On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 13:07:22 -0400, Lenny Huntley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>A merge-mailing was sent out by a new employee here, and the person had
>changed the FROM address from a valid internal email address to a phrase.
>What are the implications of this action?  

RFC822 requires a valid From: address.  a 'phrase' is probably not a valid From:
address, but a specific example would help.

>Does this constitute spamming?

There are many definitions of 'spam'.  Mainly spam is mail sent to people who
haven't asked to receive such mail.  However, many ISP's and academic and
corporate mail gateway admins have applied a variety of mail filters to examine
incoming mail for certain characteristics typical of 'spam' messages.  One of
these characteristics is failure to have a valid RFC822 From: address.  

What action will be taken at each site will depend on the rule set at each
location that does this.  Some will simply refuse the mail.  Some will discard
it.  Some will put your server (IP address) or domain MAIL FROM:<address> on
some kind of 'black list' so they can more easily reject future mail from you.
Some have no such filters in place and nothing at all will occur.