HillsCap Posted May 12, 2004 Author Share Posted May 12, 2004 Ok, everyone, how's this for the petition declaration: Part 1: We feel that our email accounts, being a communication medium that is considered to be within our personal domains, should be subject to the same privacy conventions and laws as any other means of communication which is considered to be within our personal domains. These other communication mediums include our land-line telephones, facsimile machines, and cellular telephones, amongst others. These other means of communication have certain limits placed upon them with regards to whether, when and how commercial marketing messages can be disseminated through them. Part 2: We feel that, much like the facsimile machine, the ability to shift the cost of delivery of emails from the sender to the receiver of those emails, lends this communication medium to much abuse at the hands of unscrupulous individuals or entities. Indeed, much abuse already takes place. Because of this, we feel that the only effective means of stopping this abuse is to require all email marketers to utilize double-opt-in marketing, under strict penalty of law. Part 3: We feel that the classification of email as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) or UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email), commonly known as 'spam', hinges not upon content, but upon consent. Without our consent, no spam email should arrive at our email accounts. It matters not whether the email in question carries legitimate header information, is sent from the sender's true IP address, carries tag lines such as 'ADV:' or 'ADLT:'. If we did not consent to receiving that email, it is a violation of the sanctity and privacy of an extension of our personal domain, namely our email accounts. Because of the cost-shifting characteristics of email, it is somewhat akin to someone accosting us against our wills in our own homes, yelling marketing messages at us, then forcing us to pay them for their time and trouble of delivering those marketing messages! Part 4: We believe the governmental organizations dedicated to stemming the abuse associated with spam should focus on a 'top down' approach, meaning that they should focus their efforts on the most prolific of the professional spammers first, in an attempt to bring these professional spammers' email marketing operations either in compliance with the public's wishes (double-opt-in marketing) or have these professional spamming operations disbanded. The top professional spamming operations (according to Spamhaus.org) are: 1 Alan Ralsky 2 Scott Richter - Wholesalebandwidth 3 Alexey Panov - ckync.com 4 John Grandinetti - 321send.com 5 Anthony 'Tony' M. Banks 6 Eric Reinertsen 7 lmihosting.com 8 Webfinity / Dynamic Pipe 9 Scott Richter - OptInRealBig 10 Eddy Marin - Oneroute Part 5: We believe that, as Mr. Scott Richter appears twice in the list of the top 10 most prolific spammers in the world (at positions 2 and 9), and as Mr. Scott Richter has the unmitigated gall to actually bring a lawsuit against a well known Block List using misleading information, in an attempt to force that Block List to allow delivery of his email marketing messages, the governmental organizations dedicated to stemming the abuse associated with spam should focus extra attention upon Mr. Scott Richter, ensuring that his email marketing companies abide by the wishes of the public, and use double-opt-in marketing, while requiring his email marketing companies to remove all existing email addresses from their databases, as these databases have obviously become tainted, allowing delivery of email marketing messages to those who never consented to receiving them. Part 6: We believe that spam email has become such a burden to our everyday personal and business lives that something must be done immediately. We believe this to be a large enough issue that it could possibly sway our choice in elections to those candidates who take a stance on spam more in tune with the public's wishes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobody@spamcop.net Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 An online petition is only useful if IronPort's lawyers think so. As to looking for some of his turdlets to provide as evidence, surely the spamcop database is the perfect source as they can search through millions of complaints. I would assume that IronPort's defense would be searching for what they want - they can even have an accurate attempt at how many people have been affected. davidp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forrie Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 It might also be worth mentioning that we also pay for our various modes of connectivity. Somehow we could demonstrate that the aggregated influx of UCE/spam (or other forms of abuse) essentially deprive us of and interfere with these services that we are paying for. Though that subject area may very well go over into areas that legal types might not understand without some background info. And where in the law does it give these types the "right" to behave in this manner? I've not really read the canned-spam-act, however I understand that it basically says we must explicitly permit ("opt in") to these communications, otherwise it's illegal. Comments, feedback welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 The petition sounds good and I think this is the most visited thread today, as the word spreads we should expect more input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 a piece of good news: Spamcop Restraining Order Dissolved Richter suit hearing scheduled for May 18 Yesterday a Judge issued a restraining order preventing antispam group SpamCop from interfering with the business operations of ROKSO spam "legend" Scott Richter. Today finds that restraining order dissolved by the presiding Judge, who noted that the "legal issues are more complicated than they originally appeared," and that "the Court has a number of questions regarding the facts". Richter says he sued Spamcop to "send a message", and that the group "engaged in conduct which damaged Optin's reputation and forces ISPs to terminate their contractual agreements with OPTIN and its upstream providers." A follow-up hearing is scheduled for May 18. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HillsCap Posted May 13, 2004 Author Share Posted May 13, 2004 OK, EVERYONE... THE PETITION IS LIVE! Go here: http://www.petitiononline.com/gt78mt5e/petition.html Slashdot it, tell your friends, tell your family, tell your government officials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartan Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 I'm in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HillsCap Posted May 13, 2004 Author Share Posted May 13, 2004 Everyone sign the petition... meanwhile we'll work on compiling a list of government officials from around the world, and send them the results of the petition. This accomplishes two things... we built criticality for the number of people we need to go after Richter, and we let the governments of the world know that we've had enough of the spam. Once we've gotten enough public attention and enough people interested, we'll have all those people send their Richter spam to the FTC. Mr. Richter, an avalanche is fast approaching you... and there's nowhere for you to run, nowhere for you to hide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toecutter Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Count me in. Have a large archive of spam. Bring it on !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jericodw Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Okay...... I'm in. But do post the answer to the question: How do you tell if the spam I just received is one of his? Here's a bad joke: Draft up the petition and have one of Scott Richter's spamvertizers send it out... jdw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jebuz Jones Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Today finds that restraining order dissolved by the presiding Judge, who noted that the "legal issues are more complicated than they originally appeared," I believe I speak for many when I say... BOO YAA, SCOTTY! Do you feel lucky, punk? Do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HillsCap Posted May 13, 2004 Author Share Posted May 13, 2004 Jericodw: LMAO... maybe we could hire Snotty Scotty to get the word out... You can tell if your spam is from Richter by looking at the list (link below) of IP addresses and domains he uses, then searching your spam corpus for these... I think I'm going to create an Excel spreadsheet that will interact with my Outlook, and do the search automatically... it'll be a lot easier than searching through the thousands of spams manually. http://www.hillscapital.com/richter.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Would the judge be in conflict of interest if he signed the petition? Reminder: Sign here http://www.petitiononline.com/gt78mt5e/petition.html PS. We are presently getting about 5 signitures per hour, bring them on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avaero Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 So, where do I sign? I work at a unique ISP, and, trust me, I think it would not be difficult to get a couple hundred of my customers to sign as well... Please let me know moc.enilnocvc[at]aida Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Would the judge be in conflict of interest if he signed the petition? Reminder: Sign here http://www.petitiononline.com/gt78mt5e/petition.html PS. We are presently getting about 5 signitures per hour, bring them on! ...Done. Actually, I object to a bit of the wording as being overly emotional but I'm definitely in tune with the basic message. ...Thanks, big time, to HillsCap and whoever else is responsible for this! <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golfisnuts Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Please count me in on the petition. Jeez I hate that stuff. I find it total intrusive. I get spam for stuff I would never want, and have to spend a lot of time building filters and yet more filters to keep that crap out. That doesn't count all the bounces back to my inbox because my ISP used my name in part for an address. Since they are forging headers etc, it would be REAL nice to make them pay dearly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argus Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 The usual term for that is confirmed opt-in, not double opt-in. When I see "double-opt-in", I am reminded of web forms that ask for the same email address to be entered twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 The usual term for that is confirmed opt-in, not double opt-in. When I see "double-opt-in", I am reminded of web forms that ask for the same email address to be entered twice. Poster is referring to Part 4, Line 5 in the posted copy of the petition here in this Forum. Same remark is seconded ... double-opt-in just sucks, having been taken over by the spamming side of the arguement ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yourbuddy Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 I agree that "spammers" should be stopped - that's it. However, there appears to be no "definition" of "spam" that can be agreed (spam is not "anything I don't want, etc.") and until that is clear, there is no way to stop "spam" - as it's undefined, except for current legislation (which most here seem to disagree with). As a person with a Law Degree (and looking at both sides - which is what we are trained to do), it is possible that "Scotty" will win his case or lose - and it is equally possible that "this action" will succeed or fail (and you may all need to "identify" yourselves as "accusers"). Also, many of you have made remarks that could be construed as Libel (that's defamation in written form), and "signing up for spam" could be construed as entrapment or have no value. If SpamCop (or Spamhaus) has "evidence" let them sue, with the "evidence". I hope you win, but you may not like the process or results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jethro Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Just so you all know, help run four boards - www.galahtech.com - www.ibunique.com - www.mangojacks.com - www.scaryminds.com (Yes l know l have no life ) Getting the word out to get people signing your petition. Keep up the good work, and if anyone has this Scott guy's email address l can get a few thousand AOL CDs delivered there for him And here;s the first notice http://www.galahtech.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=8802 Second notice http://www.ibunique.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=11&t=935 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Reminder: Please take some time to read the petition and sign here! http://www.petitiononline.com/gt78mt5e/petition.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agsteele Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Petition signed... Support for the principles expressed here gladly given Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 we have reached 65 in less than 24 h, I hope everyone does their part to make this petition known to others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundy Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 99% of my spam goes to Hotmail and I set up rules in Mail to send the rest straight to trash. Individuals should take responsility for spam not try to legislate it out of business. However I am avaliable to help in anyway with this lawsuit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 As of noon today we have 88 signitaries, thank you everyone for your contribution. Our petition must be getting a lot of hits, it is slow loading, would it be possible to add a counter to the signiture page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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