Slashdot Mirror
MP Wants Official Email Address Kept Private
nk497 writes "An MP in the UK has had his official email address removed from the parliamentary website, because he's tired of getting 'nuisance' emails via online campaign websites. MP Dominic Raab's parliamentary.uk email is currently not listed on the House of Commons' website following a spat with online campaigners 38 Degrees. 'Just processing the emails from your website absorbs a disproportionate amount of time and effort, which we may wish to spend on higher priorities, such as helping constituents in real need or other local or Parliamentary business,' he said, threatening to report the group to the government's data and privacy watchdog if they didn't remove the details from their own website. 38 Degrees says Raab gave them his personal email address during the election: 'it's only since he became a member of parliament with a taxpayer funded email address that he's now said he doesn't want to hear from people,' unless they're willing to shell out for a stamp to write him a letter. The lobby group said Raab likely averaged fewer than two emails from their site each day."
Get another email adress. They are free.
(This is my second attempt to post this... Last time it posted with no name or subject and vanished when I refreshed the page... :-/)
First point. He hasn't just taken the address "off the Parliamentary website", he's actually had to disable the address.
He's asking the people running the campaigning website to take his address out of a drop-down list in a form on their site. They are refusing to. The page on the site lets anyone with too much time on their hands pick a subject from one drop-down, an MP from another, enter their name and postcode and hit "Send" to automatically generate a long and verbose email. It's the campaigning equivalent of SPAM marketing. He claims that for every "real" email he gets from someone with a grievance or issue he has to plough through something like 200 generated by this website. (Ballpark figure, I wasn't listening that closely)
Live on "PM" (UK news show) last night he told the folk running the campaigning site that he had no problem with them publishing his address on their site so that people who felt strongly about something could contact him, but he wouldn't re-enable it until they took him off the "automated mailing" page.
(This is my third attempt to post this... Last twice it posted with no name or subject and vanished when I refreshed the page... I've cleared my cookies now. :-/)
First point. He hasn't just taken the address "off the Parliamentary website", he's actually had to disable the address.
He's asking the people running the campaigning website to take his address out of a drop-down list in a form on their site. They are refusing to. The page on the site lets anyone with too much time on their hands pick a subject from one drop-down, an MP from another, enter their name and postcode and hit "Send" to automatically generate a long and verbose email. It's the campaigning equivalent of SPAM marketing. He claims that for every "real" email he gets from someone with a grievance or issue he has to plough through something like 200 generated by this website. (Ballpark figure, I wasn't listening that closely)
Live on "PM" (UK news show) last night he told the folk running the campaigning site that he had no problem with them publishing his address on their site so that people who felt strongly about something could contact him, but he wouldn't re-enable it until they took him off the "automated mailing" page.