Accused Spammer to Debate SpamCop Founder

Weezle writes "Wired News is reporting that OptInRealBig's Scott Richter is going to debate SpamCop's Julian Haight in public next month. Richter had the nerve to file a lawsuit against SpamCop recently claiming that the blacklist keeps his company from sending out 'marketing messages.' (in lay terms, spam) Not surprisingly, Richter himself is being sued for $20 million by NY Att. General Eliot Spitzer. Sounds like it's going to be a real nasty fight."

Opt-Out Real Quick

[bendelo]

For those who wish to opt out...

OptInRealBig.com, LLC.
[phone]
[e-mail]

1333 W 120th AVE
Suite 101
Westminster, CO 80234
US

Re:Opt-Out Real Quick

[LostCluster]

I think we've covered before that's not the way CAN-SPAM requires them to operate an opt-out system...

You have to do exactly what everybody tells you not to do, follow the instructions at the bottom at the bottom of the e-mail.

True, most of the non-ethical spammers will just target you for more spam if you respond in that way, but CAN-SPAM requires a law-compliant spammer to honor that system, and Richter claims that's how his company works.

Spitzer: Not someone to mess with

[Infonaut]

There's an excellent explanation [legalaffairs.org] in Legal Affairs of the legal powers Spitzer wields. His primary tool is the Martin Act, which gives him frighteningly wide-ranging authority to go after a wide range of targets.

ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT

[keraneuology]

Spam is not protected speech. One of the most relevant cases ever heard by the US Supreme Court (which is rarely, if ever, mentioned in spam debates) is Rowan v U.S. Post Office Dept, 397 U.S. 728 (1970)

Appellants challenge the constitutionality of Title III of the Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 645, 39 U.S.C. 4009 ( 1964 ed., Supp. IV), under which a person may require that a mailer remove his name from its mailing lists and stop all future mailings to the householder. The appellants are publishers, distributors, owners, and operators of mail order houses, mailing list brokers, and owners and operators of mail service organizations whose business activities are affected by the challenged statute.

A new law had recently been passed whereby people could demand that unsolicited pr0n no longer be mailed to their houses. The homeowners didn't want free samples mailed to their kids. The pr0n magazines wanted to show everybody what they were missing and claimed absolute right to do so under the guise of the First Amendment. (Sound like a familiar battle?) The Supreme Court found against the postal spammers.

Some very relevant passages from the decision:

"the right of every person 'to be let alone' must be placed in the scales with the right of others to communicate."

"In today's complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive."

"Weighing the highly important right to communicate, but without trying to determine where it fits into constitutional imperatives, against the very basic right to be free from sights, sounds, and tangible matter we do not want, it seems to us that a mailer's [397 U.S. 728 , 737] right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee.

The Court has traditionally respected the right of a householder to bar, by order or notice, solicitors, hawkers, and peddlers from his property. See Martin v. City of Struthers, supra; cf. Hall v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 72, 49 S.E.2d 369, appeal dismissed, 335 U.S. 875 (1948). In this case the mailer's right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.

To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail. The ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality, and none of the recognized exceptions includes any right to communicate offensively with another. See Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967)."

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=397&invol=728

Re:Opt-Out Real Quick

[Aunty Spam]

Actually they can't. At least, not under the terms of CAN-SPAM:

"(A) IN GENERAL.--If a recipient makes a request using a mechanism provided pursuant to paragraph (3) not to receive some or any commercial electronic mail messages from such sender, then it is unlawful--
...
(iv) for the sender, or any other person who knows that the recipient has made such a request, to sell, lease, exchange, or otherwise transfer or release the electronic mail address of the recipient (including through any transaction or other transfer involving mailing lists bearing the electronic mail address of the recipient) for any purpose other than compliance with this Act or other provision of law."

In short, it's not ok to take the user's email address and transfer it _anywhere_, including to another internal mailing list.

Aunty Spam

Re:You guys are slipping....

[Anonymous Coward]

Richter, Scott
10633 W Ontario Av LITTLETON CO 80127
303) 979-8035
Aerial photo [terraserver-usa.com]

Based on a phone book search for Scott Richter in the area on Westminster, Colorado (the city listed in OptInRealBig's whois).

Some spammer urls

[Krafty Koder]

some targets for slashdotters out there - DoS or a wget loop would be appreciated:
Chinese spammer [netvigator.com]
And yet another one [china-pub.com]
home loan spammer [ezwayhomeloan.com]
junk health spammer [healthaction.biz]

Re:Opt-Out Real Quick

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.optinbig.com/unsubscribe.htm says:

"Unsubscribe from ALL lists on our system. Don't want any email at all from our network? No problem. Unsubscribe your email address using the box below. Please note that it can take up to five days to be completely removed from all lists in this fashion."

Whether you actually want to do this is, of course, your decision.

Re:I went to a fight, and a debate broke out...

[bhamm]

Tough fight? Nah, it'll be a quick knockdown. All Julian Haight has to do is interrupt Scott Richter whenever he tries to say something with a hearty "YOU TOO COULD HAVE A HUGE P ENIS!", or "100% LEGAL POT! GET HIGH LEGALLY!!!!!11!". Eventually Scott will get so pissed off he'll ask the debate moderator to silence Julian, and Julian will just have to say "I rest my case".

oh my god.. if you had only posted this last week when i had a few (mod) points to unload. Somebody take care of this guy please!!