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MAPS RBL Challenged In Court Case
An Anonymous Coward sent in "Direct Magazine is carrying
the story
Yesmail
Gets Restraining Order Against MAPS Blacklist (curiously dated
July 17). YesMail has apparently obtained a restraining order preventing
MAPS
from entering it into its Real-time Black-hole List."
Company A is suing group B to prevent group B from adding company A to a list. Once you distill it that far, it is an obvious restraint on free speech. MAPS, as long as they are careful to show the reasons, has every right to put Yesmail on a list. Obviously, Yesmail would agree to be on a list of, say, the Red Herring top 100 internet companies, so they also have to be willing to be listed for their questionable practices.
I got stuck on this list for having an open relay. At first I was extremely pissed that this rogue group was preventing me from sending mail! Once I found the hole and fixed it, I called the phone number on their site and it was fixed within 15 minutes. The ONLY way you get on this list is if you are "nominated" by someone since they recieved spam that passed through your servers. Sure, it can be a hassle- but there's _no_ reason anyone should have an open relay. As a cursory check, I scan the headers of all the spam I get, and check it against the RBL. Invariably the servers are on the list already- sometimes they've been there for months!
I can see how some people might go as far as to take them to court for it, but that takes a lot longer than 15 minutes!
I hope Yesmail gets slapped with a huge 'frivolous lawsuit' charge, the assholes.
--
--
Victor Danilchenko
There is nothing at all wrong with an Open Relay in fact if we had less spammers there would probably be many more available for legitimate use. The problem is with the Spammers, I say go after them not the ISP's and others trying to provide relays for us to use.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
I don't see how the heck this can progress -- what restriction does a private company have on using another private company as a filtering list manager for their own private business?
This would also imply that someone listed on a censorware package could sue for exactly the same thing, which is presumably restraint of trade (since they talk about the adverse economic impact?) or possibly defamation (for listing them as "spammers")?
Once more, we've got an interesting techno-legal battle that will have much greater effects than I think we immediately forsee.
But if these guys win against MAPS, I'd suggest a quick suit against censorware makers under the same principles...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Surely, MAPS included a "remove" address at the bottom of its email so that the company could just reply to have its email address removed from the list. And it's not like they have reason to sue, it says it's legal right in the email right under where it says "this is not spam and complies with US spamming regulations"
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
MAPS are only as powerful as their subscribers make them. Any administrator signing up to MAPS RBL is saying, on behalf of all of their users, that they are happy to not recieve mail coming from any server listed on the RBL.
MAPS are not forcing this on anyone. People sign up to MAPS because we trust their judgement on what is and isn't mail abuse. If they start turning up too many false positives, people will unsubscribe from them as the number of complaints from users that can't recieve email from people they want to starts to exceed the number of complaints about spam. For example, many people avoid signing up to ORBS because they find their policy too cavalier. It's a self regulating system.
By signing up to the RBL, people are effectively saying "we don't want to recieve mail from you unless you comply with MAPS' policy. Deal with it."
The truer test of whether this case has any legs will come when MAPS has lawyers in court to defend it. Since it has an open invitation to be sued, one would presume that MAPS will defend itself.
What's interesting is that MAPS has posted a roadmap on how to sue it, apparently wanting to get a court to establish the legitimacy and legality of its tactics. It wouldn't be surprising to find out that they consciously provoked YesMail to get their case before a judge.
You said, "why not use intelligent filtering?". Umm.. in the future, please be more vague.
Like it or not, the RBL does a good job of stopping spam. The obvious problem is with how much other traffic it stops. So, "better" is pretty relative. It's a sliding bar -- do you want very very little spam to get through and also block lots of legitimate traffic or do you want some spam to get through and only block a little legitimate traffic, etc.
Anyhow, the discussion is not about whether the RBL is good or bad. I happen to think that it's got some rather fundamental flaws, but that's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that the RBL is, in every way, legal.
The Internet providers are the parties that are choosing what action to take based on what addresses are on the list. As long as you agree that the people that run the network own the network (they do), then it's obvious that those same folks have the right to say "no, I don't want my users to receive e-mail from these people."
Now, most of the reactions to this line of thinking are something like, "but the network admins shouldn't be able to control my e-mail, dammit!" -- this merely stems back to my original point: it's not about what you think is good or bad; it's about what is legal. These providers are well within their rights to make that choice. So, it follows that MAPS is doing nothing wrong, merely by publishing a list of potential offenders and letting people do what they will with it.
Dissecting the situation down to, "you are depriving your users of their freedom of choice!" is bordering in ignorance (or maybe just a severe case of over-simplification).
Like it or not, the RBL is legal.
From here: "Finally, don't waste our time with threats. We get all kinds of threats. If you intend to sue us, then get on with it. If you don't, then don't waste our time or yours telling us how actionable our activities are."
Fine. Then don't subscribe to the MAPS RBL. If your upstream provider is doing so, then see if you can find another one who doesn't...and tell your current provider why you're leaving. It works for the Christian Coalition; if there are enough people who "think" like they do to do it, maybe you can find enough kindred souls to make a difference.
Personally, I think that the RBL is a good thing to have around. There are a lot of people who think that they can do whatever they want with electronic communications because it's their computer. Well, MAPS and the Usenet Death Penalty and subscribers all over the world, as well as individual users with their own filtering schemes are here to say that "your freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose". The spammers can do whatever they want...until their crap hits my network. Then I get to have some say about it. And that's a libertarian sentiment, too.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
Yeah, people like RealNetworks, who proudly *BRAGGED* about having, get this,
FIFTY THREE FUCKING MILLION ADDRESSES ON THEIR LIST.
You can't get on the RBL just for running an unconfirmed list. *YOU HAVE TO GET COMPLAINTS FROM PEOPLE WHO DID NOT ASK TO BE ON IT*.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Second, they don't even go after people unless they have recieved complaints about them, and have investigated those complaints and found them to be valid. If they get an open relay reported to them, the first thing they do is verify it. If they get complaints of spamming, they check to see if there realy is a problem, and once again, they don't immediately drop them into the killfile, they discuss the matter with the person who has been accused, and try fix the problem if possible. And fixing the verification problem with a properly built mailing list program is easy if you're using something like MajorDomo, it's the default setting once you properly install it. The people who don't do things right are typically using spamware, or poorly configured systems, and they can get free help fixing it if they're willing to listen.
Unfortunately, there are some people out there who don't listen, don't care, or want to have something to fight about. After all, court fights make great publicity. I wonder how much yesmail.com's web trafic has gone up since they filed this lawsuit? Do you really think they're not profiting from the increased attention?
You're right, it *is* your choice whether or not you want mail from cyberpromotions, or yesmail, or RealNetworks.
You exercise that choice by deciding whether or not to use the RBL.
You see, the RBL will *not* prevent you from getting mail, unless *YOU* decide to use it.
It's that simple.
Intelligent filtering doesn't solve the problem. The problem is not people *getting* junk mail, it's people *sending* it. This is a network abuse problem.
The internet is a cooperative network; if you don't cooperate, we don't network with you.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Okay. I want to see the lawyers talking about this. I don't want bored sysadmins who read a few Nolo Press DIY law books; I want the guys who do this for a living.
..."
"Thank you for contacting Web Legal Opinions. Please deposit $500 for your first hour
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Everyone hates spam. I hate spam.
But the RBL has gone so far from its charter that I don't support it these days. Today, the RBL is more a tool of vengeance than a way to protect networks from spam.
Did you know that the RBL not only blocks networks that send spam, but also networks that they believe do business with spammers? Many of the entries on the RBL have never, ever been accused of spamming people or allowing spam through their networks, knowingly or unknowingly. But as far as the RBL gods are concerned, they faciilitate spam, or they don't do enough themselves to fight spam. And that gets them on the RBL.
There's also the blocking of email lists which don't comply with the RBL's opinion of how to run an opt-in list. And now this new case.
So I'm happy to see them in court. There is a free speech issue here, but there is also the issue of gross misrepresentation, as the RBL no longer even follows its own charter. The way I see it, the RBL is committing fraud by promising a service that is completely different from what they actually do.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
So Yesmail wants to "opt-out" of the RBL, huh?
:)
I can't believe the irony
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
You've got to be kidding. If there was no spammer ... hell if there was no robbers there would be no need for locks either.
Damn it, this open relay problem has been documented and well-known for years, I've had a mail server completely stuck while I was on vacation (yeah that's usually when that kind of things happen ...) because some fucking spammer was able to send thousands of messages a minute thanks to an open relay, and happened to use a domain I administrate as a fake return address ...
And in that case the RBL (which I use) was of no help since all I got was all the bounces ...
I guess that a significant number of sysadmins using the RBL will add those fuckers to their blocking list manually ... and now good luck getting unblocked!
What gives you (or anybody else for that matter) to decide what mail should or should not be allowed?
You misunderstand, or misrepresent, what is going on.
A lot of people don't want to receive unsolicited commercial eamil. And a lot of ISPs and business sites don't want their resources used to forward it, or their employees distracted from doing work while deleting it.
MAPS publishes a list of sources of unsolicited email. ISPs, businesses, and individual users may chose to use this list to filter out mail they don't want to bother to read or forward.
Use of the list is strictly voluntary.
Having your email forwarded, on the other hand, is not a right. It is a voluntary service of whomever forwards it. If a site does not wish to forward unsolicited commercial email - or any other email - originating from you, that's that site's prerogative.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I love the euphemisms that spammers use to further their lies. What we call using confirmation emails, they call "double opt-in", as if there were any acceptable "single opt-in" solution. With their "single opt-in", though, they are free to use their dirty lists as they please because if you complain to them they can just say "oh, sorry, someone else must have signed you up!" or, "You dummy, you must have signed up at one of our 'affiliates' and asked to be put on their mailing list". If you had to confirm all the lists you were on, they know that their dirty practices for putting you on lists would never work.
--
A: First off, maps represents 3 types of blocking lists.
1: The RBL, which contains IP addresses of spammers
2: The DUL, which contains IP addresses of machines that should not be able to send mail to your server directly. Ie: a user at earthlink should always send mail to their mail server and then it should be routed to you. If they have a system that connects straight to you, it most likely is spam,
3: the RSS (relay spam stopper) that contains a list of open relays. This is a nice trick of spammers to send mail through someone else's machine and have them do the job of mailing everything out.
B. Getting your address.
Now, my take on the philosophy of MAPS, is that you should only receive what you elect to receive. ie: getting mail-bombed from 100's-1000's of companies just because you once posted to usenet without masquerading your e-mail address just should not happen. (This is not an exaggeration).
So, if you sign up for a newsletter, you receive the newsletter. Also, you should have a clear way on how to be removed from the newsletter. etc.
You also should have a choice in that they should not sell the e-mail addresses on the newsletter.
C: Legality, from the receiver's point of view
As to the legality of maps?
Personally, I like it.
Its 100% opt in, and you choose for yourself what list(s) you want to subscribe to, and away you go.
If you go to an ISP, you can usually find out very quickly if they subscribe to MAPS, and which particular lists.
D: Legality from the sender's point of view.
The basic idea, is that if you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
To actually be listed on the RBL is not a slam dunk. You will be contacted more than once and you will have ample opportunity to make changes.
Ok so some of the changes may be considered completely rude by some, lets give examples:
1: the ability to unsubscribe yourself
2: The ability to make sure that only you sign yourself up, and not someone with a bogus e-mail address
3: Not to add users by a "buy 50million users on cdrom for $20" import utility.
4: if you are an ISP, not willing to do anything about people complaining you have spammers.
Usually, you can get by #4 by having a strong AUP against spam, and kicking user accounts that send UBE
E: Legal arguments
1: Restraint of trade?
Not in my opinion.
I consider and trust MAPS to be a meta-introducer. I want them to let me know who I should talk (receive e-mail from) to and who not to.
Its my/my companies/my ISP's choice, as its their machine.
2: Malicious
Not hardly, You will receive every chance not to make the RBL list.
The DUL list is usually contributed by the ISP themselves
the RSS is contributed by vitcims. Usually the Sysadmin of the victim's machine will ask for help to get it fixed, and maps will help do that.
Harly what I would consider malicious, when they help upgrade a victim's sendmail.
F: how to use it,
if you know how to make your own sendmail.mc insert these lines:
FEATURE(rbl)
FEATURE(rbl, `dul.maps.vix.com', `Dialup - see http://www.mail-abuse.org/dul/')d
nl
FEATURE(rbl, `relays.mail-abuse.org', `Open spam relay - see http://www.mail-abu
se.org/rss')dnl
and away you go.
-- C
Excellent point! If Yesmail can drag this thing out and make as much noise as humanly possible, they'll get a tremendous amount of free publicity (not all good, but remember the saying: "As long as they spell your name right ..."). And then if they finally capitulate to satisfy MAPS and get taken off the list, they can use the occasion to paint themselves as the now-conforming good guys whom advertisers should use. I wonder if they're really that Machiavellian?
There are several ways to send spam, for more information, look at the MAPS website.
One type of SPAM comes directly from a dial-up account to your ISP's mail-server. This type of spam can be prevented if your ISP uses the MAPS DUL (Dialup User List). The idea is that no-one should be using a dynamically assigned IP to send mail, they should forward through their ISP's mail-server. Spammers don't want to do this though, because their ISP's mail-server will keep a very detailed log the messages sent.
Many times spammers will find what is known as an open relay. An open relay is a system which is accepting mail from anywhere and sending mail to anywhere. In the old days (that is, a few years ago) that was common practice. Now that spammers abuse this, any system which is an open relay and has been known to have had spam sent through it and has been reported to MAPS will be placed into the MAPS RSS (Relay Spam Stopper). Again, you must encourage your ISP to use the RSS to filter mail. There is one drawback to the RSS though: it blocks ALL mail from an otherwise legitimate mail-server. However, if the sysadmin of that mail-server gets his act together and stops the open relay, the system will be immediately removed from the MAPS RSS. The sysadmin can even contact MAPS for help, and there are volunteers available to help with server configuration.
The final list is the RBL, which is the one that is being challenged. The RBL is very unlike the other two lists. The RBL exists to stop known spammers. By using the RBL, a sysadmin is really putting his/her trust in MAPS. Personally, I do use the RBL because it does help keep the spam problem down. To get on the RBL, there must be a repeated abuse shown. The reason MAPS wants to add yesmail to the RBL is because they are being bad net citizens by allowing anyone to enter anyones e-mail address to subscribe to one of yesmail's mailing lists. So basically, one of your friends (or enemies) could send them your address and you would start receiving "marketing materials" from them on a regular basis. It is then your responsibility to opt-out of the list that you didn't even opt-in to in the first place!
What MAPS would rather see is for them to send one and only one e-mail to the address that contains further instructions to verify that the e-mail should really be subscribed to the list. If the person who receives the e-mail actually wants to be subscribed, then it is only one extra step for him/her. If the person does not want the e-mail, he/she does not have to do anything because yesmail should never send further correspondence unless requested to again.
Those are the basic facts about what is going on. I am sure several people have submitted yesmail to the RBL. Obviously, there are plenty of MAPS RBL subscribers who want yesmail on the RBL. Note that your ISP must subscribe to the RBL to actually have the e-mail blocked.
Now, for those of you saying that you don't want your ISP to use the services of MAPS, I say, tough shit, take it up with them. Do not forget that it is your ISP's server space and you are merely leasing the rights to use it and have an e-mail account and accesss and so on. If you don't like them filtering by the MAPS lists, then either ask them specifically not to filter your mail (which can be done) or get another ISP. Personally, I think you are crazy if you don't want your mail filtered by the MAPS lists, but to each his own I guess.
Anyway, talk to your ISP about filtering using MAPS and see if they will do it. Mention that it does reduce the load on their server resources because they no longer have to store and transmit mail that you don't want to see anyway!!
IANAL, but my father is a judge, my cousin is a DA, another is an ex-cop, another is... well, you get the idea. My experience is practical, not professional, and I am not suggesting that this is in any way a substitute for real legal advice. That being said:
/.ers seem unaware of just how mercurial juries can be.
:)
/. readers. Instead, just remember what I said about judges; they hate being overturned, and they hate being humiliated.
:)
1. YOU CAN BE SUED FOR ANYTHING.
There are laws on the books which are meant to cut down or eliminate frivolous lawsuits, but judges rarely reprimand attorneys for wasting the court's time.
2. LAW REALLY DOESN'T MEAN ALL THAT MUCH.
As soon as the jury is seated, it's an entirely different ballgame. Juries occasionally follow the law with diligence and probity, and occasionally they completely buck the judge's counsel and do whateverthehelltheydamnwellplease.
In this instance, a jury wasn't seated--the reason why I bring it up is because many legal proceedings do involve juries, and most
3. TEMPORARY INJUNCTIONS ARE JUST THAT.
Temporary, and injunctions. Judges are prickly people, as a rule. Most of them are control freaks of such a high order as to dwarf absolutely any other profession out there--including doctors. There are two things which judges universally fear, though: one is being overturned on appeal, and the other is being humiliated.
If someone comes before a judge and says "Your Honor, this bad person over here is doing something which will cause substantial and irreparable harm unless you do something to help me right now", the judge has three choices:
* He can schedule a full hearing, and tell the aggrieved party "well, let's wait two or three months and just handle a full, permanent injunction hearing"
* He can execute summary judgment and declare that no such irreparable harm exists, and refuse to do anything
* He can issue a temporary injunction, and schedule a permanent injunction hearing for later.
... Remember: judges hate to be overturned on appeal and they hate to be humiliated. If the judge chooses the first or second option, that leaves him (a) free to be overturned, and (b) if the judge is wrong and irreparable harm does occur because the judge didn't issue an injunction, the judge will be publically humiliated.
Judges, therefore, overwhelmingly tend to be very lenient with temporary injunctions. Many of them claim that this leniency is in everyone's best interests, and it may well be--but I'm a cynic, and this colors my analysis.
4. TEMPORARY INJUNCTIONS ALWAYS EXPIRE.
This one is simple. Temporary injunctions always expire, and permanent injunctions last for as long as the Court (not the parties involved--at least, not necessarily) wants them to. In order to move from a temporary injunction to a permanent injunction, well--let's skip the procedural details, because it's likely not interesting to
This gives them extremely strong motivation to consider permanent injunctions very carefully. If they misstep on procedural or logical grounds, it's cause for overturn on appeal; and if they make the wrong decision and someone loses their shirt as a result, then the judge gets humiliated.
So judges tend to view permanent injunctions with a much more careful, and skeptical, eye than they do with temporary injunctions.
... But, as I said, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know beans about the legal system. You'd be a fool to think that this is anywhere near competent legal advice.
I've worked in ISP's before. The abuse queue at one of them (a very large one) jumped from an undercurrent of about 1000 outstanding items to over 1200 on the basis of one single spam incident. The ISP costs each abuse incident requiring action at $25 to reply and fix. Thus this one spam incident cost the ISP more than $5000 to manage and resolve, and that doesn't take into account the good will aspects. The bandwidth stolen from the ISP and the customer costs money as well, and to maintain a responsive system, most tier 1 ISP's have excess capacity. Spam is not really a big consumer of bandwidth unless you happen to be the sucker with an open relay, but the management costs are astronomical. In addition, of the twenty or so times I saw the results of abusive "customers" who bought $20 pre-paid internet accounts and injected several million messages per account before having it closed, the account costs this ISP many hundreds of dollars. The headers are all forged (who do you want to be today?), the recipients entirely unwilling. The mail administrators in one of the worst incidents worked until 2 am fixing this problem up. Does the spammer pay for this? I don't think so. If the local mail relays are full of unwanted messages from non-paying (or abusive) customers they cannot service the other 100,000+ customers legitimate traffic in a timely fashion. If they paid *all* the intervening ISPs (as if) for the full cost of their actions, and everyone opted in rather than the other way around, this would not be a major problem. It's not about free speech, but simply this: A is stopped from sending to C,D,E...n by B. A is stealing from C,D,E,..n's ISP and from C,D,E,..n, and from many intervening networks, and thus many managers and administrators do no like this loss, thus signing up for B's service. "A" does not pay for the privilege and they forge their identity. Why does "A" think they have a *right* to steal? UCE is theft of service. End of story.
Andrew van der Stock
Now flashback to MAPS. What if yesmail isn't a spammer. Because of the list, yesmail will lose customers, and a potentially large amount of money. I'm not saying that yesmail isn't a spammer, but if they can convince a jury that they aren't... Well that's grounds for libel.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Well hooray for them. I'd define spam as "content delivered to a user without desire or request on the part of the user and prior warning/confirmation on the part of the deliverer"
I've had email since '90 (a moment of silence for the late, great BBSes), and though spam wasn't nearly as bad back then as it is now, I still quickly got over my timidity of telling everyone from strangers to close friends, "Don't bother sending me blonde jokes, political action reports, or anything that begins with 'FWD: FWD: RE: RE: Fwd: Re: READ THIS!!!!!!!!!'. I refuse to read such crapola -- I intend to use email as a way of increasing meaningful, first-hand COMMUNICATION between human persons."
Of course, not everyone was happy with this simple directive. Either they got over it, or *I* got over *them*, but it was/is not tolerated.
In any case, some of the people with whom I have casual, unprotected e-mail do not bother to conceal recipients when they send out a mass forward of "top ten reasons dogs are better than men having sex with dogs" or whatever putrid meme-virus is going around that week. One particularly annoying episode last year was due to morons who indiscriminately use the Reply-All button. I ended up getting harvested onto the mailing-list of a political interest group I didn't really like (let's just say if I had been in the military it could have been grounds for a discharge), receiving a long newsletter update about their URGENT ACTION ITEMS!!!!!! almost every day.
So I took some URGENT ACTION!!! of my own:
1)Reply to sender of the message, requesting removal (subject, body, non-script english).
no response, two days later, received newsletter.
2)Go to website look for unsubscribe area.
none there, receive four newsletters over the next week.
3)Send email to designated "Contact Us!" including copies of their newsletter along with my request to be removed from list; also suggest webpage removal form.
no response, receive several newsletters over the next week.
4)Send to abuse@ webmaster@ postmaster@ [domain.org] requesting personal removal, including copies of past requests and newsletters; re-iterate webpage suggestion.
no response, receive newsletters over the next four days.
5)Use DNS lookup to find addresses for the registrant, send request for removal including history (numbers 1-4).
finally, someone removes me from the list. although to be honest, it would have been nice to receive an apology from the bastards, or some indication that "we are adding a new form on our page whereby users may request removal in the future".
THE POINT IS: by having mailback-confirmation of list-adds (providing info on removal) they could have saved:
a)their time and resources
b)MY time and resources
c)my newly-earned, personal opposition to their cause (amusingly, protesting to end violations of civil liberties)
nmx is absolutely right on this.
___
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
It seems to me that you need to read up on what the RBL is, then, before you pass judgement.
This is how it works:
1. People report open relays and the like to the RBL.
2. RBL puts that on a list.
3. Various ISPs receive a copy of that list, and make it so that email from those sources is not received.
Note that step 3 is 100% consensual. As the owner of an ISP, you can choose to receive mail from those on the RBL. You can even ignore the list entirely. Each ISP gets to choose if they want to use the list or not, and by virtue its customers get to choose whether or not to use that ISP. Basically, it's a way for people to ignore known spam sources if they want to.
It's not a 'big brother' type organization as you don't have to use their list of spam sources if you don't want to. They simply provide a service to those who trust them to root out spam sources (and they are very open on their criteria for putting people on the list, as well as providing proof of their actions).
Now, my guess is that you spoke before doing your research - and that you ARE a true libertarian. However, saying that the RBL doesn't have the right to publish a list of spammers (that your ISP can and can not choose as a commercial organization to filter) is antithetical to libertarian thought. Yeah, there are variations on the same theme, but this is basically a free speech issue. They're not forcing anyone to use it, after all.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Okay now. Opt-Out: Basically they can send you stuff until you send them a notice or fill out a form stating that you don't want their content. The only problem with this is, there's nothing to prevent you from being put right back on a similar list later on. Also, the act of notification probably gets you chucked onto a couple more lists. Opt-In: Basically it's as simple as "fill out your e-mail address and we'll send you our content". There's no verification that the person submitting the address is actually the person utilizing that address. So, if someone wanted to be a real idiot, they could simply submit your address to the Opt-In for "Fill your mailbox with "SOMETHING". Double-Opt-In (or Verified): Like a properly set up majordomo mailing list. You submit yourself to the list. The listserv sends back an e-mail saying, essentially, "Someone subscribed you to this list. If you really want to be on this list, just reply to this message, or go to this webpage and confirm it". Once you've confirmed it, you're on the list. DOI makes sure you actually WANT the content BEFORE sending any of the content your way. The only problem with some DOI's is that some of them allow your e-mail address to be submitted over and over again. Causing you to receive multiple confirmation requests, and essentially amounting to mailbombing. Some better DOI agents will accept a particular e-mail address once, then won't accept addition submissions for it. At least until confirmation is received.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
>court in Illinois,
Okay... this is something that's bugged me in in a number of other stories here on
By what streach of the law, imagination, or simple arrogant presumption does an Illinois judge claim jurisdiction over people in California?!?!?!? Or vice versa, for that matter (MPAA's restraining order on 500 john does, many of which most certianly live outside CA comes to mind)?
Is this a *FEDERAL* judge, whose bench just happens to be in Illinois? Or does any old state judge have carte blanche to order around people outside their jurisdictions? Seems like MANY states would STRENOUSLY object to such a violation of what little sovereignity the states have left (Texas and Mass come to mind, for starters) And if the latter *IS* the case, why do we bother with jurisdictions at all?
Of course, it *IS* a common arrogance for our legal system to presume that it has domain outside its jurisdiction (certian OTHER DeCSS-related actions, in Norway, for example, come to mind).
I'm *SURE* that there are at least a FEW bona fide lawyers who read Slashdot. Could one of you PLEASE shed some enlightenment here?
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
What do I think of this injunction? its a crock of shit - interlocutory injunctions arent hard to get in practise as long as you have;
at least an arguable case.
a good trial lawyer
no opponent - an emergency ex-parte application is, therefore, best for the spammer.
My quick view is that just because YEsmail have contracted with X to deliver spam to Luser via ISP there is no legal relationship between YEsmail and ISP. It can however be argued that there may be an implied term in the contract between Luser and ISP to deliver communications by Yesmail or X. And this maybe the case if Luser has requested spam from X or YEsmail. This would not apply if the email address Luser@isp.com had been harvested but it might be so if it had been given voluntarily by Luser in response to an offer or suchlike. And in any event privity of contract would only permit Luser to sue not Yesmail (disregarding arguments about equity)
This is basic contract law and provides no good basis for an action. however things get a little foggier when one considers tortious acts such as nuisance, defamation, interference with contractual relations, etc etc. Defamation could be argued but it depends on the detailed facts so I cant say. Interference with contractual relations is a possibility but the question here is interference between whom? if between Luser and X its quite a good cause of action. If however its interference between X and Yesmail? dont make me laugh! ISP doesnt exist to help Yesmails business or X's, only to link Luser to the Internet. If ISP makes Yesmails life harder, or refuses to make it easier, tough titties: "I am not my brothers keeper".
Additionally MAPS can argue two other things.
/. lawyers could chip in...
1) that Luser can still receive email from non-RBL users. Though that wont be possible if Lusers ISP uses RBL. But if upstream ISPs dont all use I guess routing is still possible allbeit slower and less certain. Id want a technical view on this argument.
2) Public policy. Spam has all but rendered Usenet useless.Makes the uses of email a hassle or the giving out of email addresses undesireable. this all reduces the utility of the Internet which most people politicians and judges think would be a "Bad Thing(TM)"
There are a lot of other legal considerations/angles and I could say a lot more but you aint paying me
maybe my brother US
(any chance of decent karma for a change....)
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
I can see how you would be initially pissed that RBL was 'preventing' you from sending mail....
But everyone must remember one other thing:
RBL is not an authority. IT works because ISP's DECIDE that they *WANT* to use RBL to get their block lists. They understand and know how RBL works, and are willing to live with the consequences.
REmember, email is not 'the phone system'. It's not centrally planned, and you have no common 'right' to send email to anyone, anywhere. It works because everyone agrees on common protocols, and to freely accept data from each other under certain terms. Period. Much like the internet itself.
So.. perhaps this company needs to SUE the ISP's that are actually USING the RBL. RBL doesnt' make them, it just publishes a list.
Gee.... MAPS can't be any more hypocritical there. MAPS' whole reason to be is because they claim spammers are tresspassing on peoples' net connections. Yet, if you ban MAPS, no matter whether you have an open relay *OR NOT*, you are listed as being an open relay.
You seem to be confusing MAPS with ORBS. ORBS does testing for open ralays. MAPS works on the basis of actual SPAM received.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
What gives you (or anybody else for that matter) to decide what mail should or should not be allowed?
Ownership of the system receiving the email. I own the system, I get to decide under what conditions I accept email. Among those conditions is that the sender not appear on the RBL, DUL, or RSS lists.
This is likely to be worse for Yesmail in the long run than any simple 'being added to the RBL' could be.
Here's why: even now, many sysadmins that use the RBL are reading this story, and are going in by hand and adding Yesmail to the list of domains they don't accept mail from. Even if Yesmail and MAPS come to an agreement where Yesmail follows MAPS's policy, all those sysadmins that added in Yesmail by hand aren't just going to take them out again overnight. While not as widespread as if they were on the RBL, they will be on many systems' blackhole list permanently.
---
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
"In my experience, it really isn't that hard to get listed on MAPS. My previous employer decided to harvest Usenet one time to gather addresses of people that might be interested in our service. A couple of months later, MAPS listed us after one person spent some time harassing us to remove his and other's addresses (which we did, promptly, when asked)."
Hmm. "harvest Usenet one time to gather addresses of people who MIGHT be interested
in our services." Translation: You grabbed e-mail addresses from newsgroups and then
sent people at those addresses an UNSOLICTED advertisement. That sounds like SPAM
to me. You may have been one of the few companies that act on good faith and actually
opt-out people who ask for it, but you were still spamming people. These days, maintaining
an
opt-out list (or more accurately, CLAIMING that you maintain an opt-out list) isn't
any excuse
to spam. Most people won't dare to respond and ask to be opted out, because
that marks their e-mail address as ACTIVE and makes it much more likely that they will receive much more spam.
So what really happened here was:
1) You spammed a bunch of people.
2) Someone got really pissed off about it (actually, most of the people probably got pissed
at your company, but didn't respond because they didn't want their e-mail address to
be marked as "active").
3) That person reported you to MAPS and gave them evidence of your spam.
4) MAPS RBL'ed you for being a spammer. (Not just RELAYING spam, but actually being
the source of it.)
"When he finally submitted his "evidence," MAPS listed us right away, without even so much as asking us if his take on things was accurate (which it was not in certain key areas). We were notified, but not until after the listing was made. The damage was already done."
What wasn't accurate about it? They didn't notify you because this wasn't a spammer sending mail through your open relay without your knowledge, this was you KNOWINGLY spamming people!
Once you stopped spamming people (an opt-in list means that your e-mail is no longer unsolicted), MAPS stopped blacklisting you because you stopped spamming people.