Re: EFF whitepaper

[Steven Champeon <schampeo () hesketh com>]

on Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 04:45:24AM +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
> sean () donelan com (Sean Donelan) writes:
>
> > http://www.eff.org/wp/?f=SpamCollateralDamage.html
>
> excerpt:
>
>         I. The Problem   
>
>         MoveOn.org is a politically progressive organization that engages
>         in online activism. For the most part, its work consists of sending
>         out action alerts to its members via email lists.  Often, these
>         alerts will ask subscribers to send letters to their
>         representatives about time-sensitive issues, or provide details
>         about upcoming political events. Although people on the MoveOn.org
>         email lists have specifically requested to receive these alerts,
>         many large ISPs regularly block them because they assume bulk email
>         is spam. [...]
>
> i reject all mail from moveon.org here.  not because i assume bulk e-mail
> is spam, but because i still personally receive all mail sent to any address
> at cix.net, and quite a few people who wish to subscribe from cox.net end
> up typing cix.net by mistake.  ("i" and "o" are adjacent in QWERTYland.)
> i'm therefore in a position to prove that moveon.org does not verify the
> ownership or permission status of new e-mail addresses before sending
> political information.  i tried complaining, but moveon.org's postmaster
> function appeared to be understaffed or overworked or both.

I couldn't agree more. We have several users here who signed up for the
moveon.org mailings back when the group was a single-issue activism project
(getting the US to "move on" and stop wasting its time trying to impeach
Clinton). None of them expected to become permanent members of what soon
became a shrill, extremely partisan, and spam-spewing group. To the best of
my knowledge, no attempt to unsubscribe has been respected.
 
That said, I've long since stopped listening (or contributing) to the EFF
as I see their war on antispammers as counterproductive. John Gilmore runs
a well-known open relay at toad.com, and for some reason thinks that free,
anonymous speech is important enough to let spammers drown it out through
sheer volume. I prefer having usable email, so I no longer support the EFF.

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