FC: Fleishman-Hillard apologies to Politech, won't block mail

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

I just got off the phone with Michael Busselen, a senior vice president and 
general manager of Fleishman-Hillard in their San Diego office.

Michael called me to apologize for the threats against the Well and 
Politech that Fleishman-Hillard's mail admin Chuck Magner made yesterday.

"The language, tone and approach was never that of the firm as a whole. We 
humbly offer our apology," Michael said. "It was not reflecting the full 
and endorsed viewpoint of the firm."

Michael said that he did not want to send email for fear of being deluged 
with less-than-complimentary messages if his email address were released. 
It seems that the messages Fleishman-Hillard did receive were noticed ("the 
Blackberries were buzzing all night long.")

Michael also described the snafu involving Marna McClure's frustrations 
with Politech. It turns out that a Fleishman-Hillard employee hired before 
Marna (Melissa McClure) had the email address mcclurem () fleishman com, and 
Marna was assigned mcclurem2 () fleishman com when she was hired as an office 
manager. Then Melissa (who had indeed subscribed to Politech in 1998) left 
the firm -- without unsubscribing first -- and Chuck-the-mail-admin told 
Marna that she could have the more desirable mcclurem () fleishman com address.

Sometime in the last few weeks, Chuck assigned Marna the additional 
mcclurem () fleishman com address -- without telling her he had actually done 
so -- so she started to receive Politech messages. She didn't know that 
address was now hers, and tried to unsubscribe her mcclurem2 () fleishman com 
address. That, naturally, didn't work.

Marna replied to me yesterday in frustration, saying: "I will report this 
as spam if you do not get me off your email list immediately."

She sent Chuck her correspondence with me (Michael put it diplomatically: 
"She copied our less-than-eloquent IT manager") which led to the memorable 
conversation we had yesterday. Chuck told me at the time: "I consider it an 
honor and privilige to use all the technology tools available at making you 
go away, I will be contacting you personally as soon as possible." 
(http://www.politechbot.com/p-03367.html)

I have not heard back from Chuck or Marna since the Politech messages went 
out. The only contact I've had with Fleishman-Hillard has been with 
Michael, who offered a gracious apology.

Some Politech members have blocked mail from fleishman.com or blocked 
fleishman.com employees from connecting to certain sites. Michael has asked 
that the blocks be lifted, which I completely endorse.

Michael said that Fleishman-Hillard has not blocked the Well or Politech 
from its company's computers: "Chuck's not in a position to unilaterally 
block emails or make any such decisions. He got a little ahead of himself."

Michael also said "the simplest lesson here is that when we change or alter 
email addresses, we need to make sure notification takes place."

I thank Michael for the phone call and and Politech members for the show of 
support.

-Declan

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 08:16:45 -0400
From: "J.D. Abolins" <jda-ir () njcc com>
Subject: Re: FC: Politech members reply to Fleishman-Hillard PR firm's threats
To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com

Declan,

I am late with my comments but I add my vote of support for you.

In my decade long work with the Internet and a longer period with other PC 
communications, I've seen many tangles like the recent "spam" accusation. 
For one reason or another, a person is subscribed to a maillist, the person 
can't unsubscribe or the person leaves and the net administrators can't 
figure out how to stop the maillist subscription, and the people freak out. 
True, they have a problem with the maillist account but it is not a spam 
problem.

Alas, the word "spam" is veering into the bin of polemics to use without 
regard for the real meaning. Thus, any emails that one doesn't like or that 
cause an inconvenience are called "spam", drawing upon the moral 
connotations of the word.

To be a bit extra "charitable" to the F-H PR firm's net administrator, it 
*may* be that person is competent with the immediate operations of the 
networks. I have know many net and systems administrators who learned how 
to run the equipment and the software but were weak on the human (e.g.; 
legal, political, and social) aspects of computing. Computer training 
course rarely teach people these aspects. After all, the measure of quality 
for much of the training is that the systems run. So sometimes I have heard 
shocking claims made about subjects such as privacy and info law made by 
some systems administrators. They ventured into areas which they have not 
really examined. It is easy to fall into the "False Authority Syndrome" 
(see Rob Rosenberger's excellent paper on FAS at 
http://www.vmyths.com/fas/fas1.cfm).

Thank you for maintaining the excellent Politech list.

J.D. Abolins  (Disclosure: I have sometimes slipped into FAS myself)
Meyda Online Info Security & Privacy Studies
http://www.MeydaOnline.com

---

From: Charlie Oriez <coriez () oriez org>
Organization: Lumber Cartel [tinlc]
To: declan () well com
Subject: Fleishman-Hillard seems to have an open spam relay of their own
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 07:45:04 -0600

You'll recall that the FH admin asked that complaints about Politech
should be sent to dorkslayers, which is an open relay database.  My
tests gave the politech/well.com mail server a clean bill of health.
However, it seemed only fair to check FH as well, since they were
encouraging relay tests on machines belonging to others.

I found some FH spam posted in news.admin.net-abuse.sightings from
early last year and did minimal tests on the mail server the spam
came through.  Note it is not conclusive.  The server could be a
honey pot (a machine which appears deceptively open but eats the spam
without transmitting it).

I did confirm that IPA still belongs to FH and is still listed as a
mail server.  They own that entire /24 according to whois and
nslookup showed that IPA as mail.fleishman.com.  I then asked ordb
(another open relay db) to confirm the test by running their own
tests, but it seems that someone else beat me to it.  "The address
you supplied is already in the queue, and will be checked during the
next run. (207.193.111.249)".

The FH spam from Jan 2001:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=207.193.111.249&hl=en&group=news.admin.net-abuse.*&sa=G&scoring=d



Relay test 7>>> RSET
<<< 250 OK - Reset
>>> MAIL FROM:<spamtest@[207.193.111.249]>
<<< 250 OK - mail from <spamtest@[207.193.111.249]>
>>> RCPT TO:<relaytest%abuse.net () fleishman com>
<<< 250 OK - Recipient <RELAYTEST%ABUSE.NET () FLEISHMAN COM>
Relay test result Hmmn, at first glance, host appeared to accept a
message for relay.

THIS MAY OR MAY NOT MEAN THAT IT'S AN OPEN RELAY.

Some systems appear to accept relay mail, but then reject messages
internally rather than delivering them, but you cannot tell at this
point whether the message will be relayed or not.

You cannot tell if it is really an open relay without sending a test
message; this anonymous user test DID NOT send a test message.

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:27:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Mozena <moz () panix com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from well.com,
 Politech

On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> >>cause not only our users at the desktop by having to spend valuable work
> >>time deleting your unsolicited emails, but also our IT department by
> >>having to create filters to eliminate your junk. I have advised Ms
> >>Mcclure and everybody else in our company to report all unsolicted emails
> >>from you and those originating from well.com to;

[snip]

Furrfu. As somebody who does PR both professionally in the tech
industry to pay the mortgage and pro-bono for CAUCE and other
anti-spam efforts to keep my karma in balance, this disgusts me
on so many levels.

The stereotypical knock on antispammers is that we see no problem
with destroying the village in order to save it -- e.g. John
Gilmore's net.stigmata .sig and over-the-top response -- and the
stereotype of PR flacks is that we really don't understand what
we're talking about, but are happy to spam the world in order to
"get the word out." Mr. Magner has managed to reinforce both of
those stereotypes in one brief e-mail.

There *are* PR people who do understand what they're talking
about, even in the tech industry, and do their best to not talk
at people who don't want to listen. There *are* anti-spammers who
are concerned about both the damage that spam does to the Net as
well as the collateral damage caused by efforts -- some of them
admittedly over-the-top -- to reduce the spam volume.

Apparently, Mr. Magner is neither of the above. But he doesn't
speak for me, and I suspect it'll be interesting to see to what
degree he actually speaks for Fleishman-Hilliard, which generally
exhibits more clue than this.

(In the interests of full disclosure, F-H is a competitor to
$EMPLOYER.)

--
John Mozena
Co-founder and VP for PR
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail
(CAUCE, www.cauce.org)

---

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 19:27:47 -0600
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: "Richard Johnson" <rdump () river com>
Subject: Re: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from well.com,
  Politech
Cc: postmaster () fleishman com

At 23:33 -0700 on 09/04/2002, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> [On second reading, it's not entirely clear whether Chuck is blocking all
> mail from the Well and Politech himself or just encouraging everyone at
> Fleishman-Hillard to do so. In any case, it's a sad case of self-appointed,
> anti-spam vigilantes run amok... --Declan]


As a self-appointed spam vigilante, of the hard-core variety, I really must
object.  I resent your comparison, on behalf of all legitimate anti-spam
vigilantes (tanlav) everywhere.

According to the message you quote, "Magner, Chuck" <magnerc () fleishman com>
is upset because one of his users was having trouble unsubscribing from the
Politech mailing list.  Her mail is being forwarded from the address under
which she subscribed to her new address, and she was trying to unsubscribe
the wrong address.  Rather than calmly asking that the situation, which is
quite common on long-running lists, simply be fixed, Mr. Magner used it as
an excuse to:

 o Threaten to have his users report the Politech list to SPEWS.

   Anyone who knows how SPEWS operates (see <http://www.spews.org/faq.html>)
   will get a huge belly-laugh out of that nonsensical threat.

 o Threaten to have his users report the Politech list to MAPS.

   Since the reports won't, nay, can't be proper MAPS nominations (see
   <http://www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/notifyfaq.html>), he's just wasting
   his users', and more importantly, MAPS's time.

 o Threaten to have his users report the Politech list to Dorkslayers.

   Read the Dorkslayers site, and laugh a bit more with me.

 o Threaten to have his users report the Politech list to Spamhaus.

   That's a sad waste of Stiff.Lynfed's time.  You know Stiff -- he's
   the as-yet-uncannonized saint who is getting China to clean the
   American criminal spam gangs off their networks:
   <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=hbNf8.22%24MY.866%40psinet-eu-nl>
   Steve Linford (his name was mistranslated in that article :-) has real,
   effective, volunteer anti-spam work to do <http://www.spamhaus.org/>,
   which won't be helped by false reports from Mr. Magner's users.

 o Threaten to have his users report the Politech list to the blacklist
   at nofalsenegatives.stopspam.samspade.org.

   The utter stupidity of that threat (just try looking up any IP in that
   list) almost make me think Mr. Magner is joking.  Almost.  But it seems
   he really did fall for the joke himself.

To Mr. Magner's credit, he didn't threaten to report the Politech list to
the FBI, CIA, FTC, and Interpol, in the manner of a raving loon (a term of
art in the anti-spam community).  However, his missing raving loon
designation doesn't excuse the nonsensical threats he did make.

In short, it seems that Mr. Magner is not vigilant enough to be a bona-fide
anti-spam vigilante.  Please don't tar the rest of us with his brush.
Unlike like the hard, parallel, and pointed bristles in the brushes used by
us real anti-spam vigilantes, Mr. Magner's bristles are weak, kinked, and
come out at all kinds of weird angles.

As a result, I judge that Mr. Magner is simply too ineffective to be a part
of our vigilante club (tinvc).


In the meantime, I note that Mr. Magner includes a bogus legalistic mess in
his message (see <http://www.river.com/users/share/etiquette/#legalistic>
for why that's beyond silly).  As a matter of course, we block domains that
send us such insulting, wasteful and useless dreck, especially when it
comes along with a bad attitude.  Whoops, looks like fleishman.com has a
problem:

  | fleishman.com           REJECT  # 2004-04-09, legalistic craptrap

Hey, I told you I was a vigilante. ;-)

Richard Johnson

---

Reply-To: <karmstro () earthlink net>
From: "Kirsten Armstrong" <karmstro () earthlink net>
To: <politech () politechbot com>
Subject: fleishman hillard - can't we all just get along?
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 11:02:58 -0700

hi declan,

please disregard if this thread is already dead, otherwise i'm chiming in as
one of 'them' - a pr person.

something like this happened to me once, a sales rep in my company flamed an
editor after a negative product review.  hey, i don't have to tell this list
everyone's entitled to their own opinion.  the ed gave me a heads up and
asked if this was an official response from the company.  of course it
wasn't, and i couldn't believe i was actually being asked this question
instead of simply reading the letter to the editor in the next issue.  in
the end the letter ran, negatively affecting the whole company's reputation
thanks to one person shooting their mouth off.

chuck from fleishman is clearly a back-office guy, most likely not someone
who has day-to-day media contact - just wanted to point that out so maybe
people won't be so quick to jump to that familiar 'all pr people are morons'
conclusion.  however it would seem reasonable to expect someone in his
position to be able to look at an e-mail header and figure out which address
is being used.  and the would-be unsubscribers really should know better -
from the thread it looks like they couldn't figure it out on their side and
started threatening you.  really inexcusable - i bet their clients think one
of the things they're paying them for is being able to handle basic business
communications in a professional manner.

i think the point, if there even is one, is that a company's reputation is
the sum of every point of contact it has with the public.  you can't control
it by designating spokespeople or limiting who's authorized to talk with the
press.  hard to believe any pr agency has trouble understanding that.  some
very smart people work at fleishman, but they may not have any idea that
this is going on.  even so, this seems simple enough to resolve, if they
haven't already.  one of the higher ups can cut here ->
        dear declan,
                the situation regarding unsubscibe requests to politech 
has come to my
attention.  please accept my apologies for the unprofessional conduct
displayed by a few fleishman employees.  we have confirmed that people who
are on your list requested to be on it, and that unsubscribing is a simple
task.  because of changed e-mail addresses some individuals had difficulty
getting off the list.  i apologize for the way this was handled, and that
the situation was wrongly escalated with threats of forwarding your
information to anti-spam organizations.  we have no intentions of taking any
such actions, and have taken steps internally to ensure that this will not
happen again.
                we at fleishman-hillard value our relationships with the 
media, and
consider politech to be an important resource for the internet community.
we would be deeply grateful for your understanding that these actions do not
reflect the views of our many talented professionals who are committed to
excellence in internet based communications.
        sincerely,
        whoever

thanks for listening,
     - kirsten

---

From: "Allen Smith" <easmith () beatrice rutgers edu>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 21:40:48 -0400
To: list-managers () GreatCircle COM, spamcop-list () news spamcop net
Subject: Joe-Job: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from 
well.com, Politech
Cc: declan () well com, lichc () FLEISHMAN COM, postmaster () FLEISHMAN COM

I will additionally add that, from personal experience, politech has a full
random-cookie confirmed subscription procedure, via Majordomo. This email is
sent to list-managers to let people know that they may wish to unsubscribe
all fleishman.com email addresses (with notification of exactly what idiot
at Fleishman-Hillard is responsible), and to the spamcop list so that false
accusations from fleishman.com can be recognized. Further information can be
found at http://www.politechbot.com/p-03367.html and
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03369.html.

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:54:34 -0400
To: magnerc () fleishman com, postmaster () fleishman com
From: Nick Simicich <njs () scifi squawk com>
Subject: Fwd: MEDIA: [declan () well com: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks 
all mail from well.com, Politech]

I just read the below correspondence record between you and Decian.

I run a number of legitimate, opt-in mailing lists.  I do it as a hobby as 
well, and I also have a policy that requires that a user make an effort to 
unsub themselves before I will help them, and, if there is an issue where 
they have subscribed from one address and are unsubbing another, I also ask 
that they make an attempt to use the system I have put in place that allows 
them to do the cross-unsubscribe.

It is a hobby on my part, and I don't have the time to do a lot of manual 
work - the automated systems are able to deal with all cases I have run 
into when the instructions are followed.  I've also had instances where 
subscribers have tried to harass other subscribers by unsubbing them, by 
trying to manipulate me into doing the deletions, even representing 
themselves as "the administrator of a domain, please unsub everyone at my 
site" when in fact no such relationship existed.

So my policy is either you (a) unsub yourself or (b) you work with me in 
identifying the software failure that stops you from unsubbing yourself, at 
which point you (a) unsub yourself.  I believe that this is a common policy.

You are acting foolish, in my opinion.  I believe that if you report any 
mail from politech as spam, you are committing fraud.  You have, after all, 
solicited the mail.

However, it is unfortunate that I can't risk my own domains and net 
connection with spam complaints  - nor am I willing to deal with people who 
deal with unwanted legitimate mailing list mail by making unwarranted spam 
complaints rather than simply unsubscribing.  I am therefore going to have 
to take the step of blocking all main from your domain so that you can't 
subscribe in the first place.

---

From: Rick Kelly <rmk () toad rmkhome com>
Subject: Re: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from 
well.com,  Politech
To: declan () well com
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 20:09:02 -0600 (MDT)

Declan McCullagh said:

>[On second reading, it's not entirely clear whether Chuck is blocking all
>mail from the Well and Politech himself or just encouraging everyone at
>Fleishman-Hillard to do so. In any case, it's a sad case of self-appointed,
>anti-spam vigilantes run amok... --Declan]

While not earthshaking, the rmkhome.com domain (about 18 machines) is now
blocking fleishman.com at the IP level for their whole /24.

Also, I am a UNIX consultant, and I will block them at other sites that I
work at.

--
Rick Kelly  rmk () rmkhome com  www.rmkhome.com

---

Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 21:24:27 -0500
To: declan () well com
From: Mick Williams <host () cyber-line com>
Subject: Re: FC: Politech members reply to Fleishman-Hillard PR firm's
  threats
Cc: magnerc () fleishman com, mcclurem () fleishman com, cravenl () fleishman com,
        Mcclurem2 () fleishman com, boudream () fleishman com, 
mooneyr () fleishman com,
        pendergb () fleishman com

Declan,

I thought they sounded familiar. Rob Allyn works here in their Dallas
office. They're the ones that gave us Laura Miller for Dallas Mayor!

And as everyone has pointed out, I've been a list member since 1996(?) and I
had to sign up personally. I have no intention of opting out!

I wonder how Ms. Miller feels about her "PR" firm bashing Politech members?

Anyone in Dallas  want to go to a City Council meeting every Wednesday?

When her "Mayorness" statrs screwing up the city, now you know who to blame:
Those fine folks at Fleishman-Hillard!


Mick Williams
Host
Mick Williams Cyber Line
http://www.cyber-line.com

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:36:13 -0400
From: Nick Bretagna <onemug () gdn net>
Reply-To: afn41391 () afn org
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: magnerc () fleishman com
CC: mcclurem () fleishman com, cravenl () fleishman com, boudream () fleishman com,
        mooneyr () fleishman com
Subject: Spam?

So,

a) The people at your company are complete imbeciles who can't figure out 
how to unsubscribe.

b) Your so-called "tech" guy is a drooling half-wit who can't comprehend 
the difference between simple difficulties getting off a mailing list and 
"unsolicited e-mail" -- in other words, between deliberate SPAM and 
inadvertent borderline spam (hint: there is a considerable difference 
between something you never asked to receive and something you're 
discontinuing).

c) Your so-called "tech" guy is also a congenital idiot who can't figure 
out how to tell your (once more:) moronic imbecile employees how to 
unsubscribe himself  (What is this guy, an MCSE fresh from DeVry's, that he 
doesn't know about Politech???).

...and so, as a "so-called" PR firm, you figure it's a good idea to piss on 
one of the most respected and well appreciated tech journalists on the net? 
Offhand the only names that might be worth more are Jerry Pournelle and 
John Dvorak, and that's iffy in both cases.

I have to say, I think most people with the slightest knowledge of tech 
issues will now know they should be avoiding your firm in droves. It's 
clear you really haven't the slightest knowledge of tech issues even in 
your tech department. Hopefully, you weren't figuring on any tech accounts 
as a part of your future cash flow. Those will not be included in any 
future revenues.

p.s., as someone else noted:
While Chuck is considering "it an honor and privilige to use all the 
technology tools available", he might consider starting with spell-check.

BWAAAAAAhahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

What an Idiot.

You people must be one of the bigger clutch of morons to incorporate out 
there.

I certainly hope so. I can't imagine how society could continue to function 
if not.

CLUE <-Get one, they're absolutely FREE !!!!
--
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Nicholas Bretagna II
<mailto:afn41391 () afn org>mailto:afn41391 () afn org

"Formerly, we suffered from crimes.
 Now, we suffer from laws."
 - Tacitus -

---

Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 20:30:14 -0700
From: Jeff Williams <jwkckid1 () ix netcom com>
Organization: INEGroup Spokesman
To: declan () well com
CC: politech () politechbot com, magnerc () fleishman com, mcclurem () fleishman com,
        cravenl () fleishman com, Mcclurem2 () fleishman com, 
boudream () fleishman com,
        mooneyr () fleishman com, pendergb () fleishman com
Subject: Re: FC: Politech members reply to Fleishman-Hillard PR firm's threats

Declan and all,

  Thanks Declan for this heads up on Flieshman-Hillard.  We were
reviewing some PR firms and Flieshman-Hillard was on the list
for our consideration.  After reading this, they no longer are....
I am sure we will NOT recommend them either to anyone when
ask, as we often are...

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 00:23:44 -0700
From: Tim McGraw <tmcgraw () persuasivecopy com>
Reply-To: tmcgraw () spamcop net
To: pendergb () fleishman com, busselen () fleishman com, wickendd () fleishman com,
        sabatinm () fleishman com
CC: declan () well com, magnerc () fleishman com, mcclurem2 () fleishman com,
        mcclurem () fleishman com
Subject: Fleishman-Hillard Comments Hurt Responsible List Managers

Marna McClure of your San Diego office susbscribes to Declan McCullagh's
fine "Politech" newsletter for four years and in a fit of passion
reveals to the world how little about high-tech Fleishman *really* knows
(with ample help from Chuck Magner, some kind of poor excuse for a mail
administrator).

I report spam every day. I know what spam is. Declan's newsletter is not
spam. To suggest that you would block The Well.com - the original
"Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link" founded nine years before anyone ever
logged on to the Internet - is a supreme embarrassment for Fleishman.

The only way you will ever recover from this is to have Marna & Chuck
make a PUBLIC apology to Declan. There is no need to go through all the
press release hassles - just have them post it to
news.admin.net-abuse.email - anyone who would need to see it will
certainly see it there.

McClure and Magner have done a great disservice to the public at large
for uttering "Declan McCullagh's Politech" and "spam" in the same
sentence. Declan's is not only one of the longest-running and
prestigious newsletters of its kind, but a very well-managed one at that.

You should have all Fleishman-Hillard mail administrators worldwide read
the following so they can tell legitimate newsletters from and for
professionals apart from diploma offers, casino scams, penny stock pump
'n' dumps or "Viagra without a doctor":
http://mail.abuse.net/manage.html

Tim McGraw
510-845-9063
persuasivecopy.com

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 16:27:16 +0700
From: Vanja <vanja () pobox com>
To: declan () well com
Cc: politech () politechbot com, magnerc () fleishman com, mcclurem () fleishman com,
        cravenl () fleishman com, Mcclurem2 () fleishman com, 
boudream () fleishman com,
        mooneyr () fleishman com
Subject: Re: FC: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from well.com, 
Politech

-- quote --
spamcop.net
nofalsenegatives.stopspam.samspade.org blacklist
http://mail-abuse.org
Dorkslayers Zero Tolerance List  http://www.dorkslayers.com/
Spam Prevention Early Warning System   http://www.spews.org/
Spamhaus Block List  http://www.spamhaus.org/

"I consider it an honor and privilige to use all the technology tools 
available at making you go away, I will be contacting you personally as 
soon as possible."
-- end quote --

Chuck,

Thanks for an AWESOME laugh. It really made my day.

Declan and Politech have been around probably longer than you have used 
computer. And you *seriously* think that your word will have ANY value to 
anti-spam community, which knows Declan and Politech very well? You just 
risk being blacklisted yourself.

Well, Fleishman-Hillard is blacklisted on my mail servers, for starters.

And you'll be surprised how powerful the "word of mouth" really is. The 
word just got out.

Vanja

---

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 00:24:31 +0200
From: "Wojciech S. Czarnecki" <ohir () sec pl>
To: waynej () fleishman com, sawyerk () fleishman com, walgreea () fleishman com,
        mooneyd () fleishman com, bakera () fleishman com, kscottc () fleishman com,
        chavezfp () fleishman com, divitoj () fleishman com, hagmand () fleishman com,
        bauerss () fleishman com, davida () fleishman com, flemingj () fleishman com,
        garcial () fleishman com, blairp () fleishman com, howardl () fleishman com,
        fogertyj () fleishman com, divitoj () fleishman com, steinfka () fleishman com,
        Karchert () fleishman com
Subject: Follow: Fleishman-Hillard PR firm blocks all mail from well.com, 
Politech
X-PGPkey: http://www.xox.pl/klucze.txt [admini () xox pl key]
X-keyFP: FD E7 55 A2 D5 13 A9 CD  25 82 4D 75 EF 4E 3C 66

Dear Sirs and Madams,

At your website I saw a proud statement that

> We live out this goal by adhering to the following
> ten basic principles:
>
> 1. Respect for the individual
> 2. Teamwork is everything
> 3. Quality service is first and foremost in everything we do
> 4. New business drives the firm
> 5. Results make us grow
> 6. Existing clients come first
> 7. Fleishman-Hillard requires a personal commitment
> 8. Entrepreneurship is a way of life
> 9. Personal success is measurable and attainable
> 10. We are committed to the highest ethical standards

Sad to inform you that, in my opinion, at least seven out of
these ten points are - euphemistically spoken - invalid.
Thinking above proud wishes in the light of the wrongs that your
computer-illiterate employees made to (politech at) well (dot com) I see:

Ad. 1,10) Neither M(r)s. Marna McClure nor Mr. Mr. Chuck Magner have shown
       respect for Politech list owner. Such threats, and especially
       their wording are breathtaking. It all has nothing in common with
       ethics. Boorishness is far too light word to name it.

Conclusion: in my opinion, the 1st and 10th principles weren't ones
            Ms. Marna McClure nor Mr. Chuck Magner abide to.

Induction:  in my opinion, this principle is not one significant to
            Fleishman-Hillard crew.

Ad. 2) In my opinion, both M(r)s. Marna McClure and Mr. Chuck Magner
       have shown that meaning of the "teamwork" term is somewhat
       unknown to them. They neither could advise each other how to do
       such simple thing as to unsubscribe [2] from the list; nor they
       were able to accomplish it in team with Mr. Declan McCullagh.
       Apparently, their meaning of "teamwork" is equal to
       "someone else has to do it for me".

Conclusion: in my opinion, the 2nd principle wasn't one M(r)s. Marna McClure
            and Mr. Chuck Magner can understand.

Induction:  in my opinion, this principle is not one significant to
            Fleishman-Hillard crew.

Ad. 3,4) In my opinion, neither Mrs. Marna McClure nor Mr. Mr. Chuck Magner
       could follow a few simple steps needed to unsubscribe from the list.
       The few simple steps that any 8yo farmboy knows how to do.

Conclusion: in my opinion, the goal stated by 3rd principle can NOT be
            achieved by individuals not accustomed to frightening computers
            and terrifying internet. As we go to the 4th principle:
            how one wants to do NEW businesses, how one can
            nowadays claim "quality" in ANY business if one can't
            type on keyboard nor does click-clack thru the Web?)

Induction:  in my opinion, this principle is just a slogan.

Ad. 5) In my opinion, bad PR is first step to disaster.
       Its even more true for PR firm.
       (Though this one stated principle is true. At least if author tought
       "good results".)

Ad. 6) Could be. True.
Ad. 7) Could require. True.
Ad. 8) Good basis.

Ad. 9) This point does not say about boorishness, computer-illiteracy,
       and about ones that endanger its business' PR by showing above
       traits open to the the well-known, well-managed and at first
       very useful list. (Read by some tens thousand people, AFAIK).

Thank You for Your attention,

Sincerely Yours,

--

Wojciech S. Czarnecki
 << ^oo^ >> OHIR-RIPE

P.S. bcc-eed to declan at well dot com

---

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 19:05:22 -0700
To: magnerc () fleishman com, mcclurem () fleishman com, cravenl () fleishman com,
        Mcclurem2 () fleishman com, boudream () fleishman com, 
mooneyr () fleishman com,
        pendergb () fleishman com
From: Bill Caughey <res00plf () gte net>
Subject: Please be sure to block my domain too...

You folks may know something about something, but you don't have a clue 
about the internet. Watch and count carefully, your wee little snit with 
Declan and Politech is going to end up being some of the most expensive 
email exchanges ever recorded. Now please be sure to block my domain too!

Public relations indeed!

-b-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bill Caughey (COY)
Redlands, SoCal
res00plf () gte net

---




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