California Men's Gatherings - We've been BLACKLISTED!

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2003 15:33:13 -0700
> From: Thomas Leavitt <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
> Subject: Fw: California Men's Gatherings - We've been BLACKLISTED!
> X-Originating-IP: [66.58.96.51]
> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> Cc: dave () farber net
>
>
> Here's another example of the negative effects of anti-spam enforcement 
> efforts.
>
> Please note that the source of these emails was manual sign ups at 
> community events,
> etc. (at least mine was), and that these emails were therefore "opt-in".
>
> And, of course, as these folks note, anyone using an AOL.com address will 
> be prevented from
> using most of their web based functionality if they don't set up a free 
> email address somewhere
> else.
>
> I wonder how many times this happens every week, as small organizations 
> who've laborously
> gathered contact information over many years for hundreds of folks attempt 
> to transition to
> a more automated and professional system, and wind up getting caught up as 
> collatoral damage
> in the anti-spam wars. I know of a local organization that tried the same 
> thing, and wound up
> losing contact with 80%+ of their former subscribers. The result: anytime 
> I suggest establishing
> a mailing list for contact with members, the veterans of that experience 
> immediately oppose it.
> The integrity of the Internet is being severely damaged by these efforts.
>
> We need smarter solutions that meet the real need of people and 
> organizations to communicate
> via email, and that are capable of distinguishing between spammers and 
> folks like the California
> Men's Gatherings.
>
> Regards,
> Thomas Leavitt
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <mailto:dandylyon () sbcglobal net>dandylyon
> To: <mailto:Dandylyon () gocougs wsu edu>Dandylyon () gocougs wsu edu
> Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 2:55 AM
> Subject: California Men's Gatherings - We've been BLACKLISTED!
>
> Dear Guys,
>
> Please read this post. If you don't, it is very likely the LAST time you
> will hear from CMG electronically and there are no plans to start snail
> mailing ya'll or to organize a massive telephone tree. NO action on your
> part NOW means you'll have to take the initiative to go to the CMG website
> or call the hotlines in future to find out what's happening with CMG. I
> suppose word of mouth is also a possiblity. The choice is, as always, my
> brothers, yours.
>
> We [the webmaster and I] recently transfered our monthly Newsy Male posting
> list to the automated Enotify System. The CMG virtual universe has grown too
> large to maintain it by hand (1,750+ subscribers). Many of you will NOT KNOW
> this change occurred because 1/3 of our out-going mail list has been BLOCKED
> from coming into that third's in-boxes.
>
> What we tried to do was send out a link to the September Newsy Male at the
> CMG website. That issue announces the Fall Gathering, told you about CMG
> events all over the state and had the usual "below the line" listings for
> other events. The link to the September Newsy Male is
> <http://www.thecmg.org/V2/newsletters/0903.asp>http://www.thecmg.org/V2/newsletters/0903.asp 
> To find out about our being
> blacklisted and what YOU need to do to continue receiving our posts, ALL of
> you need to read on from here for a bit. Again, this is our LAST post unless
> YOU ASK us to continue sending them to you.
>
> We assumed everyone who had been receiving email from us would want to
> continue to be on our list or they would follow the instructions and simply
> unsubscribe themselves if they didn't want to hear from us anymore.
> Apparently we were wrong. Due to [perhaps as few as] 3 people complaining to
> AOL, the 580+ AOL users we have in the database have been blocked from
> RECEIVING mail from the new CMG server (thecmg.com). Email "spam" is defined
> as "unsolicited e-mail of any type" and since ALL of you didn't sign up, we
> have spammed.
>
> We are bad, Evil, WICKED! We are tried, convicted and sentenced to exile in
> the virtual black hole of "PERMANENT FATAL ERROR". We have exausted our
> appeals [there really are none, zero, zip, nada]. The all-powerful AOL has
> spoken, "Sorry it didn't work out." Three strikes and we're out of AOL's
> pool. Worse, it could spread to other servers via blacklist sharing. AOL is
> 1/3 of our database, [OUCH!] but this AOL decision actually affects every
> one of us. Prithee, read on.
>
> To prevent us from being accused of spamming by the other servers we are
> starting again, this time from scratch. We have UNSUBSCRIBED EVERYONE. If
> you WANT to receive ANY e-mail at all from us then you must visit the link
> below and subscribe. You will be required to confirm the subscription from
> your computer before it is activated [we send a post out, you reply].  Go to
> the link provided below to subscribe.....UNLESS you are with AOL. You, my
> dears, have a very DIFFERENT task ahead. Read on just a WEE bit more.
>
> Visit this link to subscribe 
> <http://www.thecmg.org/V2/settings.asp>http://www.thecmg.org/V2/settings.asp
>
> If you are an AOL Victim, you will NOT BE ABLE to receive email from us and
> so be UNABLE to re-subscribe with CMG on AOL until AOL reverses their
> decision. Only YOU can contact AOL and tell them that you DO want to receive
> mail from us. We are unable to prove to them we are good, Pure and
> ENLIGHTENED [okay, not yet but working hard at it, dag nabbit!]. Perhaps
> testemony from some...many...most...all[?] of you will convince them. We
> suggest you continue to write AOL until this issue is resolved.
>
> It gets worse: Other CMG on-site features MAY OR MAY NOT be available to AOL
> Victims either.  These include online registration/payment, contact forms,
> surveys and any other form based services that use your e-mail address. I am
> truly sorry about this. It is not CMG who's deciding you can't do these
> things. AOL is blocking our posts to you. If we can't post to you, you can't
> confirm back. This is a basic security issue. They aren't deciding what YOU
> WANT to see in your in-box but what they are WILLING to put there. Only YOU
> can explain to them how dreadfully wrong-headed they are. We are being
> censored, plain and simple.
>
> If it only takes 3 complaints to shut us down, you might expect that it
> wouldn't take so many more than 3 to reverse it. NOT SO. One of our members
> has had experience with AOL on this very matter: a non-profit that was AOL
> blacklisted. It took 3 months of that group's AOL subscribers writing to AOL
> to complain. Perhaps they have become more responsive since [wanna bet?].
> You might plan to re-send your first post each time you visit the CMG site
> to look something up. You might make it a regular Saturday chore. You might
> make it a crusade and do it each time you check your email and find no notes
> from your brotherhood in your inbox. [You might not do it at all.] You MIGHT
> get another e-mail account altogether. Be sure and TELL them this last one,
> especially when you are CANCELLING your AOL. For some reason, they really do
> SEEM to CARE when you STOP sending them money once a month, for whatever
> reason.
>
> Three months from today is December 6th. What do you think will happen?
>
> Ben~Andy
> Data Diva [Volunteer CMG Database Manager]

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