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Accused Spammer to Debate SpamCop Founder

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the high-volume-email-deployers dept.

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."

34 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. I went to a fight, and a debate broke out... by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sounds like it's going to be a real nasty fight.

    Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the referee stops this fight early. I'm expecting both of them to fight dirty... Julian Haight tries hard but often swings first and aims later, while Scott Richter says he plays by the rules but morals have never really stood in his way.

    There's no way they're gonna go the scheduled twelve rounds!

    1. Re:I went to a fight, and a debate broke out... by Randolpho · · Score: 4, Funny

      Tough fight? Nah, it'll be a quick knockdown. All Julian Haight has to do is interrupt Scott Richter whenever he tries to say something with a hearty "YOU TOO COULD HAVE A HUGE P ENIS!", or "100% LEGAL POT! GET HIGH LEGALLY!!!!!11!". Eventually Scott will get so pissed off he'll ask the debate moderator to silence Julian, and Julian will just have to say "I rest my case".

      --
      "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
      -Marilyn Manson
  2. Opt-Out Real Quick by bendelo · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those who wish to opt out...

    OptInRealBig.com, LLC.
    (303) 464-8164
    info@optinbig.com

    1333 W 120th AVE
    Suite 101
    Westminster, CO 80234
    US

    1. Re:Opt-Out Real Quick by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think we've covered before that's not the way CAN-SPAM requires them to operate an opt-out system...

      You have to do exactly what everybody tells you not to do, follow the instructions at the bottom at the bottom of the e-mail.

      True, most of the non-ethical spammers will just target you for more spam if you respond in that way, but CAN-SPAM requires a law-compliant spammer to honor that system, and Richter claims that's how his company works.

    2. Re:Opt-Out Real Quick by rokzy · · Score: 3, Funny

      yes they have to take you off THAT list, but they can just add you to another list.

      you have unsubscribed from the Viagra News List.
      here is a message from the Viagra Info List...

    3. Re:Opt-Out Real Quick by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Although the CAN-SPAM act basically defines how someone should spam, I can't understand why people are saying that it allows any type of activity that was previously not allowed. If it calls for a working unsubscribe link, that does not mean that my mail system must accept mail from someone who has met this requirement. If a spammer is blasting my server with dictionary attacks and/or underhanded tricks designed to get around a spam filter, there's nothing in this law that says I have to permit it. Richter of course does not have a leg to stand on in court, so I assume he filed this suit to try to intimidate anti-spam activists, as if it would make them go away.

    4. Re:Opt-Out Real Quick by heybo · · Score: 3, Insightful
      but CAN-SPAM requires a law-compliant spammer to honor that system, and Richter claims that's how his company works.

      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.

  3. Like Manson debating Bugliosi, this is. by The+I+Shing · · Score: 4, Funny

    OptInRealBig publicly debating SpamCop on the legality of spam is like Charles Manson publicly debating Vincent Bugliosi on the legality of committing mass murder.

    --
    You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
    1. Re:Like Manson debating Bugliosi, this is. by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!
    2. Re:Like Manson debating Bugliosi, this is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      When you put it like that, Slashdot must be like the motherfucking Holocaust.

  4. Watch what you say... by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. Where is this held? by FsG · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..and can I bring my baseball bat?

    --
    I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
  6. If by nasty by LOL+WTF+OMG!!!!!!!!! · · Score: 3, Funny

    you mean Richer is going to get SERVED, then I agree, it's on!

    --
    That CSS file that blocks ads
    1. Re:If by nasty by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Funny

      Both sides were already served... the lawsuits are much further along than that.

  7. Proof of Opt-In by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Proof of Opt-In by cbreaker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can't prove that you didn't opt in like that.

      I think the burdon should be on the spammer to prove that you DID opt-in, upon request.

      The thing is, even if this guy's business was 100% legit, which everyone know's isn't anyways, it's a moot point for the vast majority of us. We get so much spam, how are we supposed to know that one is opt-outable and other one will put you to the top of the spammer's list?

      --
      - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
  8. Thinking Big by illuminata · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't think SpamCop is going to be winning this one, because OptInRealBig has all of those email addresses at their disposal. Just a few mass mailings is all it takes to get public opinion on their side.

    --


    Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
  9. Lemmee lone!! by malia8888 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "Spammers say they are protected by the right to free speech, but people also have the right to be free of speech," said Haight. "I think it's pretty clear that people have the right to be left alone."

    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.
  10. Regulation of Blacklists? by vyrus128 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Regulation of Blacklists? by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Credit Reporting services don't have any opinion about you. They don't judge you, they just keep track about facts about you which are reported by other credit-based companies you do business with. Basically, as an industry, credit-givers use this as a conversation point to share their experiences with colleagues so that they can know who is more likely to pay back loans and who is not.

      What the various federal and state laws about such companies do is require them to provide individuals with reports about themselves upon request, and follow a specific despute resolution process should you ever claim that something they are reporting about you is inaccurate.

  11. OK Fine by nate+nice · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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 ..."
    1. Re:OK Fine by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

    2. Re:OK Fine by ca1v1n · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Indeed. The problem we run into is when spammers try to circumvent our filters, and then have the gall to claim first amendment protection. It's like poking every inch of a mile long fence to find a hole big enough to slip through, and then claiming it wasn't trespassing because you didn't climb over. This is exactly why "trespass to chattels" is a commonly-used and often successful claim in spam litigation.

      --
      WARNING: there is a trojan on your
  12. How many people? by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 3, Interesting
    How many people will file lawsuits against Richter and serve him at the debate?

    I hope the line to serve him will not be too long.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  13. Spitzer: Not someone to mess with by Infonaut · · Score: 5, Informative
    There's an excellent explanation in Legal Affairs of the legal powers Spitzer wields. His primary tool is the Martin Act, which gives him frighteningly wide-ranging authority to go after a wide range of targets.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  14. You guys are slipping.... by rune2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's been a whole 20 minutes and we don't have aerial photos of this guy's house and his home address for our snail-mail DDOS attack yet.

  15. Free Speech by Tony · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  16. ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT by keraneuology · · Score: 5, Informative
    Spam is not protected speech. One of the most relevant cases ever heard by the US Supreme Court (which is rarely, if ever, mentioned in spam debates) is Rowan v U.S. Post Office Dept, 397 U.S. 728 (1970)

    Appellants challenge the constitutionality of Title III of the Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 645, 39 U.S.C. 4009 ( 1964 ed., Supp. IV), under which a person may require that a mailer remove his name from its mailing lists and stop all future mailings to the householder. The appellants are publishers, distributors, owners, and operators of mail order houses, mailing list brokers, and owners and operators of mail service organizations whose business activities are affected by the challenged statute.

    A new law had recently been passed whereby people could demand that unsolicited pr0n no longer be mailed to their houses. The homeowners didn't want free samples mailed to their kids. The pr0n magazines wanted to show everybody what they were missing and claimed absolute right to do so under the guise of the First Amendment. (Sound like a familiar battle?) The Supreme Court found against the postal spammers.

    Some very relevant passages from the decision:

    "the right of every person 'to be let alone' must be placed in the scales with the right of others to communicate."

    "In today's complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive."

    "Weighing the highly important right to communicate, but without trying to determine where it fits into constitutional imperatives, against the very basic right to be free from sights, sounds, and tangible matter we do not want, it seems to us that a mailer's [397 U.S. 728 , 737] right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee.

    The Court has traditionally respected the right of a householder to bar, by order or notice, solicitors, hawkers, and peddlers from his property. See Martin v. City of Struthers, supra; cf. Hall v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 72, 49 S.E.2d 369, appeal dismissed, 335 U.S. 875 (1948). In this case the mailer's right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.

    To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail. The ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality, and none of the recognized exceptions includes any right to communicate offensively with another. See Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967)."

    http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=397&invol=728

    --
    If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
  17. Is OptInRealBig a victom of spam? by Felinoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    By the actions of Scott I'd say he actually believes his system is a true opt in system.
    However I've receaved spam from this guy and I know I never opted in.

    So the question is how come Scott believes his actions are lagit?
    Answer:
    I do get a lot of "Welcome" messages from marketting lists. Most of them say something like "Please click on the link below to conferm". Eather spammers are being creative and trying to trick me into opting in to stuff I don't have any intrest in or someone spammed my e-mail address to them.

    How dose ReallyBig work? Could a jerk spammer stuff the box?
    How dose Scott get a large opt in e-mail database?

    It would make sense that he would have some program set up where third partys do the opt in for him. If so is there any screening for "stuffing the box"?

    This presumes Scott isn't putting on a show. We can never forget that spammers are at least in part con artists. They take the PT Barnem school of marketting tactic. A sucker born every min and the real trick is to find em.

    However I'm reminded of some research done a while back. Someone said that most spammers are just looking for valid e-mail addresses and don't actually sell anything.
    Hence the mark isn't the spam targets but the spammers who actually try to sell stuff.
    Thies people buy e-mail addresses.

    And I just did conclude that this is probably where Scott got his marketting list.

    In short...
    Scott is this minuts sucker ...
    Or the modern PT Barnum.

    Sadly you can never know for sure.

    --
    I don't actually exist.
  18. Unfortunately, SpamCop sucks by realmolo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  19. Re:OptInRealBig is not the problem by gravyfaucet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!
  20. free speech??? by dmitrygr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  21. Re:Spamcop is almost worse then the spammers... by G0NOU · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree. It's a little annoying to spend 10 minutes writing a response from a user's technical help request, only to have that user bounce the message because their provider uses SpamCop, and SpamCop has blocked your entire ISP.
    Since you only have the user's email address you have no way of contacting them, even to tell them that you can't contact them because of SpamCop!

    So you contact SpamCop and they take this high-handed approach and won't help you. You contact the ISP, but they don't do anything either, so you are stuck. Also, they don't seem to check anything but just take any complaints at face value.

    So in the case of self-appointed spam vigilantes like SpamCop, unfortunately the cure is worse then the disease. Likewise the spam filters that fill my inbox with "virus detected in message which contained your forged from address" alerts.

    I prefer the system EarthLink uses where you have to confirm the message is genuine.

  22. Now that we know where Scott Richter's going to be by Tree131 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now that we know where Scott Richter's going to be - upcoming Email Technology Conference in San Francisco, we need action against that asshole that fills our emailboxes with spam.

    1. Go to your local supermarket
    2. Buy a can or two of SPAM or a cheaper generic substitute
    3. Conceal the can in a bag or coat
    4. Attend the conference and bring a digital camera with you.
    5. Get a nice seat closer to the front
    6. Wait until Richter is comfortable enough to let his guard down
    7. Open can of spam and place the contents in your hand
    8. Launch contents in your hand at Richter
    9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you're out of SPAM
    10. Take a picture or Richter covered with spam w/ a digital camera
    11. Post it on /.

    Oh yeah...
    12. ????
    13. Profit!!!

    You might need to do some more prep work as far as hurling SPAM at targets. Get a friend to help you, organize SPAM throwing practice sessions. Get all the participants to come with you to the debate.

    Alternative plan
    1. Go to your local sports store
    2. Buy a baseball bat.
    3. You know the rest...