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Spammer Sues SpamCop
wolfgang writes "Just wanted to send you word that notorious spammer Scott Richter, President of Email marketing firm OptinRealBig.com, has filed suit against Ironport, which runs anti-spam site Spamcop. According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company. Richter filed for $1 million in damages. A similar suit one year ago, filed by Eddy Marin and his Florida-based Emarketersamerica.org against Spamhaus, was thrown out of court last October." We've mentioned Richter before.
Scott Richter
Phone number: (303) 550-9828(Daily Camera)
Email: scottrichter422@yahoo.com
Enjoy!
Unfortunately, they don't have way on their web site to get your email address off their "opt-in" email list.
So if you want to try and "opt-out", you'll have to contact them.
OptInRealBig contact info:
info@optinbig.com
phone: (303) 464-8164
fax: (303) 464-8218
1333 W 120th Ave
Suite 101
Westminster, CO 80234
Any questions regarding their Acceptable Use Policy should be sent to legal@optinbig.com
A lot of my spam seems to originate from OptinRealBig, and all of that share of spam is to the address only disclosed in the whois database.
Harvesting addresses for spam is a violation of the terms of service for whois.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Both his arguments, and yours, are completely fucking specious.
I keep a few email addresses around on various sites. One of them is literally present on only ONE site in the world, and it's in white text on a white background, with a disclaimer "this email address is a spam honeypot, don't send email to it" in text right next to it.
That address STILL gets Richter's spam-crap. Just like every other spammer out there, he's a liar, a thief (ripping off the people paying him to advertise), and deserves to be gotten rid of.
from www.vectorarms.com/other/UZI_history.html
;-)
"After twelve Karas and five UZIs were placed on rigorous trial in 1951, the UZI emerged as the winner because of its ability to tolerate dust and grit without jamming, as well as its ease and low cost of manufacture."
I hope this answers your question...
i didn't opt in. i opened a yahoo email account within three or four days i received a single solitairy spam from optinrealbig.
being a good email person, i didn't reply nor did i hit the unsubscribe link.
within a week, the spam started pouring in.
now...two years later...without every distributing that email address to anyone...it received over 200+ spams a day.
scott richter is a liar and i'd love to know which court he filed with so i can file an amicus on behalf of spamcop attesting to his company's behavior.
doublechecked with spamhaus and the like, knowing what campaigns went out when and what the pitches were.
I'm 100% sure it's his spam.
Although SpamCop obfuscates the address of complainants so as not to reveal their addresses to a spammer, it is still possible for the recipient of a complaint to communicate with the complainant--SpamCop will forward their response. On the rare occasions in which a SpamCop complaint recipient has responded and requested my email address in order to remove me, I've always responded (on the theory that it is not worth a real human's time to confirm my email address merely for spamming purposes).
It's part of their FAQ. Hee hee
Guess someone took 'em up on it...
According to Richter ... "prior to sending solicited complaints by consumers to the Optin's originating ISP's, Spamcop alters the complaints it receives by removing the email address of the person or entity seeking to be taken off a mailing list thereby rendering the email anonymous."
I run an Abuse mailbox, and I have to agree with Richter on this point. That is why I created an ISP account at Spamcop.net for my networks and my sending domains, and specified that I do not wish to receive anonymized complaints. Spamcop tells the user submitting an unwanted email from us that we refuse anonymized complaints, and gives the user the chance to send the complaint with their email address in the clear.
Richter could do the same, and comply with the CAN-SPAM act just like me and my company does.
Edith Keeler Must Die
and judges have time and again confirmed that the private property rights of mail server owners mean that they have the right to decide which mail they do and do not want to accept.
A similar principle applies to the users of the Spamcop block list; if they don't want mail from a certain source, there is no obligation for them to accept it. For various technical reasons I prefer some other lists (SBL, CBL, DSBL) over the spamcop list, but the people who do like spamcop should be able to use it.
As for the "free speech" argument: I have no obligation to subsidise the spammers' advertising. If they want to advertise, let them put the ads on a web page, instead of using spam and making others pay the costs...
BTW, these guys suing SpamCom is like Michael Jackson suing a child he has been molesting (note that this in no way reflects his guilt or innocence in the current trial and is simply included as humorous content).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Last time, during Felstein's failed eMarketers America suit, the anti-spammers went for / insisted on a full discovery - unfortunately the Boca Raton spammers bolted when they realised their predicament.
I wonder if IronPort would oblige us by doing the same? Looks like Julian Haight still has a strong presence there.
Getting a good look at the innerworkings of a spammer may just provide a better idea of how to combat them (apart from the sheer entertainment value of watching em squirm).
You have to be taking a proactive action by filling out and submitting the form. That's enough to make it opt in.
If the primary purpose of the form, from the user's point of view, is to get on the spam list, then yes, it's opt in. If getting on the spam list is a side-effect of filling out the form (for example, to get an email confirmation of an order), then it's opt out.
There are three possibities for any yes/no question: question answered "yes"; question answered "no"; and question not answered. It's what you do in the "question not answered" case that determines if it's opt in or opt out. If "question not answered" puts you on the list, it's opt out. If it doesn't, it's opt in. If you don't ask the question and put them on the list, it's opt out.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Yeah, yeah, there are "legitimate uses" for this thing. Right. Sure.
Even worse, they have a "Bonded Sender program, under which spammers pay a fee to Ironport to bypass spam filters. They charge a fee of $20 for each complaint, but allow one free complaint per million spams. They're vague about what a "complaint" is, and admit they don't use "AOL complaints". They may be counting only complaints that reach abuse@bondedsender.com. Since they don't require that mail be marked as "approved by BondedSender", few people know how to complain. And they don't disclose their complaints, or who's in the "Bonded Sender" program.
They're trying hard to insure that all the major anti-spam systems are hardwired to let their spam through. They have patches for all the major spam detection programs. The patches bypass all other spam checking if the source IP address has the DNS record that says it's listed with BondedSender. Now you understand why they bought SpamCop.
A useful check for mail programs is to check the BondedSender whitelist, then run a conservative Bayesian spam filter on the content. If BondedSender says it's not spam, but the spam filter says it is, ship it off to the BondedSender abuse address. Definitely do this for honeypots. Any BondedSender mail that shows up at a honeypot should be reported on NANAE. That will help track how much, or how little, Ironport is really enforcing their rules.
Not to mention a direct violation of CAN-SPAM:
(from http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html)
--begin quote--
15 USC 7701
SEC. 5. OTHER PROTECTIONS FOR USERS OF COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL.
.
.
.
(b) Aggravated Violations Relating to Commercial Electronic Mail-
(1) Address harvesting and dictionary attacks-
(A) IN GENERAL- It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer, of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that--
(i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or
(ii) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.
--end quote--
It's obvious that Scotty doesn't understand the doctrine of clean hands.
I mean, wasn't the address 'canned-spiced-meat-products@example.com' a bit obvious anyway? :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
erm, USC, not UFC.