on Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 04:45:24AM +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
sean@donelan.com (Sean Donelan) writes:
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. -- join us! http://hesketh.com/about/careers/web_designer.html join us! hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2554 w: http://hesketh.com join us! http://hesketh.com/about/careers/account_manager.html join us!