The Spam Free Mission Statement:
Founded in 1998, the mission of the Forum for Responsible and Ethical E-mail (FREE) is to stop the practice of sending unsolicited boilerplate broadcast messages through e-mail. FREE recognizes that because of the cost-shifting aspects of unsolicited broadcast e-mail, the recipients and the providers who unwittingly assist in the delivery of such messages bear the majority of the cost. Therefore, it is our belief that such practice is unethical and must be replaced by a system that requires recipients to agree beforehand to receive such messages.In order to accomplish this mission, FREE will engage in three essential areas of operation:
Assisting Internet Service Providers in gaining the access to the software, personnel and knowledge necessary for ridding their own systems of unsolicited broadcast e-mailers;
Educating end users in the tracking of broadcast emails received as well as in public education, consumer mobilization and organization of grassroots political efforts aimed at furthering the organization’s goals; and
The active lobbying of governmental bodies to create and pass laws which would restrict to the point of unprofitability or end the practice of unsolicited broadcast emailing through civil and/or criminal penalties.