Just to jump in here....
I have been doing direct marketing (snailmail spam) pretty much for the past 10 years......
It is my viewpoint that the reason the "establishment" is down on email spam is because the postoffice does not get a cut. That plain and simple.
When we bulkmail, using barcodes, automated sorts, etc... We can get a cost per piece down to about a nickel. But that nickel goes to the post office. They are more than happy to take that piece and deliver it wherever you want for that nickel. They do not care what you are sending (other than blatantly illegal substances etc), they dont care if it is adult in nature (has to be marked adult, 21 and over only..) they deliver it.
There is not requirement in the snailmail world that a name be on an opt-in list. The DMA has a "no Send" list, but there is no law requiring a marketer to suppress from this list. Some of the states have "NO call" lists, but this covers voice telecommunications only, does not cover the mail.
You will not see any attempt to cut back on snailmail spam simply because the postoffice get's it's cut and makes a ton of money each year off of it. I will go so far as to say that without snailmail spam, the postoffice would be running into a constant deficit and mailing a first class letter would start approaching the $1.00 mark or more very quickly.
There is very little difference between snailmail spam and email spam with the exception that the "establishment" does not get it's cut. That is why across the years, there have been several initiatives to tax email... If the postoffice could figure out a way to get a penny per email, all of a sudden the powers that be would be all for spam email.... Because they have not figured out a sure way to get a piece of the action, they will continue to condemn and attempt to regulate email spam... But not for any of the "proclaimed" reasons (morality, server jamming, etc) It is simply because they cannot get a cut.
imho of course...........
