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First Test of Utah Anti-Spam Law Dismissed
fwoomer writes "Apparently, Utah feels that once you've 'opted-in' you can't opt back out as fast as you've opted in. From the story: 'Gillman requested removal on May 14, 2002, from the e-mailing lists his visit to Audio Galaxy a month earlier had linked him to. Two days later, he received a Sprint ad, and on May 28 he filed suit. The court found his attempt to have himself removed from the lists was insufficient to void the pre-existing business relationship.' If he was receiving spam in May after 'opting in' in April, I don't see how it could be unreasonable to expect to be removed from lists as fast as he was added. Unfortunately there's not much detail in this story. A good read, nonetheless." I don't see how signing up with Audiogalaxy establishes a business relationship with Sprint, but, whatever. Presumably some of the other lawsuits filed are against people that have no possible claim to the receiver opting-in.
so businesses could group together, making the receipt of "email notifications" part of the terms of service... poof, no more opting out.
Do you think that AudioGalaxy connects to all its partners in real time when it comes to sharing email addresses? If they generate a list for their partners every week, for example, wouldn't it make sense that it also takes at least a week to get off the list? I'm against spam but I'm also for common sense. Which this guy didn't seem to have when he gave permission to be emailed in the first place.
Most likely, the agreement to opting in to AudioGalaxy includes recieving offers from third parties.
Michael Loves Me!
The best spam solution would be to make people pay a refundable (at your option) fee to send email to you. However, someone patented this general concept.
Unfortunately there's not much detail in this story. A good read, nonetheless.
A "good read" has lots of details, not media bullshit. Remember that submitters and staff before posting a story please.
What does it matter if you opt-out of a mail list?
Once you've opted in, the third party can then sell your address again and you then have NO way of tracking it around.
Unless a system identical to the national "Do-Not-Call Registry" can be established for email addresses, there's not a damn thing you can do about spam in relation to opt-in/opt-out lists.
My father tried this already. He's found it impossible to do business with anyone because somewhere in EVERY company's paperwork, there's a caluse that allows them to share your information. Even if there's a separate entry that states they will not share it, it's overridden by another section (or whatever.)
My father and I, through extensive testing, have discovered that the only lists that you can effectively opt-out of are the ones that drones gather as points of sale in stores (phone, email, address, etc.) Everything else is free game.
Even then (as was the case with Radio Shack before they changed their info gathering techniques) some companies will refuse to proceed with a sale unless you provide them with this information.
Yes, when I get random emails claiming to be opt-out lists or that I opted in, I also don't opt out for this reason.
But this is a different situation. He opted in to a list with Audiogalaxy. A relatively reputable place, and they already knew his email address was valid because he opted in. It was a reasonable thing to do, and the spam should stop afteward. But judge apparently felt it was not practical for them to have distributed that notification to all their partners in two days, so he threw out the lawsuit. Presumably it takes them that long to distribute opt-ins also.
very true, but i'd expect a well designed system just to use a boolean Y or N in the database as to whether the customer wants to receive mail, rather than deleting the whole record. Just because they can't mail to a customer doesn't mean they can't use the info in other ways.
matt
From the article, it seems that this is what happened:
- User signs up on website run by company A (Audio Galaxy)
- company A sells User's email address to company B (Sprint)
- User opts-out on company A's web site
- User gets spam from company B
I hate spam as much as everyone else, but I don't see how this can violate any law. If the User opted-in, which it appears he did, and then later opted-out, Audio Galaxy can't be expected to go around to everyone they sold his email address to and say "Hey, that email we sold to you before? Stop using it!" Audio Galaxy should stop selling his email address at that point, but that would have no effect on the apparent sequence of events here.
If anyone is able to find the actual court ruling I'd be interested in reading it. I don't see where the "existing business relationship" exists (for all we know he may be a Sprint customer), but if the events happened as I listed, I don't think it's relevant.
"Arent said her bill's language could use some fine-tuning, included (sic) providing e-mailers reasonable time to comply with requests for removal."
It seems to me that in this connected electronic world the maximum "reasonable time" for removal would be the amount of time it takes to add someone.
If you plan to share the data with your "partners" then you should be damn certain that you have a mechanism in place to effect removals from all associated databases just as fast.
This would of course only apply to time of message origination - you can't unregister on Monday and then sue on Tuesday for receiving a mail sent on Sunday but stuck in an intermediate server.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
buy a domain name (or get a free subdomain from someone -- whatever). I have all my email directed to one account.
o ebob-slashdot@junk.foofoofoobar.com
so for signing up with any service i use this address
joebob-audiogalaxy@junk.foofoofoobar.com
or
j
and that redirects to my real email address
joebob@foofoofoobar.com
any email with To "junk.foofoofoobar.com" i direct to a spam folder. If i find a site that vlaims it won't sell my information, but magically sprint is emailing my audiogalaxy address... it tends to perk my ears up. Proof.
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
You have to give telemarketers 30 days to remove you from their lists when you ask. I dont see how online spam should be different.
If you opt in, and then later opt-out, and get an e-mail 2 days later, I don't see it as some great evil. You shouldnt have opted in in the first place.
You all need to chill pushing for all these spam laws, regulating the internet is a bad thing in the end. Do you really want your real name and SSN tied to your e-mail account for the sake of ending spam? (Because thats about the only solution the government will come up with).
Beef up your filters and accept it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The majority of the responsibility here belongs to the individual. If a firm handles addresses improperly, it's the user's choice whether or not to continue using the service. No company is forcing any user to subscribe to their services. Use some common sense - protect your main address by only giving it out to those you trust, and give everyone else a separate address. That's how I keep myself spam free.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
I don't see how signing up with Audiogalaxy establishes a business relationship with Sprint, but, whatever.
I don't see how being a Slashdot Editor gives you justification for attaching your comments to the story submission instead of leaving a comment like everyone else, but, whatever.
Time, I think, to go to Preferences and banish Michael to the bit bucket. I'm sure Jon Katz would be glad to switch places with him.
Not that it's worth anything, but who knows. When I get spam from a reputable company, I typically try to find their customer service email address and send them this little form letter. I doubt that it does any good, but if enough people showed the larger corporations that we don't want spam, perhaps the meat and potatoes of the spam mailing list scumbags would be dropped just a little.
Dear: Company
Today I received an unwanted, unsolicited email from your company (spam). I always believed that your corporation was honest and forthright, and it is beyond my comprehension why you would decide to set yourself alongside pornographers and scam artists by using unsolicited spam email.
Regardless of what your spam mailing company has told you, I have never consciously 'opted in' to receive email from them, you, or any of their partners. They have either gained my 'approval' using deception or trickery, or they have simply lied and found the email address somewhere on the Internet. In either event, I have never, nor will ever want to receive unsolicited spam email. In other words, I don't want to get this type of mail. Ever. And I have never actively asked to receive it.
Spam mailing companies such as the one you use are corrupt and crooked. These are not honest businesses. And I cannot with good conscious do business with any company that chooses to partner with near criminals to conduct marketing. As such, I will not do business with you until you stop associating with these shady organizations.
Please do not forward this to your spam mailing list provider in a show of 'good faith' to 'opt me out'. All this will do is inform them that this is a valid email address, and place me on numerous other mailing lists. Like I said, these are not honest business people. If you doubt this, ask them exactly where and where I 'opted in' to get this junk. Ask them why they often use different and misleading domains to get around my 'block sender list'. They will be unable to provide you with an answer, because I have never actively 'opted-in', and they will try every trick in the book to get their junk through. Again, this is because they are dishonest.
If you decide to stop using this sort of unethical marketing, please inform me. I would be more then happy to continue doing business with you.
The Internet is generally stupid