Another reason to not use MAPS

Wed May 8 01:35:54 UTC 2002

--On Tuesday, May 07, 2002 6:04 PM -0400 Andy Dills <andy at xecu.net> 
wrote:

><...>
> Now, MAPS has filed a lawsuit against a former employee. Why? Because
> he might interfere with their ability to make money by giving away
> something for free that they charge for!

Your premise is inaccurate.

Gordon had stated that he would be selling "his" DUL, not giving it 
away.

MAPS has no objection to Gordon starting (or selling) his own dial-up 
list.  We do object to Gordon copying internal MAPS files, and the 
database to his system, *while still an employee* and calling them his 
own.

Regardless of claims to the contrary, there *is* no contract, There is 
an email discussing the future *writing* of a contract, and further 
mail from Gordon saying he didn't want to get into details.  The matter 
was never discussed again, nor was a contract ever written.

Despite this, MAPS returned to Gordon the data he came with.

Again, despite the fact that no contract exists, MAPS also offered to 
let Gordon keep a copy of the database he had, and even use it to seed 
his own list, providing he sign an indemnity agreement just like any 
other entity with a copy of our data must sign.  We also agreed to 
letting him continue to use the term "DUL"

Gordon refused to sign that agreement.

In lieu of signing that agreement, Gordon digitally signed a document 
stating that he had destroyed the data and other information he took 
from MAPS servers.

Four days later, MAPS received email from *Gordon's attorney* stating 
that since the digitally signed email was not "executed" it was not 
valid, and there was no such data.

Gordon admitted to two parties in email that he had a copy of the DUL, 
current as of the day he left MAPS.

Gordon did offer to drop the issue if MAPS would pay him for every 
contract it writes.

Data and other copyrighted material that had been created by MAPS staff 
(including but not limited to Gordon) had been removed from our system, 
without our knowledge or consent.  The person in possession of the 
information refused to sign basically the same contract as all 
subscribers sign, and notified us, via an attorney that he would not 
honor his own digitally signed certification that the data had 
*already* been destroyed.

Precisely what other course of action could MAPS take?

> So, you who subscribe to MAPS: When will you be cancelling your
> subscriptions? It's no longer about stopping spam with them, now it's
> about money. FWIW, the other blacklists out there are just as good. I
> particularly like njabl.org.

For those wishing to actually *read* the filings before passing 
judgement:

http://mail-abuse.org/dul_info/

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Margie Arbon                   Mail Abuse Prevention System, LLC
Director of Operations
margie at mail-abuse.org          http://mail-abuse.org