Then, instead of whining around on the internet writing blogposts and making money off those banner ads, the poster should have contacted local law enforcement authorities.
I don't see why she should defame GoDaddy. If I had a server there, and I was accused of sending spam, I would have the right to know which address considered my email as spam (and determine for myself whether the user subscribed to my services or not).
No. You could send them the sha1 checksums of those who had opted in, and godaddy could confirm if it matched or not. You have no right to their personal information, but you do have a right to be heard.
GoDaddy deserved every last ounce of negative coverage for this they can get.
So, every time someone receives an abuse complaint, they should have to send checksums of every email on their list? What if it's a massive mailing list by a large company? What if it's a fraudulent abuse complaint, just designed to get the company to waste resources?
What if the company just lies that someone's not on their lists - they'll have to turn the information over one way or the other if it's to be checked, and it may as well be in a checksum as anything else.
> I've never heard of any provider making someone turn over their mailing lists. Do you have any further information about when this has occurred?
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I didn't mean to imply that was what happened. I said that they'd have to if it's to be checked.
My thoughts were that you're either going to have to trust the accused spammer - in which case you can turn over the SHA of the complaining email address, and the provider can compare it to the SHA hashes of their own. Or... they're going to have to turn the list (again, preferably with the entries hashed) over to you - and then, I suppose, you'll have to trust that they're giving you a truthful list.
But, either way, I don't see how the mere act of hashing the list is going to significantly alter the problems of nuisance complaints or of dealing with large lists. Hashing is a very cheap thing to do after all.
There's not really anything you can do about an individual spam complaint, aside from telling the end user and having them remove the email from their list (aside from things that are quite obviously spam).
The problem is the 'Report Spam' button is also the 'I no longer wish to receive this email' button to non-technical users. Just because you've received a spam complaint, doesn't mean that it wasn't an opt-in email.
Providers never attempt to verify your email list. If you generate too many spam complaints, you get terminated. It's not feasible for a third party to get a copy of your mailing list, then somehow evaluate how legitimate it is.
I'm not sure what good this would do. Wouldn't the spammer just include the ones that had not opted in (while claiming otherwise)? It'd be hard to prove them wrong.
> Then, instead of whining around on the internet writing blogposts and making money off those banner ads, the poster should have contacted local law enforcement authorities.
This and that are not exclusive.
> I don't see why she should defame GoDaddy.
Because they shared personal information with a complainee? If you go to the cops and make a complaint, would you find it normal that the cops go to that person and immediately give them your name and address?
> I would have the right to know which address considered my email as spam
Now consider that from the POV that your are a spammer and acting in bad faith, you've just been handed the keys to retribution, that sounds absolutely wonderful does it not?
It seemed to be a comment drawing an analogy to the criminal legal process. And in the US, that process guarantees you the right to know what you're accused of, why you're accused of it, and to confront the people accusing you.
> And in the US, that process guarantees you the right to know what you're accused of, why you're accused of it, and to confront the people accusing you.
Only the latter being at issue here, and in criminal proceeding it's done through cross-examination during criminal trial, not by giving the witness's address to the accused.
You get to know who's suing you and subpoena all sorts of information from them. Which is effectively the same result.
For example, if someone sues you for spamming (under some theoretical law which would allow that), you'd be able to know who they were and get information from/about them during discovery.
Same reason why you should report spam to SpamCop: help clean up the internet, and clamp down on spammers so others don't have to deal with them?
Especially when the originating server specifically has a policy of not allowing outbound spam.
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