".   Makes sense. BUT! I get spam all the time that says more or less "This is not SPAM because you permitted it", without any suggestion of where or when I'm supposed to have done that. I don't believe I did, because I'm pretty rigorous about looking over any forms I fill in, either on paper or on the web, to avoid authorizing their "offers".

Those SPAMs that include a link to be taken off, saying in effect, "Oh, heavens! We don't want to send this to anyone who doesn't want it!" very often (I found out back when I used to use them) refer to a nonexistent account--even within hours of receipt of the SPAM.

My Norton's is pretty good about labeling SPAM messages, and Netscape shuffles them off into a Spam folder I've set up. I check that folder just occasionally, just to see whether some desirable-looking message has been mischaracterized. I haven't found any such mistakes so far. I certainly won't open any messages that got to that folder unless I am pretty sure it's been sent there by mistake. Everything so far has been summarily deleted from that folder.
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Dave Oesterreich