Accused Spammer to Debate SpamCop Founder 187
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."
Watch what you say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhm... two guys suing each other in public and they're not going to talk about the legal alligations either has leveled about the other? Sounds like some lawyers won't be members of the Bar Association much longer.
Proof of Opt-In (Score:5, Insightful)
How can we, the spam victims, prove that we NEVER gave consent to such-and-such website?
Lemmee lone!! (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO the debate between these two should end right there. This is like a "do not call" list. People are bombarded with advertising at every turn. We should have a right to be left alone.
Regulation of Blacklists? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK Fine (Score:5, Insightful)
hrmm (Score:2, Insightful)
marketing messages do not always equal spam. For example, Apple sends me marketing messages all the time, and they're not spam.
also, in 'lay terms' (think you mean "layman's terms") 'spam' would be "sending you mail you don't ask for", and 'marketing messages' are not always 'spam'.
i don't mean to get on a rant here, but also:
if you have to explain 'marketing messages' also explain 'spamcop' and 'blacklist' and 'OptInRealBig'. explaining what marketing messages (a plain english term) are, and not explaining other terms the readers might not know about portrays you as a zealot, which you may or may not be. if portraying yourself as a zealot is what you were after, i should say that zealots have ZERO credibility because they are (by definition) fanatical and unreasoning.
anyway, thanks for the links, and please put a little bit more thought into your blurbs.
Re:OK Fine (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is with over SpamCOP's public claim that Richter sends e-mails to people who have never opted-in.
Richter claims that any recipient claiming that they never opted-in is wrong. He'd refute SpamCOP's claim, but SpamCOP refuses to turn over the e-mail addresses of the people complaining to them, so he can't check his records to find out how the address got there.
You most definitely have a right to publish an opinion, but when you accuse somebody of something, it turns into a matter of fact. If you're publishing facts that aren't true, that's where libel starts...
Re:Proof of Opt-In (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the burdon should be on the spammer to prove that you DID opt-in, upon request.
The thing is, even if this guy's business was 100% legit, which everyone know's isn't anyways, it's a moot point for the vast majority of us. We get so much spam, how are we supposed to know that one is opt-outable and other one will put you to the top of the spammer's list?
Re:Regulation of Blacklists? (Score:4, Insightful)
What the various federal and state laws about such companies do is require them to provide individuals with reports about themselves upon request, and follow a specific despute resolution process should you ever claim that something they are reporting about you is inaccurate.
Re:hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)
also, in 'lay terms' (think you mean "layman's terms") 'spam' would be "sending you mail you don't ask for", and 'marketing messages' are not always 'spam'.
This can't be emphasized enough! I've seen plenty of people call emails from companies that they have a business relationship with "spam." Yet, these are the same people who don't bother to uncheck the "I do not wish to receive product information" checkboxes. In fact, I've watched a few people order things online and I've mentioned to them that they may want to uncheck that box. A few weeks later when I'm at their desk and they're complaining about receiving "spam" from LLBean or whoever, I remind them that they chose to receive those emails! Of course, there's real spam mixed in there too, but a lot of it is because of those little opt-out checkboxes that they decided they didn't want to uncheck...
Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
If the spammers were civil and provided a way to honestly opt-out, I don't think there'd be much debate. As it is, "opt-out" options are used to verify legitimate mail addresses to which more spam is sent.
The essence of fairness is respect. If spammers were to respect the wishes of email participants, these drastic blacklist measures would not be necessary.
Just as a person may not be allowed to speak at a public forum with no curtailment of free speech, so an ISP may filter spam with no curtailment of free speech. Plus, as SpamCop merely provides a service (the identification of spam black-hole lists), they are not themselves curtailing free speech. If I (as an individual) decide to pre-filter my email by using SpamCop, I have also not curtailed the free speech rights of spammers; I have merely invoked my right to not listen.
If SpamCop is inhibited in any way by first amendment arguments, justice has been subverted. Since SpamCop itself is opt-in, they are providing more free speech than the spammers themselves.
Granted, I am not a lawyer, one of the many things of which I am glad. (I don't see how many lawyers sleep at night, but then again, I fret when I realize I only left a 15% tip instead of a 20% tip.)
Re:Proof of Opt-In (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that's impossible.
If the recipients have given consent, it's not spam by definition.
How can we, the spam victims, prove that we NEVER gave consent to such-and-such website?
You can't prove a negative except by exhaustion. It should be up to them to prove you gave consent.
Re:Regulation of Blacklists? (Score:3, Insightful)
NO
They only start to "care" after you have filed a complaint about the accuracy of your "credit history"; and by then, the damage can already have been done.
Imagine this: You applied for a car loan, you were approved. However, your credit wasn't "good enough" so your interest on your car loan is higher.
You thought all was fine and dandy until 2 years later, you try to buy a house. Lending company turns you down because of bad credit.
By the time you find out about your "bad credit", the damage had been done because you are paying too much for the car loan.
-Grump
Unfortunately, SpamCop sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be happier if Spamhaus was doing this debate. They run things the right way.
Re:OptInRealBig is not the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
free speech??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Opt-Out Real Quick (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea he says he's so law compliant then why does his spam server come knocking at the door of my mail server about 300 times a day. Funny how some of the bounces back to his server are from addresses that haven't been active for over four years. Isn't a nasty reject mail message enough to opt-out??
I'll be happy to come with a dull knife to strip away his flesh 1 square inch at a time.
You know with all this suing left and right by everyone who thinks they are someone with some kind of power makes me think of what my Grandpa used to say "People become lawyers to make up for having little dicks. Makes them feel big." Doesn't anyone relize that only the lawyers make money in a suit. Everyone else loses.
Re:OK Fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like Manson debating Bugliosi, this is. (Score:5, Insightful)
50,000,000,000 seconds is
833333333 minutes is
13888888 hours is
578703 days is
1585 years
That's 1585 man-years of wasted time every single day.
Assuming a person lives to the age of 80 years, the total wasted time adds up to almost 20 people. The entire lives of 20 people, wasted EVERY day to spam. It's fucking mass murder.
Spamcop is almost worse then the spammers... (Score:1, Insightful)
They have no true higherarchy, no way to get your e-mail off the list if one of your compeditors has "reported" you, they often send reports of Spam to incorect administrators, and lie to their supporters about results.
All I can say is atleast they dont flood inboxes with herbal viagra and crap. Still they show how easy anti-spam orginizations can become useless and more harmfull then their good.
Re:Opt-Out Real Quick (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps because it overrode state antispam laws, which were more strict?
Re:Spamcop is almost worse then the spammers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you only have the user's email address you have no way of contacting them, even to tell them that you can't contact them because of SpamCop!
So you contact SpamCop and they take this high-handed approach and won't help you. You contact the ISP, but they don't do anything either, so you are stuck. Also, they don't seem to check anything but just take any complaints at face value.
So in the case of self-appointed spam vigilantes like SpamCop, unfortunately the cure is worse then the disease. Likewise the spam filters that fill my inbox with "virus detected in message which contained your forged from address" alerts.
I prefer the system EarthLink uses where you have to confirm the message is genuine.
Re:Free Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Email and SMS spam and phone calls are just plain annoying - SMS spam more so because it is not uncommon for me to get SMS spam in the early hours of the morning and often the senders seem to have bugs in their systems that causes it to repeatedly send the same message to me over and over. A couple of months ago a SMS spammer decided to send the same message to me every 15 minutes for 2 or 3 days streight. I reported every one of them but I was told my the telco (Orange) that there was absolutely nothing they could do to block the spams immediately. How long will it be before I can install SpamAssassin on my P900 to take care of the spam SMS's?
The Telephone Preference Service (opt-out for telesales calls) works pretty well in the UK but still, it should be opt-in, not opt-out.
And being an environmentally concious person, it pisses me off so much to see the shear quantity of paper that comes through my door and goes straight in the recycling.
I also get so much completely untargetted hand-delivered stuff: "garden waste recycling service" - great, except none of the properties on the estate actually have gardens. And the classic one was the estate agents asking if I want them to sell my property (this was while there was a "Sold" sign outside the door just after I had bought the place).
Re:free speech??? (Score:2, Insightful)
exactly right.. and if they don't want to leave you alone, you get something similar to how i dealt with a street corner 'preacher' downtown one afternoon. Despite my initial 'leave me alone' stare, he felt he needed an audience with me.. surely to tell me that i was damned, or somesuch nonsense. Well, the crazy bastard kept on my heels for about a block or so, reciting his unsolicited 'message' (ie. spam).. until i stopped, turned around and informed him that if i had to turn around again, that it wasn't going to be to talk shop about redemption. I also made him aware that i was, in fact, being nice in providing him an opportunity to leave (ie. opt-out) rather than just spinning around and busting him in the mouth. And to those who say 'the law prohibits that'.. well, the law is free to deal with me however it likes, but only *after* you're on the ground looking for your teeth. If i feel that the potential consequences are worth you losing your teeth, then no law (in and of itself) *prevents* it from happening..
what's worse is when people like this get behind a steering wheel or a computer terminal. You'd think they were invincible or something. You'd never get away with that kind of personal affront when standing face to face with someone. And if you can't pull it off in those surroundings, you have no business attempting it while hiding behind your car, office desk, or someone else's hijacked domain.
boy, i must be having a bad day or something.. =)
Re:I went to a fight, and a debate broke out... (Score:1, Insightful)
1. You have to fight fire with fire. Spammers take a shotgun approach too.
2. 50% of the time, the person who lands the first punch in a fight has already won. The other becomes enraged, makes a mistake, and it becomes easy to land some more.
If you have not instigated the fight, are defending yourself, and have no other way out, implementation of both ideas is both ethical and necessary, though not always legal. It's you or them.
If the first punch is executed in a tactically proven method, the fight rarely goes 12 rounds. Ideally you want to get it over fast so you can make a clean getaway.
I've been there many times and have the scars on my knuckles to prove it, yet none on my face ; ) I grew up in a rough neighborhood. It was my reality. It's a bad idea to back people into a corner, especially when you don't know what they're capable of.
It's not fighting dirty, it's fighting to survive. If you let them throw the first punch, you will lose. The trick is realizing when you are out of options, and being certain about it, before it is too late.
Cool collected and methodical is the only way to defend yourself. Anyone who says different, well you see them walking around with broken noses and black eyes; ) 50% of them forced their opponent into the position of being required to kick their ass.
l8,
AC