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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."
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Think about what happens if someone else subscribes you to a mailing list with a high volume. Single opt-in means your mailbox starts getting filled up with mail without giving you any chance to avoid it. Do you really want to enable people to kill your e-mail easily by just signing you up for a few dozen multi-megabyte-per-day single-opt-in mailing lists?
"In addition, neither Experian eMarketing nor its clients will be required to employ the practice of double opt-in (process by which a consumer must reaffirm their permission before they are added to an e-mail list) demanded by MAPS in November 2000." This is just amazing. They shut down napster while they still allow Experian to continue SPAMing. Is this really the internet we all want??? Will this be the kind of legislation we will be seing over the net??
The realistic problem is that if spammers could claim legitimacy by being single opt-in, they'd just claim they got your address when you (or someone else) requested you be added. What, you want to be removed from their list? Sure no problem... *wink* *wink*
Double opt-in is the only method that lets YOU as the user have a real way of saying yes or no and holding onto your own email address. Honestly, meaningful opt-in doesn't even start before double opt-in. And single opt-in can be WORSE than opt-out because of the pretended compliance scenario cited in the first paragraph.
"We are very pleased with the settlement agreement and believe it reflects the validation of Experian's e-mail marketing standards and that we remain at the forefront of consumer privacy and protection,'' said Tom Detmer president and general manager of Experian eMarketing Services. ``This settlement confirms that the privacy practices we have in place are responsible, accountable and in the best interests of the public and the marketplace. We will continue to offer the double opt-in solution for those clients who determine it is the right permissioning practice for their business."
well, since we will only be seeing more cases like this in the future as these spam-whores use the courts as a shield to protect themselves from MAPS and other public-service mail filtering tools, what are we going to do from here?
I for one would be quite interested in finding a listing of companies that have fought these charges in court and through miss-representing their datum and hiring bigger and better lawyer-weasels, have made themselves immune from public ban lists. Does anyone know of any existing services like this? I for one would be glad just to have a plain html listing of folks like Experian who have won in the courts to keep them selves off of RBLs and the like. I'd be even more keen on a nice XML page that I can parse with a quick script and have update my mail-server's ban lists. anyone want to make me a very happy admin? c'mon, please?
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
What gives you the right to tell a sysadmin what they can and cannot block?
Because ISPs are lazy like everyone else. They will just trust that MAPS has not become corrupt.
Put it this way: do you think Experian should be able to publish anything they want about a person regardless of accuracy? After all, banks have the choice whether to use Experian or not.
This is actually pretty real world, because all three credit agencies suck when it comes to accuracy (which is not surprising when you have 150 million records). That's why they need government regulation because of the power they hold.
Believe me, I am very anti-government regulation, but blacklists of any kind are very apt to be abusive.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The First Amendment is merely a bunch of words on a piece of paper. It can't protect anything. Instead, it is the people that protect their own liberties of free speech. What this decision means is that the people, unless they resist (which they won't), have allowed their government to become more of a corporate republic than a democratic republic.
Welcome to the Corporate States of America, where the corporate right to censor out trumps the individual right to press. In the year C.E. 1791, the people believed that every person had the right to speak and publish his mind freely, so they drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights as their supreme law of the land. The times have changed however. To become a valuable player in the world of fast-paced business, like those corporate-sponsored business classes promise you will become, you must become submissive to the will of the corporation you subscribe to. The Bill of Rights is antiquated by this new workplace, where it is common for people to think of employment as selling themselves to someone they hate, doing something they don't like, for a cause they don't approve of. In the Corporate States of America, the people don't believe in the right of free expression, so it atrophies and disappears like an unexercised muscle.
For Libertarians such as me, it is a very distressing thing to see such egalitarian fervor which was displayed at the outset of the United States of America wither into the Orwellian, business-driven culture expressed in that same country today. Unfortunatly, we Libertarians and egalitarian thinkers are a minority, and it seems as though, in the wake of September 11, our goals will be shattered by a powerful majority, whose corporations and sometimes families have been damaged by the unseen enemy. It seems futile to resist; sometimes I only wait until I am assymilated.
But I know that I won't be. I believe steadfastly in egalitarian Libertarianism, which forbids this kind of bullying by corporations against disinterested parties. Simply because some advertiser can buy law-expert whores shouldn't give them the right to censor an organization that can't buy the same whores to do battle. Apparently it does, because the judge is incompetent. The judge was appointed by a president who was incompetent. The president was elected by a people who are incompetent.
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Corporatism isn't Orwellian -- Orwell's dystopia was a socialist one. It's more like _Brave New World_ than like _1984_. So it's, uh, Huxleian.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
If it's clearly an opinion, it is not defamation. If it could be viewed as a statement of fact, it can be defamation, unless of course, it's true. MAPS wordings have been more like factual statements -- these sites, they say, are known to send [some definition of] spam.
They might have felt at risk for a defamation ruling. Experian's own databases are highly regulated, subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so they won't feel a lot of 1st amendment sympathy. Even with the FCRA, they are often wrong and hurt people getting credit who can't afford to sue.
I don't know the rules, but I could see trouble if you make a statement you claim is opinion, but everybody is treating it as a factual judgement. In this case, Experian claimed they have sent some 40 billion E-mails and MAPS admitted there were less than a dozen spam complaints. That's a lower ratio than just about any site out there, so this may have played a role, though if so, I don't know why they didn't settle earlier.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Translation:
and from the rest of the article:
As far as I read this, it seems that Experian is saying that it is illegal to even provide the option of opting out.
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
Some times blackholing can indeed be inappropriate. Above.net (which may be owned by MAPS, I don't remember and don't quote me on that) blackholed sites like macromedia.com and ORBS.
Because "spam" is technically commerce. The standard of protection for commerical speech is much lower than that for political speech.
Citations you might find helpful are Bigelow v. Virginia (1975) and the earlier Valentine v. Chrestonson (1942).
Posting a list of "spammers" is an inducement against commerce -- the reason for posting the information is to reduce commerical traffic, etc.
Has anyone stopped to read MAPS' press release? Here's an clip:
"Experian has committed to requiring their clients to provide them with lists which contain only those email addresses for which they have obtained the addressee's permission to send them email."
It appears that MAPS hasn't comprimised its values, it's just made them a little more reasonable. So what's the big deal?
Holy propaganda batman!
-Geoff
Heck, I've always used my real email here, and on the usenet and my web page too. Yes the SPAM is annoying. I wish there was a Windows Client Side software that would tap into the RBL/ORBS etc
As it is, I deal with the 20 or so pieces of spam I get every day with the delete key
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Really, you aren't even seriously hampered by MAPS . You can still send email, all you have to do is use a machine with a fixed IP address and hasn't been involved in a lot of SPAM.
What you are doing is missplacing your anger. You should be mad at your ISP for its silly restrictions and costs of providing you with a fixed IP address. You should not be mad at MAPS, nor the people who choose to use MAPS.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
My ISP does not use MAPS and guess what? I am not flooded with spam. Not one bit. You do not need MAPS to avoid spam.
/. 4 months later, if you're not drowning in spam, then I'll apologize.
Oh really? I double-dog-dare you to go online, in chatrooms, read certain webpages and enter certain data, and have your email address unobscured on major websites like
Put another way, there are three explanations for your not getting spam without MAPS: Maybe they're just not spamming you. Maybe your ISP is using a non-MAPS blackhole list (gasb! they exist). Or MAYBE the spammers just ain't NOTICED you yet, monkey-boy. New ISP means new email address, duhh.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I'll tell you one more thing that's very simple. Experian has earned a very simple and very permanent REJECT entry in my Sendmail access lists. Simple.
Rick Moen has a standard message for those who would sue MAPS. You see, MAPS actually wins by losing.
Time to update those DNS records and MTA rulesets, people.
My own last message to Experian:
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
So you think it's OK to allow me to go to their site and "opt-in" with your email address?
That's what removing the confirmation step allows.