From: amitchell@isipp.com Subject: Anybody at Amazon AWS? Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2014 09:15:36 -0700 To: nanog@nanog.org
Anybody have a contact at Amazon AWS?
I sent in a spam complaint, and got back the below response - while I give them kudos for actually, you know, responding, I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that "sending the same canned message to email addresses scraped off websites" is the very definition of spam, yet somehow the EC2 abuse team seems to consider it a perfectly acceptable explanation - I'd sure love to discuss this with someone with a clue at Amazon AWS Did you try their abuse telephone? +1 (206) 266-2187? Once I needed I had proper services on that number. Anyway I am not sure if your contact will make a difference. As I see the case, honestly, it's you complaining against their customer, and Amazon is profiting from that customer. If you and only you are complaining I don't believe you will be heard. Anyway the customer assumed they sent UCE. But won't assume it was a SPAM. As I see the customer states that a e-mail was sent to an e-mail address you have published as contact e-mail address and therefore, they have contacted you. In a canned way, but if it was a personal e-mail offering you something you don't care about, would you fill an abuse report? Or just ignoring/declining the offer? If I right you a polite message right from my MUA and don't mention your name, treating you pretty much like a generic person I don't know, and offering my services, my curricula, or trying to show you a product I have created myself and believe it might be off your interest, it's certainly UCE but will you complain to my provider stating I was spamming you? Well if it's true tha the sender used gmail (you can check your e-mail headers), pasted your address on their MUA or webmail as a Bcc or something like that, and Gmail didn't block the outgoing message, and you (and maybe 2 or 3 other individuals) didn't like that, I don't think Amazon or Google will find it as abuse of services. Certainly it's not a good practice. Not something nice to do, or to receive. But is that an abuse? I don't think so. Specially of a minimum good practice is in place, just like a an opt-out mechanism or similar. Good luck with that phone call. You will find someone to talk to. But I'm not sure you will find someone to agree with you it's an abuse.
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Our customer has responded to your abuse report and provided the following information
"The below emails were sent individually to the recipient using a canned message. There is no automation or mass emailing at all. Our publisher representative personally visited each of the below websites, decided they were right for our service and emailed them individually. The emails are sent through gmail using a web interface to their API.
Let me know if you require any additional information.
Dwayne"
If you are satisfied with the above information, there is no need to respond to this notice. If you are not satisfied, please respond with a clear, succinct reason for dissatisfaction and what results you desire from our customer. We will make every reasonable attempt to work with you and our customer to resolve this matter.
Thank you, The EC2 Abuse team
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Anne
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. CEO/President ISIPP SuretyMail Email Accreditation & Certification Your mail system + SuretyMail accreditation = delivered to their inbox! http://www.SuretyMail.com/ http://www.SuretyMail.eu/
Author: Section 6 of the Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 Member, California Bar Cyberspace Law Committee Ret. Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of San Jose https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemitchell 303-731-2121 | amitchell@isipp.com | @AnnePMitchell | Facebook/AnnePMitchell