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Spammers, Privacy, Anti-Spam, and Lawsuits
Digital Eco Freak writes "The Washington Post is running a story about a spammer suing to keep his address and personal info private. George Allen Moore Jr. of Linthicum, MD has sued Francis Uy for posting his contact information on the web. He has gotten threatening phone calls and messages, as well as an over-abundance of unsolicited catalgs and packages as a result of Uy's actions. The spammer is getting a taste of his own medicine, but the guy's business address turns out to be the same as his home address, so there may be real safety concerns. Should spammers get some privacy protection too?"
What are you talking about? Spammers should be exposed on stalls to have rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at them. Privacy protection, riiiiight...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
This is the risk you run by running a business out of your home, privacy for him and his family are due, but not for his business that offends many people.
If he runs a questionable business from his home, he can't expect to have any kind of protection. The spam business sure dosen't deserve any. He should of known better.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Bets are now open!
-- Sib
firstly, whatever you feel about spamming, using your home as a business address in this kind of endeavor is just stupid. it's hard to feel sorry for him on that point.
secondly, i believe that *any* business that doesn't want/hasn't had real person (not voicemail, answering machine, po box) contact info published should be investigated for fraud.
e
Spamming must be one of the few businessess where the business doesn't want anyone to know where they are. I really can't believe a company could have legal backing to hide from those people who it impacts. I don't think the spammer has any right to privacy from people expressing displeasure at his 'service'.
I do security
You can't apply a double standard anywhere or the whole system breaks down.
But what law says that your business address and phone number should be absolutely private? Just because it is also your home address and phone number should have no impact. Either way, freedom of speech trumps freedom of privacy. It is mentioned specifically in the Constitution wheras privacy is only hinted at.
I run a small business from home too, and until recently, my kids used the same computer for games as I did for my mail. The amount of obscene spam i receive from guys like him made my buy an extra iMac for the kids.
If he doesn't respect my privacy, i honestly can't sympathise with him either. As harsh as it may sound, I often have the impression that spammers are like kids : you can talk & explain all you want, but unless you send them to their rooms to cry out loud for a while, they won't stop being naughty.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Spammers should have the same privacy protection as everyone else.
Rights apply equally to scumbags too.
But that won't stop me from giggeling with glee of course.
How do you like them unsolicited calls, dead trees, emails and sms messages now mr Spammer sir?
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
His journal can be found here
The Journal also has the address of Moore.. enjoy..
I read that question and I thought "WTF? Spammers to get privacy? No way!!".
The Internet is, before anything else, a system based on sharing and cooperation. Which is what makes it so interesting: people who know what they talk about post interesting information on all kind of subjects, and enrich a global discourse.
Linux/Open Source systems are the best example of this: they were made possible -- and became a force in the computing world -- through sharing and cooperatino. For instance NetBSD added "Net" to "BSD" to reflect its root in the cooperation made possible by the Internet.
On the other hand, spammers do nothing but abuse the resources of the system and inundate people with messages that are othing more than complete scams.
Abusing the cooperation and the good will of the global Internet, and using its resources in an unlawful way (it's a scam, remember?), is IMHO, enough to forfeit all the protections that should be enjoyed by all on the Internet.
Would you protect the privacy of a live-and-still-at-large criminal? I think not. Would you protect the "privacy" of a con artist, knowing full well that he may rip off another person behind your back? I think not.
Remember this: spammers are swindlers. Period. No privay for the wicked, says I.
Besides, sending thousands of email messages per day, on a network known for it lack of security and authentication is just asking for trouble... (Proof enough that they are stupid as well as dishonest!)
Also interesting: go to Cryptome, and read all about two scam artists of a different kind: these two do not spam, but they swindled the public by offering snake-oil security products. Very, very interesting and recommended reading...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Graphic images appearing unbidden on PCs by way of e-mail in-boxes could qualify as evidence of a "hostile work environment," something that's prohibited by federal employment law.
Porn spam--legal minefield for employers
"Just as an employer has a duty to protect from patrons and other people--like the (delivery) guy who fondles a secretary--there's a good theory saying a company has a duty to filter (offensive e-mail) even if the employees are being harassed entirely from far outside the company walls," Volokh said. "If the employer is reasonably capable of filtering the material, and if it doesn't do that, it would be held liable."
Wow, interesting how spam could be the basis for a hostile work enviromnet lawsuit.
later,
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
Remember what we learned in kindergarten: two wrongs don't make a right. I'd say spamming is an acceptable (and decidedly amusing) way of getting your message to him, but when it puts him and his family at risk, you've gone too far.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I feel that Uy (who seems a bit self-righteous in the first place) has definitely crossed a line with this. While junk email is surely annoying, it's also purely electronic, a simple press of the delete key and it's gone, you can continue with your work unencumbered. With this guy giving out his home address, though, Moore is, as the article states, receiving packages, piles of junk mail, threatening phone calls, the works. Email can't blow up in your face; unmarked brown packages can. His personal (and his family's) safety has been compromised, willingly and knowingly (now) by Uy.
The fact that his business address is the same as his home address does cast some doubt on this, as Uy may not have intended to give out Moore's home address, but from what I gather, he knows now, and has still refused to take down the information, so it's not so much of a point anymore.
Just because you don't like someone or what they do, they still have rights. Uy is walking a dangerous line, it would seem, his fate is in the hands of the masses right now. If harm befalls Mr. Moore, Uy's going to be in a spot of trouble.
Seems like everybody is saying this guy has no rights because he a spammer(the lowest life form).
What if this guy spoke harshly about the government, would you feel the same?
If he was an abortion doctor would he feel the same?
If he was a communist would you feel the same?
I find it almost humorous the people who rail for rights until they disagree.
The question is can you do to anyone what was done to the spammer. Not whether or not he was a spammer.
One side or the other folks, no sitting in the middle.
As the details of this lawsuit are revealed in court, Mr. Moore may find himself the target of other problems. If it's revealed in court that he committed a criminal act, such as criminal conspiracy or being an accessory to fraud like what the FTC is chasing down these days, the judge could very well refer the case to a DA for criminal charges. Even in the article, Symantec accuses him of advertising warez. Mr. Uy, the anti-spammer, would do himself well in his counter-defense to bring up any such activities.
Make no mistake, the entertainment value of this case could have far-reaching implications. Mr. Moore will also find out quickly that dissemnation of publically-accessible information is protected free speech. The golden rule rides again...
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals let the The Nuremburg Files website stay online, which depicts pictures of aborted fetuses and had a "hit list" of abortion doctors. Even though at least one doctor on the list had been murdered, and his name was crossed out on the list, the Court still saw that this was free speech. If that could stand, surely this website is well within the bounds of the law
Even if spammers received absolutely no sales via spam, there would still be people paying spammers to send out solicitations.
Many spammers make money not by selling to the email targets, but by selling spamming services.
And then there are the companies that view it as cheap advertising. Even if they make no sales, the fact that they get their name out is good in their eyes. They don't quite understand yet that they are generating badwill because even a bad commercial is good as long as you remember the name.
Unfortunately, it's gonna get much worse before it gets better. Companies have only recently discovered the use of email as advertising instead of merely selling.
I was thinking about this...
I get somewhere on the order of 400 spam emails a day between eight email addresses coming to my registered domains and the aliases for different jobs. My spamassassin filters snag about 80%-90% leaving 20-40 messages per day. Not a whole lot, but these messages require a few minutes a day to process. Because the ones that do make it past spamassassin appear legitimate, I need to check them in case they are potential customer requests. If it takes me two minutes a day to check this spam (and that's conservative), over a year it will cost me over 12 hours. If I multply that by my hourly rate then that's a good amount of money.
Contrast this to regular, *regulated* snail mail spam:
1) The sender pays for the advertisting.
2) There are no advertisements for, among other things, enlarging my penis, growing my hair, fixing my septic tank, or teenage blondes willing to do anything on Spring Break.
Point 1 is the important thing, IMO. Why should it cost me in time and resources for someone to advertise products in which I have absolutely no interest, and in fact, many of which I find repulsive? Freedom of speech? Bullshit. This is not a free speech issue. Advertisers can't break into my house and paper my walls with flyers and child porn. They are not allowed to call me at all hours of the day. They are not allowed to pretend to be legitimate persons in order to sell something.
I will defend a person or organization's right to publish materials on whatever topic they see fit. This does not mean that they can attempt to force their thoughts or their advertisements on me.
My work address is my home address, too. Does that mean I can sue him for sending me spam on safety grounds?
If you run an extortion business, expect to have people with guns hanging around. Deal. If you run a drug dealing business, expect to have crazy drug addicts knocking on your door. Deal. If you fence stolen goods, expect to have theives around you often. Deal.
If you are going to send spam, don't complain when you get it back. Deal. Sorry, I've got no sympathy.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
... can we then at least post the address of the judge who thinks that privacy rights of spammers are to be valued over those of their victims?
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
If so, there is no case, how can one be sued for posting information in the public domain and anyone could get if they wanted too, via phone book or 'who is'..
True it sux to be harassed ( all this 'get what he deserves' stuff aside ), but if he's not smart enough to have at least a PO Box for his 'company', then he's a fool.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Both the instinctive answer ("he's a spammer, he deserves whatever he gets") and the apparently rational answer ("two wrongs don't make a right") fall short of the actual issue.
And it's so simple.
See, here's a guy who is - as a business, no less - doing exactly that to other people that he doesn't want done to himself.
Simple answer: "Come back when you've stopped violation others privacy, then we'll hear your case."
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If he runs a questionable business from his home, he can't expect to have any kind of protection. The spam business sure dosen't deserve any. He should of known better.
Agreement, somewhat. In fits of anger and frustration I've felt like, if the spammer was my neighbor I'd go over and give him a knuckle sandwich. Not the best way for me to handle the situation, but by the same token, he should respect my right to privacy and my wishes not to have ads sent to me via forged addresses.
That the spammer conducts a questionable business is general and yet an understatement. If it's a business they conduct until they make enough money to pay their rent, or some other short-term expense then it could hardly be classified as a business, more a simple enterprise. Probably your 'questionable' view is derived from the very dubious products most of these people are selling. Phony pharmacuticals, useless money making schemes, or actual criminal intent to gather personal/financial information.
Here's the thing. Their privacy can only be so well guarded, since you need to contact them, or the person who used their services, to make any transaction. Therefore they need to expose a phone number or a web site. The more clever ones use offshore sites and stolen cell phones. (Ever notice fraud related spam peaks Friday-Sunday, when it's most difficult to contact an ISP/law enforcement? I've been through this a couple times, I know.)
Stupid spammers give out their home phone numbers or a website, which can easily be tracked with a who is lookup. I have one targeted, and he will receive a lot of junk mail, soon. Thanks to his spamming me. I don't feel any remorse about such a practice of harrassment, other than the amount of wastepaper it generates. With most spam it's been a one-way street, they harrass you, you can't even communicate back to them, despite laws on the books or coming soon.
If I could, I would:
DoS attack spammers websites.
Sue those I can track down, for my time and resources in dealing with their garbage.
Find out who Bulkers Warehouse is and shut them down. They spammed, several times, from offshore forging my email address.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
here
Well, last month I ate two pounds of cheese a day, and didn't crap at all. This month, I've been eating nothing but fiber, greasy food, and hot chicken wings. I still haven't dumped for another two weeks, and I think things are ready to go.
So if someone could just drive me to his house, I think I can manage the job for you.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I wonder if this is such a concern (and the court hasn't thrown it out already) because this person's "place of business" happens to be his home. I mean, would there be an issue here if all the spam, junk mail and boxes were being received at an office somewhere else?
Disregarding that question, I definitely have a hard time sympathizing with his case, least of all because he's a spammer. There's a lot of noise about "right to privacy" in many circles, the most notable being celebrity status and what constitutes "public information" about private citizens on the net. But what right to privacy of your home information do you expect if you're listing it in TLD registration information? If I allow my phone number to be published in a phone book (and nowadays, that I don't put it in a "do not call" registry), do I have a reasonable expectation that I will never receive calls selling vacuum cleaners and low low interest rates on home equity loans?
Someone else brought up the issue of the Nuremberg files, specifically how courts have found that simply listing this information incites people to commit actions against them. And while people who make threats and perform other illegal actions should definitely be prosecuted, I don't see how someone can be compelled to not display public information that is available elsewhere.
Spammers often use the defense that people who don't want their "offers" shouldn't put their addresses in the public domain (where the public domain means almost anywhere in public that spammers can conceivably connect to and harvest), and certainly that's the common wisdom today, not just among spammers but anyone looking to control their inbox. But if spammers are going to play by these rules, they must also be prepared to live by them, and if someone can get their contact information off a publicly connectable system, they must be ready to deal with the results. They certainly need no warning that making a living as a spammer is one of the more unpopular positions one can make for oneself.
Frankly, this whole thing reeks of someone exercising their right to free speech and then complaining when they find their views to be wildly unpopular with their audience. One has the right to spam, but one does not have the right to be free of, and immune from, the reaction of the spammed.
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
I say rule in his favor and protect his privacy! What goes around comes around -- if this guy's privacy is violated then no one will fight on behalf of anyone else's privacy. On the other hand, this is just the legal precedent the world needs to fight back against spam. If this case is ruled in the favor of privacy, future cases relating to spam will be able to reference a solid legal ruling about personal demographics and information.
First, the "personal information" is actually the spammer's listed business address. Businesses have no specific right to privacy. Because Mr. Moore has chosen to run his business from his home is nobody's fault but his own. Assuming he has a Chapter S corporation, he filed the documents himself, listing his own home address on those very publicly filed pieces of paper. He also typed his own address when purchasing his domain names, and that all instantly becomes a matter of record on the domain name server. Nobody dug up anything secret here -- it's all public.
Second, a criminal accusation is very much a matter of public record. If you are arrested, your name is right there in court documents, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just because they're stuck in a filing cabinet in city hall doesn't mean that they're any less public than Mr. Uy posting them on the web. Less noticed and by fewer people, probably, but no less public. Granted, as far as I know Mr. Moore hasn't yet been criminally charged with pirating stolen software, nor has Symantec filed a civil suit against him yet. But the posting of his address is still legitimate on the first point anyway.
John
They reason that they get harassed because of all the millions of people they've pissed off, a small number will step over the line.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Since when?
In Texas, all you need is the person's name or address to get all kinds of info -- and free.
Wanna know how much property Michael Dell owns, its taxable value, etc?
Check out this link for info on his property within Travis County. The Williamson County link hasn't worked in awhile, otherwise you could see the property there as well.
Click on Appraisal Roll
Click Search Real Estate by Owner's name
Enter "Dell M" (no quotes)
Click on any of the Owner Ids and scroll down. You can even get a plat map, suitable for stalking.
Heck, Sandra Bullock's address is in there too.
I don't know about other states, but anyone can go to the county courthouse in any county in Texas and get the info for free.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
What's the judge's e-mail address??? So we can subscribe him to lots of spam so he can start the trial with a properly unbiased mindset about spammers...
Outing a spammer is simply part of re-establishing social norms. What they do is abhorrent to the majority of the internet community and they take advantage (free ride in economic terms) the social anonymity provided by the internet to do it.
When you live in a small community, part of the "folksy niceness and safety" of small towns is due to the fact that the social network is so small that you can't act up too far outside of the social norms of the social network without immediate negative impact. For those who were part of the usenet community in the 1980s much of the academic/intellectual elan and espirit de corps was directly (exclusively?) due to this phenomena. The community was small enough that it was just one community and the social norms were quite clear (no advertising, value for ration discourse with healthy but respectful debate, mostly, etc.)
Similarly in the big city you have the opportunity to become anonymous since there are dozens to thousands of overlapped social networks to belong and/or escape to. People in cities act (and drive) like jerks because the probability their behavior getting back to their social network is very small and even if it did with resulting negative consequences, the current social network is, worst-case, abandonable with others available even locally. Consider usenet today or any part of the Internet for that matter.
Spamming represents an extreme in personal (virtual) space violation - akin in social intrusion to a fatal attraction stalker in some ways. Outting spammers by posting personal information is simply applying age-old social norming: if you mother, spouse, neighbor, church or other key personal social (support) network knew what you were doing, would you still do it? The fact that it makes spammers uncomfortable is direct proof that the desired social conditioning forces are kicking in. 90% of all social harmony involves forces like this.
JGSki
Should this guy have his privacy protected against being bombarded with unsolicited catalogs and faxes at home?
Not only "no", but "hell no".
I am positively rabid about not allowing my personal and private, non-business email address to be used for anything but personal, non-business email, and yet after a few years, every f**cking spammer on the planet seems to be using it anyway, it's getting a dozen spams a day, and there isn't any legitimate way they could have obtained it.
To make the spam go away, I have to virtually "move" by changing my email address, reducing my accessibility to that of a virtual drifter, and making it impossible for anyone to reach me who hasn't heard from me in a year or two. The same rules should apply to this piece of human waste calling himself a businessman. If he wants the spam to leave him alone, he can move somewhere else like the rest of us have to do.
I arrived at the District Court in Glen Burnie a bit before 9am. My lawyer was there already. ( <plug> Jonathan Biedron, great guy, highly recommended if you need any family law or such in central Maryland </plug> ) We compared notes, made sure we had all our printouts, and went to Courtroom #4.
District Court is the first level of the civil judicial system, no serious crimes here. All the other cases on the docket were either family disputes or tenant evictions. Upon entering the room, George saw me and sent his lawyer (Cheryl Asensio, from Glen Burnie) to talk to Jon. George was kindly willing to drop the case if I took down my pages. Jon declined. When the judge got to ours he asked if we had settled; he saw that it was going to be long and bizarre, and was hoping to avoid it. No such luck, so he sent us back to wait and asked the judge next door to take our case while he finished up the usual pile of landlords.
[drat, gotta go to IT staff meeting. time passes.]At 9:30 we were sent to Courtroom #3, Judge Robert Wilcox presiding. The plaintiff always goes first. We started out informally, and George narrated his side of the case. By 10:00 Judge Wilcox said that he hadn't heard anything to prove I was responsible for the harrassment. Jon and I are about to pack our bags when Asensio decides to go the whole nine yards with formal witness testimony. Groan.
Citizens have a constitutional right to a proper day in court (except for "material witnesses" and "unlawful combatants" but let's not go there), and that's what George wanted. Asensio examines Fatburn first, and introduces pages from Google Groups into evidence. She cited someone's signature file quoting Dave Barry advocating castration of spammers as an indication of the kind of horrible people that inhabit NANAE. (during cross examination George testified that he had never heard of Dave Barry).
Then she questioned me, apparently hoping that I would crack under pressure and confess to secretly organizing a cabal of Anti-Fatburn Terrorists. We got sidetracked for about 5 minutes in a discussion of how I contacted a guy who foolishly hired a spammer to advertise his hydraulic valves. Eventually she ran out of ways to try asking me "yes or no, are you going to stop harrassing my client?" and rested her case at 11:30.
District cases usually take between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, so everyone else in the room sighed with relief. The judge was still unconvinced and promptly ruled in my favor. I feel bad for the poor tree that I killed printing up my un-needed defense. Ah well, hopefully it will remain that way; any District ruling can be appealed to Circuit "de novo", meaning we start all over from scratch.
George tried to send me a message, and wanted to make an example of me. Instead I had a message for him: every time you try to mess with me, I will post it on the net, and more people will learn about you. I don't encourage harrassment against you, and I don't need to. The facts speak quite loudly enough. Your best option is to crawl back under a rock and suck it up, or move to some state other than the one I live in.