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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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Let there be no question about it. This is a victory for spammers. I hope MAPS elects to keep a list of companies which they are unable to block through their service. Then I could grok the list and be happy once again.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
...And spamming is the worst type of pollution; they make you pay for the sludge with your connectivity, time, and frustration.
It would be interesting to know why MAPS decided to cave in. Perhaps a Slashdot interview is in order?
I'd like to see MAPS publish a list of IPs it's forbidden to add to its main blocklist, so that we could manually add them to our MAPS config.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
MAPS only maintains a database that provides information to others, who seek that information.
That database expresses an opinion: in the opinion of MAPS, the networks listed in the database are suspected of passing through or generating spam.
Shouldn't this be protected by the First Amendment?
Making this settlement goes against all their principles, so Experian must have made them afraid for their very existence with this.
As noted, unless the agreement is very broad, they can certainly name on their web site the companies they have been compelled not to block, and people configuring their own mail filters could decide case by case whether to include them.
However, if they made an automated list, effectively an alternate blacklist, I could see a court saying they were violating the spirit of the agreement, unless they wrote it carefully to allow them to do this.
However, oddly enough, it could be to experian's detriment to have it happen manually. If site admins manually put in blocking for their domains, it will be almost impossible for them to get that blocking removed except over a very long period of time, since each admin would have to manually reconfig.
Of course, they could change the IP address and domain they send mail from to get around that. Somebody (not MAPS) could provide a service that simply lists mail sending IP addresses used by experian, no other comment made.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Companies can't complain in this aspect, because it's like consumer reports, and that's protected free speech.
MAPS' tactics appear no better than those sending the spam - All kinds of innocent sites have fallen off the internet for daring to be on the same IP block as somebody who sent spam.
Requiring a double opt in for mailing lists isn't exactly spam related now is it ? the subscription policy for an email list should be a matter for it's owner not for some third party to decide.
The crossed off names are people who have been murdered since the list went up. Greyed out means they were only wounded.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
A non US company to start making a blackhole list.
If you were in a country that wasnt under direct US control you could basically have the entire staff moon a camera and respont to expierian's lawyers with the photo.
anyone in the former USSR care to start a global business?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think this reselling of names can be worse than no double opt-in. I know the big companies won't allow this (by buying politicians and lobbyists) on the grounds that thair ill-gotten lists are thair property and can do with it what they wish. I know it would be hard to keep a list of the companies that do this, but I think MAPS should consider upgrading thair service to include several lists that offer variable amounts of protection to ISP admins. Like one list with KNOWN spamers, one with ALLEGED smamers, one with PROVED non-spamers, and one that would be managed by users, kind of like how moderation and meta-moderation works here on
One thought. Now that MAPS is charging for access to their service, can someone paying for their services consider there to be a contract between MAPS and them wherein MAPS agrees to provide a list of IP addresses that meet it's definition of 'spammer'? If so, and Company A goes to court and prevents MAPS from listing their IP addresses even though they meet MAPS' definition, can RBL subscribers sue Company A for damages due to Company A's interference in MAPS' performance of it's duties under it's contract with them?
They don't arbitrarily blackhole any companies.
They do keep a list of servers whose administrators that does not want to cooperate in the fight against spam for whatever reason.
It is up to the mail server administrators to decide whether they want to accept mail from those servers. That is a perfectly fair and honorable thing to do.
Why excatly do you think I should be denied the choice to refuse to accept mail from people who will not help fight the one thing that have made mail nearly useless to me?
And why exactly do you think that giving me that choise is as morally questionable as trying to force me to accept and pay for junk I don't want?
The main issue I have with MAPS is that they make no distinction between companies/sites that produce software used for mass-emailing (which could be spamming, but could also be used to send out messages to an opt-in list), companies/sites that sell lists of email addresses, and actual SPAM sources. Instead, they use a broad brush and declare "These are all spammers". If they offered different classifications (and it wouldn't be hard - different IP addresses for different categories of offense), and allowed individual server administrators to choose how large a brush they wanted to use against spam, then I'd have less of a problem with them tracking also companies that produce bulk email software, since those companies would be blocked only by the system administrators that explicitly wished those sources to be blocked.
The whole MAPS vs ORBS thing has also made me conclude that both sides in that debate are not worthy of my support.