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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."
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.
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.
You most defnitely have the right to block what they're sending.
The problem is with over SpamCOP's public claim that Richter sends e-mails to people who have never opted-in.
Richter claims that any recipient claiming that they never opted-in is wrong. He'd refute SpamCOP's claim, but SpamCOP refuses to turn over the e-mail addresses of the people complaining to them, so he can't check his records to find out how the address got there.
You most definitely have a right to publish an opinion, but when you accuse somebody of something, it turns into a matter of fact. If you're publishing facts that aren't true, that's where libel starts...
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.