MAPS and Experian Settle Lawsuit

dbrower writes: "Experian is trumpeting a settlement with MAPS here, where MAPS agreed not to blackhole them without a court order, and agreed that Experian didn't need to do opt-in. Looks like a loss to me."

Comments

MAPS settled

[Rick the Red]

That's the good news. The fact that the vigilanties at MAPS settled means they realized they would lose in court and perhaps be subject to stiffer penalties, possibly being shut down altogether. Too bad it didn't go that far; another MAPS victim looking out for themselves and not carrying the banner for the rest of the world. ("they settled with us; they rest of you are on your own") That's the bad news: MAPS is still in business.

Still, it sets another precident: sue MAPS and they'll probably cave. Now, we should all sue and kill them once and for all, one out-of-court settlement at a time.

Damn vigalanties should be strung up on the closest tree (what's good for the goose and all that).

Re:MAPS settled

[gol64738]

haha! you got flamebaited! serves you right for pretending you know something about MAPS and administration, when you don't know the first thing about it.

please go to MAPS HOME PAGE and read a little bit so you can at least join the conversation without looking like an idiot.

Re:Double opt-in? What the hell?

[Rick the Red]

Yes, double opt-in is good. What's bad is MAPS taking it upon themselves to: 1) Make a "rule" that they think is "good for everyone" without any public debate or input, without any elected representation, without any authority whatsoever. 2) Enforce that "rule" without any accountability, oversight, or authority whatsoever.

What government abdicated and left MAPS in charge? They're just a bunch of vigilanties and they will be run out of town just like the vigilanties of the Wild West. Hell, even those vigilanties could only spread their disease so far; MAPS tries to be global in scope. Hopefully we can get them labled the terrorists they are and get the FBI after them, too.

Re:Hmmm

[Rick the Red]

I wonder if we could persuade Mr. Ashcroft to add post-forging, email-forging, and email blocking to the "hacking" category of his anti-civil liberties bill. Then we could stick MAPS and those other vigilanty bastards in jail for life...

Re:do i understand this correctly?

[Rick the Red]

So your arguement is that MAPS is just an accessory to the crime, since they don't do the actual blocking? Isn't inciting a crime still a crime?

Re:Advertising is Pollution

[Dwonis]

Advertising may be pollution, but the greater evil is giving that kind of power to any single organization.

I'll give as much power as I want over MY MAIL SERVER to anyone I damn well please. Who are you to tell me I can't?

Re:I don't get it!

[xsmasher]

MAPS has a regular practice of blocking large groups of IP numbers (often an entire ISP), with the intention of disruption to the spammer and many non-spammer customers at that same ISP.

I see no lie. It's true MAPS will sometimes block and entire IP range. This usually happens under a specific set of circumstances, like when one IP address has been blocked, and the ISP moves the spammer to another address to avoid the block.

In that case it's clear that the ISP is actively supporting spam, so the ISP's whole netblock goes in the black hole. Does this cause collateral damage? You bet it does, and this puts pressure on the black-hat ISP to clean up their act. I don't see a problem with it.

If the ISP is facilitating SPAM, then its block goes into the list. The IP address doesn't actually blelong to the end user any more than your telephone number does.