Student labels registrar e-mail spam

Michalis Avraam hates seeing his inbox full of spam -- unsolicited e-mail.

"I get very angry at the Office of the Registrar and others who keep sending me e-mail," said Avraam. "I do not want it."

Avraam, a sophomore premajor, takes issue with the content and amount of e-mail sent by the Office of the Registrar and other UW departments.

According to Avraam, the mail is unwanted, unsolicited and sometimes even unreadable when using the Webpine e-mail client, which was created by the University for the University.

"They can find a better way of communicating with the students than sending e-mails," said Avraam. "The UW are spammers of the worst kind."

Not quite, says the state attorney general.

Although Washington state is one of the first in the nation to enact a law against spam in June of 1998, the terms are specific and do not cover Avraam's complaint. According to Attorney General Christine Gregoire, the spam law "prohibits the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail that contains misleading information in the subject line, uses a third party's domain name without permission or misrepresents the message's point of origin."

According to law, the UW is not sending spam to the student body. Van Johnson, the UW's associate registrar, sends the e-mail messages to students from the Office of the Registrar's account.

"I am surprised there are complaints from students regarding the registrar's e-mail distribution list. I am aware of the spam issue and am cautious," said Johnson. "I think we use the list in a very careful way."

Johnson admits he sends messages alerting students about registration, changes and other important news departments "wish to distribute to all students.

"A list was set up for me by computing and communications as a mechanism to contact students directly. It is one list only I have control of," said Johnson.

However, Computing and Communications (C&C) has its own e-mail rules. According to the department's Web site, the University prohibits the "harvesting of e-mails from an institution's directory ... subscribing anyone to an e-mail list except with the individual's permission ... sending frivolous messages and ... sending e-mail to someone who has requested that you do not do so."

Johnson is unaware that Office of the Registrar violates any UW rules and insists the office just follows orders.

"E-mail is the easiest way to contact the student body," said Johnson. "It is also the best way, and we will continue to send out information."

According to Avraam, the point is not caution on Johnson's part, but why he is receiving any e-mail at all.

"I don't want to be included in a list the University does not require me to belong to. I shouldn't have to unsubscribe myself to something that I did not subscribe to in the first place," said Avraam.

The UW requires that all students are automatically registered in the Office of the President's listserv, as well as the OnTechNews listserv, when they receive a UW NetID.

"We are required by law in the United States Code to notify all students about voter registration in a federal election year. Since this is a requirement, I will add all students back to the list who took steps to remove themselves before I distribute the voter-registration information," said Johnson.

Were all the registrar's messages coming from the president, however, students would have no room to complain, but Johnson is not sure why his e-mails are not sent by the president.

"I don't know why the Office of the President doesn't send the mandatory e-mails. You got me. This was just a task given to us."