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Dealing with Abusive E-Mail?
sheetzam asks: "I am the manager of the mail system for a reasonable (3000 employees) sized media company. Recently a website has decided to post the e-mail addresses of a few of our employees, and suggest readers send those people abuse. We know we have no legal recourse for removing the e-mail addresses from the offending web site. We can't filter the abusive e-mail based on header information because it is coming from many places. Our only choice seems to be to change the person's e-mail address. If this were an abusive phone call, we'd know exactly how to handle it. But e-mail is quite different. How are others dealing with this?"
Might be a good idea to contact the police, both where you are, and where the person who put this web site up is. This is just in case they get nasty and do something violent (could happen, don't take any chances). They might also be able to suggest some legal recourse.
Finally, why not post the URL for the website here on Slashdot? We'll knock them over in no time...
Before I (and I imagine a fair few others) decide whether to lend a hand, I'd like to know why people are emailing you in a manner you seem abusive. Respond and put your side of the case forward, and show us the web site so we can make up our own mind.
You may perceive it as abuse, but it is also a chance to put across your side of the story.
The first thing to do is to route the incoming mail correctly. Many mail systems permit redirection of mail "by rule", including by content of the body of the message.
The first step is to do this is to ask all the people affected by this feedback campaign to forward these mails to a single mailbox, and then to analyse the messages for words they use. Typically, with campaign-type mails, people use very similar phrases to those used by the writer of the campaigning website. So, if the writer says, "Write to corporation X, and tell them to stop oppressing the natives of Peru", a shedload of people will write in and include the phrase, "Stop oppressing the natives of Peru!" in their message.
Set up a rule and reroute the messages to a "Unsolicited comment" file. Keep an eye on what gets through and what doesn't, and refine the approach.
The second thing to do is to take all these e-mail addresses, and create a mailing list for issues connected to your company. Get a note or two pumped out saying, "We at Megacorp X take your comments very seriously and are doing A and B about them. Please mail me, Mr Bigcheese if you have any other concerns you'd like to raise." Set up a website yourself and engage these people in debate.
If you just ignore what is happening, it is likely that a number of the correspondents will take the time and trouble to trash your reputation in the market place. Much better to manage the feedback and reach out to its senders.
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
This sounds like the kind of question a spamming company might ask.
E.g one of the ones listed on my Shitlist.
So what is this "media" company and why are people angry enough to send abusive emails?
no sig.
I'm sorry, but harassing employees because of corperate decisions is never the correct thing to do. If you disagree with them, send your email through the normal email channels, and they will ticket/count your request/complaint as they do everyone elses. Abusing workers of a company only decreases employee moral and upsets a *real live person, who has a life outside of your gripe with the media company*. Not to mention your complaint will probably be ignored, and if your abusive enough you might end up with a policeman at your door tomorow morning.
Grow up.
I live in a giant bucket.
I'm sorry, but this may the only for of pressure of some people. And by receiving lots of complains, they can realize that their ideas are not too popular and the company image is being burned. And, if they have a clue, change their approach.
I don't think it's wrong to complain. And do you really think an e-mail to compains@riaa.org will make it to the director board ? If one wants to be listened, send it to the right person.
What I think wrong is to let media companies go away unharmed after ideas like these: RIAA Wants Taxpayer-Funded IP Police, RIAA to DoS Pirates? or RIAA Wants Right To Hack. Or those copy protections that crashes computers, and, in top of that, they're so greedy that The RIAA Doesn't Like Paying Lyricists.
And, yes, the people who are receiving these e-mails are real live persons - who are either reponsible or supportive of such ideas. If they didn't agree with these ideas, they wouldn't work there. For instance, I would never work on a tobacco company, because I simply don't agree with killing people. The same way I don't agree with the methods used by most media companies. And if they receive these e-mails during working hours, they'd be doing nothing more than their work.
Did you ever think about getting in contact with them and maybe talking to them about the problem. It sounds like this guy/girl had and issue that did not get resolved, and resorted to using the only means they had, e-mail. Now we preach the power of such things here, and it looks like it is working. They got your attention, no? Now you did not give any specifics about your problem "why they are doing this" so I can't say that this is even something you want to do. There are not many people here that are going to feel sorry for a Media Company. It is even a good chance that the very person sending you this e-mail is from this community, and I find it ironic the one of the very "media corps" that many of the people here hate with a passion may be here asking the people causing the problem how to stop it. That is it thick baby.
Give us a clue about who you are, what you are doing to make this happen to you, and what steps you have taken on a social level to get fix the problem. You many have just open pandoras box because you may find no one here is very sympathetic to your plight.
Neck_of_the_Woods
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