Verizon spammer settlement
Verizon made a settlement with the notorious spammer Alan Ralsky. According to this article he is "barred" from sending messages to Verizon customers.
The settlement, parts of which are secret, means that Verizon's 1.64 million Internet customers in 40 states will no longer receive spam from Alan Ralsky, whose Michigan- based company, Additional Benefits LLC, is considered one of the largest sources of bulk e-mail.
Outside of wishing that this settlement was not secret.. (why exactly is the spammer being treated so nicely?) I wish they had gone a step further and prohibited him from sending messages through the Verizon network altogether.. that way, unable to control Internet routing, he could be breaking the agreement anytime he sent spam.
Maybe next time.
What we need is legislation that prohibits marketing by using customer's own resources without explicit permission from said customers. Hence, you can't send me marketing email (using my bandwidth and storage space) unless I permit it (opt-in list), you can't market yourself in my referrer log (using my server and my bandwidth) without my permission, and you cannot post marketing comments in my weblog without my permission.
Why is the government protecting businesses, not constituents. We are living, breathing humans, corporations are made up entities.. why do they have more rights? I cannot legally protest McDonald on their property without their permission, but they can fill up my inbox with marketing messages against my wishes. Why are McDonald's rights (it's just an example) more important than mine?
Comments
Hi there,
Disclaimer: This comment has to reference my product name to make a point. It's not intentional and Kasia can delete it if she pleases.
I do hear you on this (and I have a vested interest in spam since I have a product which has spam blocking as one of many features) but there are some very real slippery slope issues:
a) Physical mail is just as much spam as email. Do we have special legislation for bits and atoms ?
b) Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Example -- I am on the Squid mailing list since I was interested in Squid. Now I'm not and I can't get off the damn thing. No one seems to be able to unsubscribe me. Is that spam? If I email you out of the blue (like I did or you did initially) then is that spam ? Is volume the key ?
c) Anything we solve on the spam front will get handled by moving outside us boundries and then sending from that location. With the current smtp / pop approach to email there just isn't a way to ever halt spam. Can we get away from pop3? Sure but the cure (MS Palladium) is worse than the disease.
Things like Spam Assassin, Inbox Buddy (mine) and other tools are seemingly a part of our new infrastructure. Just as is virus checking.
d) Free speech. Does it apply to business or not?
Don't get me wrong I strongly agree with your points about using my resources to reach me but the amount of time we all blow on unwanted catalogs, physical junk mail, etc is huge. That's a very real resource that we're so used to being spent that we don't even think about it.
Oh and could you please make this comments window sizable ? It's locked and really is bad like it is.
Posted by: Scott Johnson | October 31, 2002 09:43 AM
Let's see if I can address this logically..
1. Physical spam while seemingly is the same as e-mail does not cost *me* money to receive. Well, it does indirectly, but for the sake of this discussion I will only reference direct cost.
Electronic spam costs me directly. Bandwidth, server space.. etc. Many providers limit the size of the inbox.. if it's filled up with spam it costs the receiver in e-mails that are bounced. So in a way, what I am calling for is to stop businesses from marketing themselves at a direct cost to the consumer.
2. For my purposes, spam is contact initiated by the business with the sole purpose of selling a product or service while utilizing the customer's resources without his/her prior permission.
Your example would not be spam because you initiated the initial contact.. hence giving permission for further emails.
E-mailing someone out of the blue for purpose of communication isn't spam because you are not attempting to sell me a product or a service.. exchange of information isn't spam. It could be unwanted, but then it's just harassment.
3. Agreed there.. Differnce is, virus writers are not sanctioned by law.
4. The problem I have here.. we're so used to thinking of businesses as living entities.. they're not. Free speech is a human right, not a corporation right. So while free speech should apply to employees of said corporations, I really don't think protecting the free speech of businesses should be our priority here..
Fixed the comment window, thanks :)
Posted by: kasia | October 31, 2002 10:01 AM