FC: More evidence that Spamcop-listed Truthout is indeed spamming

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Annalee is a careful reporter and a reliable source. Others also have told 
me Truthout has spammed them, which means the evidence so far strongly 
indicates that the folks at Truthout are unrepentant, litigious spammers. 
Small wonder, then, that Spamcop is listing the site, and shame on Truthout 
for threatening litigation against Spamcop if all it is doing is, ah, 
putting the truth out. (Naturally I will give the fokls at Truthout the 
opportunity to reply.)

Note that no bill in the U.S. Congress that I'm aware of (and I believe 
I've read them all) would regulate nonprofit or political spam.

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04959.html

-Declan

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Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 13:50:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Annalee Newitz <brainsploitation () yahoo com>
Reply-To: annalee () techsploitation com
Subject: Re: FC: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
To: declan () well com

Hi Declan. Interestingly, I too was subscribed to
truthout without any notification and without my
consent. I got myself unsubbed, and have recently been
re-subscribed (also without consent). Their
"grassroots" tactics would appear to be spammer-esque.
I'm sure they've farmed my e-mail addy from sites for
various progressive publications.

Annalee

---

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:03:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Charles Oriez <coriez () yahoo com>
Reply-To: coriez () oriez org
Subject: Re: FC: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com
Cc: ma () mail truthout org

The irony of someone threatening to sue spamcop because spamcop has
engaged in free speech, and then trying to cloak themselves in the
banner of the first amendment to protect their own speech, is
interesting.  I believe the operative word is hypocritical.

I can't afford to trade packets with any system whose operators view
litigation as the solution to network outages.  Consider 69.20.9.116
blocked immediately on every system under my control.  I'll also be
posting to nanae and spam-l where others may choose to exercise their
free speech rights to say nasty things about truthout in their deny
tables as well.

I've taken the liberty of altering their statement below to more
accurately reflect their true position.


>  > First Amendment advocates in the noncommercial sector such as
> Truthout or Spamcop
> should not have their speech deterred in any way, except by threats
> of litigation from us when we disagree with it.

---

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 08:21:23 +0530
From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh () hserus net>
Organization: -ENOENT
To: declan () well com, ma () mail truthout org
CC: politech () politechbot com, bmw () carolina rr com, messenger () truthout org
Subject: Re: FC: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
References: <5.2.1.1.0.20030714141023.043fa4d0 () mail well com>

Declan McCullagh [7/14/2003 11:41 PM] :

> That's mostly because, despite never signing up for truthout's newsletter, 
> I get it regularly.

So, if as the lawyer's note below says, yahoo was blocking truthout - it is 
quite likely that, just like Ben got it without subscribing to it, other 
accounts (such as yahoo spamtraps) might have got it as well.  Or was 
truthout's problem that their mails were being routed to yahoo's bulkmail 
folder?  Yahoo does both bulkmail folder filing and bouncing of inbound 
mail that its filters detect as spam, I believe.

As far as I know, Yahoo doesn't filter using spamcop - but I'm speaking as 
a longtime yahoo user, not as an admin at yahoo.

Now for this ...

>  > Marc Ash, Executive Director - t r u t h o u t
>  > mailto:ma () mail truthout org
>  > William M. Simpich
>  > Attorney at Law
>  > So how does Truthout come to be blacklisted?. An individual with a
> political axe to grind can easily manipulate a Reader-based SPAM rating
> system. Clearly, Truthout has been targeted in this manner.  As Ray
> Everett-Church, the counsel for Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial
> Email, stated in the May 14 Washington Post, some blacklists indeed become
> ``little more than tools for people's personal vendettas."

Was this quote from Ray Everett Church in the context of truthout being 
blocked?  Or was he talking about other blocklists, or even other incidents 
involving spamcop, so that this quote could be misused to imply that 
someone at Spamcop, or a spamcop user, has a personal vendetta against 
truthout?

>  > Both SpamCop and Yahoo rely on the highly flawed reader-based SPAM rating
> system. In fact, on SpamCop's website, it discusses the status of the

Spamcop - perhaps.  Yahoo?  They rely on a lot of other things as 
well.  Have they said specifically that they blocked truthout based on user 
complaints?

> SpamCop blocking list.  It states that it ``should not be used in a
> production environment where legitimate e-mail must be delivered.''    Then
> it admits that it ``err(s) on the side of blocking mail...there is no
> warranty associated with using this system.  It is provided as is.''
> (Emphasis in original)

So, maybe you ought to go ask ISPs / networks that filtered your mail 
because of a spamcop listing?

>  >
>  > We have informed SpamCop that it is ``inviting a defamation suit by using
> such tactics against a commercial e-mailer.  By engaging in such a tactic
> with a noncommercial organization such as Truthout, you are virtually
> guaranteeing a victory.''
>  >

Spam is defined as unsolicited bulk email.  Did all the recipients of the 
truthout newsletter sign up for it, and confirmed that they signed 
up?  Then you can know for sure that they are interested in your newsletter.

If not?  Well, your list gets polluted with fake addresses, or addresses of 
people who haven't signed up at all ... a grassroots organization with a 
badly mismanaged mailing list stands a really good chance of becoming 
astroturf.

>  > First Amendment advocates in the noncommercial sector such as Truthout
> should not have their speech deterred in any way. While everyone hates the
> spammers, neither SpamCop, Yahoo or anyone else should be deciding what
> people in the United States are allowed to read.

Did spamcop, or yahoo, or anybody else block truthout's website, or 
soemthing?  Did they block cases where other people, who may have actually 
subscribed to truthout, forwarded these newsletters to their friends?

Or did they refile your mail into a bulkmail folder, from where your 
subscribers could just select "this is not spam" to move it back to their 
inbox?  Note the word "bulk mail" there.  _Any_ bulk mail, for the sole 
reason that it is sent in bulk, to a large number of yahoo users, can get 
filed to that folder.

Or did they bounce your mail back to you?

As for the first amendment, it says that "Congress shall make no law ...." 
- as far as I know it doesn't say "Spamcop shall make no law" or "Yahoo 
shall make no law".

Spam is not about content - "save the children" and "grassroots 
organization" and "first amendment rights" can be sent out in unsolicited 
bulk email (aka spam) just as well as nigerian money scams and promises to 
enlarge body parts.

        srs

---

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:58:59 -0500
From: Michael <michael () despammed com>
To: declan () well com

Declan McCullagh wrote:

> > First Amendment advocates in the noncommercial sector such as Truthout
> should not have their speech deterred in any way. While everyone hates the
> spammers, neither SpamCop, Yahoo or anyone else should be deciding what
> people in the United States are allowed to read.

So ... by this logic, if a First Amendment advocate decides to start 
posting large posters on all my windows, I should have no recourse.  I 
think these people don't understand the principles of the First Amendment 
as well as I thought.

Michael

---

From: "Dave Phelps" <tippenring () tippenring com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>, <ma () mail truthout org>
References: <5.2.1.1.0.20030714141023.043fa4d0 () mail well com>
Subject: Re: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 19:31:27 -0500

It should be noted that SpamCop does not decide what anyone is allowed to
read, so any first amendment argument is moot. No one is required to use
SpamCop.

I choose not to read anything blocked by SpamCop. I accept the fact that
SpamCop errs on the side of caution, and I override the SpamCop results when
desired.

With regard to defamation, SpamCop is the wrong target. SpamCop is just the
messenger. Your defamation target should be the person that you claim has
filed the false reports with the SpamCop system.

Similar to many of our more enterprising members of the public, it appears
that you are simply going
after the "deep pockets." Instead of going after the person that truly
defamed your organization (the person that filed the reports), you are going
after SpamCop. In this case, the "deep pockets" contain publicity rather
than money.

Rather than complain, why not take this opportunity to review your e-list
procedures? You might want to review your email acquisition methods, and be
sure to regularly advise list members how to unsubscribe (some lists have
this at the bottom of each message). You may also want to put a blurb in one
of your emails (since SpamCop isn't blocking you at the moment) advising
your list members not to submit your emails to SpamCop in an attempt to
unsubscribe, but to follow the unsubscribe procedure.

---

To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:11:01 EDT."
             <5.2.1.1.0.20030714141023.043fa4d0 () mail well com>
From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:11:01 EDT, Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>  said:

> From: "t r u t h o u t" <messenger () truthout org>
> To: <bmw () carolina rr com>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 1:46 AM
> Subject: A Letter from TO Legal Counsel William M. Simpich

>  > We have informed SpamCop that it is ``inviting a defamation suit by using
> such tactics against a commercial e-mailer.  By engaging in such a tactic
> with a noncommercial organization such as Truthout, you are virtually
> guaranteeing a victory.''

Actually, a victory is nowhere near guaranteed, given that Paul Vixie and
friends over at MAPS don't lose THEIR legal battles too often, and they're more
out on a legal limb than SpamCop is.  MAPS is directly adding stuff to their
databases by hand, whereas SpamCop is merely reporting (essentially) the
automated results of a poll.  It's hard to make a defamation case against
SpamCop if they are truthfully saying "8 out of 10 people that sent us
information thought this was spam". (It becomes a bit easier if you can show
that SpamCop is intentionally fudging the stats).

However, the biggest legal hurdle to cover is that neither MAPS nor SpamCop
actually block any e-mail.  They provide an *opinion* on something, and 
some OTHER
site is taking action based on that opinion.  The guys at TruthOut may have 
a case
against the site actually blocking the mail (Yahoo or whoever), and they 
may have a
case against whoever engaged in ballot-box-stuffing to rig a SpamCop 
rating, but
I doubt they have a case against SpamCop itself unless they can clearly show
malicious tampering of the numbers by SpamCop staff....

---

From: Ed Allen Smith <easmith () beatrice rutgers edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 18:29:09 -0400
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: Spamcop blacklists truthout.org (for a good reason?)
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030714141023.043fa4d0 () mail well com>

In message <5.2.1.1.0.20030714141023.043fa4d0 () mail well com> (on 14 July
2003 14:11:01 -0400), declan () well com (Declan McCullagh) wrote:

BTW, spamcop is no longer sending information to that
trademark/copyright-violation-hunting company, even optionally, from what I
can see from my own reporting.

As well as the various disclaimers cited below, Spamcop also specifically
states that the blacklist should be used only for diverting email into an
alternative folder, not for refusing email - diverting to a different
folder, not refusing email, is what _Spamcop_ uses it for! However, given
the below evidence (both that they're sending unsolicited mail -
commercial/noncommercial makes no difference - and that they're making legal
threats, or rather poor-mouthing themselves and claiming they _would_ be
making such legal threats if they weren't a poor left-wing organization),
refusing email entirely from them, with an option for people like Ben who
wish to continue receiving it for their addresses entirely to be blocked,
would appear to be justified.

      -Allen

---




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