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Accused Spammer to Debate SpamCop Founder
Weezle writes "Wired News is reporting that OptInRealBig's Scott Richter is going to debate SpamCop's Julian Haight in public next month. Richter had the nerve to file a lawsuit against SpamCop recently claiming that the blacklist keeps his company from sending out 'marketing messages.' (in lay terms, spam) Not surprisingly, Richter himself is being sued for $20 million by NY Att. General Eliot Spitzer. Sounds like it's going to be a real nasty fight."
Lawyers for both sides said they have agreed to allow the debate because they believe it will not focus on the lawsuit.
Uhm... two guys suing each other in public and they're not going to talk about the legal alligations either has leveled about the other? Sounds like some lawyers won't be members of the Bar Association much longer.
I believe it is still legal to send marketing spams as long as the recepients have given consent, no?
How can we, the spam victims, prove that we NEVER gave consent to such-and-such website?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
IMHO the debate between these two should end right there. This is like a "do not call" list. People are bombarded with advertising at every turn. We should have a right to be left alone.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Blacklist operators like to say they just provide a service to the sysadmins; it's the owners of the recipient servers who do the blocking. But by the same logic, credit reporting agencies just provide a service to merchants and lenders; it's those lenders who refuse your application. Yet Congress has seen fit to pass the Fair Credit Reporting Act to stop abuses by the credit bureaus; despite the fact that they don't actually deny you a loan, it is obvious the power they have over individuals and the ways they can abuse it, EVEN IF that power is granted to them indirectly by lenders. I would argue that the same could be said of blacklists; arguably, they could (and perhaps should) be regulated for the same reasons that credit bureaus are.
As a marketer you have the right to send out ad's. As a consumer, I have the right to block your shit. Fuck off, excuse the language.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
sending out 'marketing messages.' (in lay terms, spam)
marketing messages do not always equal spam. For example, Apple sends me marketing messages all the time, and they're not spam.
also, in 'lay terms' (think you mean "layman's terms") 'spam' would be "sending you mail you don't ask for", and 'marketing messages' are not always 'spam'.
i don't mean to get on a rant here, but also:
if you have to explain 'marketing messages' also explain 'spamcop' and 'blacklist' and 'OptInRealBig'. explaining what marketing messages (a plain english term) are, and not explaining other terms the readers might not know about portrays you as a zealot, which you may or may not be. if portraying yourself as a zealot is what you were after, i should say that zealots have ZERO credibility because they are (by definition) fanatical and unreasoning.
anyway, thanks for the links, and please put a little bit more thought into your blurbs.
Just as people have a right to speak, others have a right to not listen.
If the spammers were civil and provided a way to honestly opt-out, I don't think there'd be much debate. As it is, "opt-out" options are used to verify legitimate mail addresses to which more spam is sent.
The essence of fairness is respect. If spammers were to respect the wishes of email participants, these drastic blacklist measures would not be necessary.
Just as a person may not be allowed to speak at a public forum with no curtailment of free speech, so an ISP may filter spam with no curtailment of free speech. Plus, as SpamCop merely provides a service (the identification of spam black-hole lists), they are not themselves curtailing free speech. If I (as an individual) decide to pre-filter my email by using SpamCop, I have also not curtailed the free speech rights of spammers; I have merely invoked my right to not listen.
If SpamCop is inhibited in any way by first amendment arguments, justice has been subverted. Since SpamCop itself is opt-in, they are providing more free speech than the spammers themselves.
Granted, I am not a lawyer, one of the many things of which I am glad. (I don't see how many lawyers sleep at night, but then again, I fret when I realize I only left a 15% tip instead of a 20% tip.)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
They're not EVIL, but of all the big blacklists, SpamCop is the least regulated. The whole idea of letting people submit addresses/domains to a blacklist with little or no verification is crazy.
I'd be happier if Spamhaus was doing this debate. They run things the right way.
How the hell is it going to help to have even a legitimate "opt-out" link at the bottom of an email I refuse to open? Deleting it wastes enough time, eh?
Yes! Evil rules! Good can suck it! Suck it, good!
Free speech is garanteed, correct. But where does the constitution say anything about garanteeing an audience?? If you do not like a public debate, you leave. It follows that if you do not like spam, you leave the list, but no! If they want to compare it to real life, they should make it a real comparaison - including a "leave" option. Obviously this is not going to happen, as that's whan they loose all their "customers" (ahem, victims). However the comparaison to speech is not valid if one cannot plug his ears.
-------
1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
Yea he says he's so law compliant then why does his spam server come knocking at the door of my mail server about 300 times a day. Funny how some of the bounces back to his server are from addresses that haven't been active for over four years. Isn't a nasty reject mail message enough to opt-out??
I'll be happy to come with a dull knife to strip away his flesh 1 square inch at a time.
You know with all this suing left and right by everyone who thinks they are someone with some kind of power makes me think of what my Grandpa used to say "People become lawyers to make up for having little dicks. Makes them feel big." Doesn't anyone relize that only the lawyers make money in a suit. Everyone else loses.
Yes, spam is mass murder. Suppose that 100 million computer users receive 100 spams a day, and each one requires 5 seconds to display, categorize, and delete. That's 500 seconds of wasted time, times 100 million people.
50,000,000,000 seconds is
833333333 minutes is
13888888 hours is
578703 days is
1585 years
That's 1585 man-years of wasted time every single day.
Assuming a person lives to the age of 80 years, the total wasted time adds up to almost 20 people. The entire lives of 20 people, wasted EVERY day to spam. It's fucking mass murder.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
As much as I hate to support Spamers, orginizations like Spamcop can be just as bad or worse then those who send the spam.
They have no true higherarchy, no way to get your e-mail off the list if one of your compeditors has "reported" you, they often send reports of Spam to incorect administrators, and lie to their supporters about results.
All I can say is atleast they dont flood inboxes with herbal viagra and crap. Still they show how easy anti-spam orginizations can become useless and more harmfull then their good.
I can't understand why people are saying that it allows any type of activity that was previously not allowed.
Perhaps because it overrode state antispam laws, which were more strict?
> Julian Haight tries hard but often swings first and aims later
1. You have to fight fire with fire. Spammers take a shotgun approach too.
2. 50% of the time, the person who lands the first punch in a fight has already won. The other becomes enraged, makes a mistake, and it becomes easy to land some more.
If you have not instigated the fight, are defending yourself, and have no other way out, implementation of both ideas is both ethical and necessary, though not always legal. It's you or them.
If the first punch is executed in a tactically proven method, the fight rarely goes 12 rounds. Ideally you want to get it over fast so you can make a clean getaway.
I've been there many times and have the scars on my knuckles to prove it, yet none on my face ; ) I grew up in a rough neighborhood. It was my reality. It's a bad idea to back people into a corner, especially when you don't know what they're capable of.
It's not fighting dirty, it's fighting to survive. If you let them throw the first punch, you will lose. The trick is realizing when you are out of options, and being certain about it, before it is too late.
Cool collected and methodical is the only way to defend yourself. Anyone who says different, well you see them walking around with broken noses and black eyes; ) 50% of them forced their opponent into the position of being required to kick their ass.
l8,
AC