Vendors spamming NANOG attendees

Wed Jun 14 01:39:39 UTC 2017

Mark,

The problem with your idea is that these NANOG attendee emails aren't illegal under CAN-SPAM. This toothless Act let's anyone email any address they want, however obtained, with virtually any content (except sexually explicit), as long as they don't use misleading headers, deceptive subject lines, or obscure the fact that the email is an ad. Those features, plus clear identification of the originator and an opt-out mechanism, let anyone send unlimited spam. 

So, in reality, these so-called NANOG spammers are within the law. We just don't like what they're doing. 

We definitely can't sue them as you advise. In fact, individual CANT use under CAN-SPAM. Only we network operators can. 

Thanks for nothing, Congress. 

-mel via cell

> On Jun 13, 2017, at 5:10 PM, Mark Andrews <marka at isc.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> In message <38E506A8-247A-478F-9C4D-21602BEE6028 at beckman.org>, Mel Beckman writes:
>> That still leaves the question: how to you invoke this financial
>> punishment? Prohibit NANOG members from buying their products?
> 
> Everyone that has received the email bring a action under the
> CAN-SPAM act.  Really if you don't want the list to be harvested,
> which is illegal under the act, bring the action.  Opt out doesn't
> save the sender if they have already committed a illegal act.
> 
> Mark
> 
>> -mel via cell
>> 
>>>> On Jun 13, 2017, at 10:12 AM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 03:31:46PM +0000, Mel Beckman wrote:
>>>> Sometimes they're ignorant and don't realize they're spamming.
>>> 
>>> That excuse stopped being viable sometime in the last century.  They
>> know
>>> exactly what they're doing, they're just counting on the prospective
>>> gains to outweigh the prospective losses.  If they're right, then the
>>> spamming will not only continue, it will increase.  (As we've seen:
>>> over and over and over again.)  That's because they don't care about
>>> being professional or responsible or ethical: they only care about
>> profits.
>>> 
>>> So the choice is clear: either make it plain to such "people" (if I
>>> may dignify sociopathic filth with that term) that this is absolutely
>>> unacceptable and that it will have serious, immediate, ongoing negative
>>> financial consequences, or do nothing while the problem escalates
>>> indefinitely.
>>> 
>>>   If you give people the means to hurt you, and they do it, and
>>>   you take no action except to continue giving them the means to
>>>   hurt you, and they take no action except to keep hurting you,
>>>   then one of the ways you can describe the situation is "it isn't
>>>   scaling well".
>>>       --- Paul Vixie, on NANOG
>>> 
>>> ---rsk
> 
> -- 
> Mark Andrews, ISC
> 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
> PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: marka at isc.org