Techdirt Supports Everyone's Right Not To Be Bothered
from the oh,-what-fun dept
I just listened to a series of voicemail messages that were left for me, threatening Techdirt with a lawsuit, in response to an article we posted earlier this week. The post was about an article in the NY Times about "spammers". The complaints seemed to be twofold: (1) that I did not understand the original NY Times article and (2) that I was responsible for "private info" being posted to the site. I'm not sure what is illegal about misunderstanding an article. Since we allow anyone to comment on any post anonymously, someone decided to post here the private contact information of some of the people (they refer to themselves as email marketers) discussed in the article. I did not post that info, nor have anything to do with it being posted. Someone (and there are thousands of people who read Techdirt every day, so I couldn't even hazard a guess who did it) decided to do that on their own. As a provider of an open forum, I don't believe we're responsible for the comments. However, while we, at Techdirt, find it ironic that people who make their living sending information to people they haven't requested it get bothered when the same thing is done to them, we do respect every individual's right to privacy and not to be bugged if they prefer not to be. For that reason (and that reason alone), we have removed the private info from those posts. While we absolutely prefer not to do this, we do reserve the right to remove comments that we feel are damaging to any individual or their rights. Because we also believe that it is best to be open about such practices, we have decided to post this explanation for why we have edited those particular comments.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lets spam list the spammers
The difference is, let's put in the NAMES and ADDRESSES of KNOWN SPAMMERS. Tell whoever reads this spam (if anyone does) that they should sign each and every spammer up for some 'free' catalogs and other snail-mail junk mail.
Let the spammers sue; assuming they can find who wrote that killer spam message.
Live by the spam, die by the spam.
Heh-heh-heh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A sad day on techdirt....
With SPAM Assassin, (I know, Mike doesn't like filters,) about 80% of them were automatically rejected, and the rest somehow slipped below my radar. Needless to say, I have no interest in antivirus software (as I don't use Winblows,) and Porn is of little interest (I spend most of my time "hacking", that leaves very little time left for much of anything else,) my home is well financed, and as much as I would like a wife (see above,) I am not interested in any wife who would introduce herself to me via an unsolicited email (read SCAM.)
The fact that these a$$ holes can freely interrupt my life (though I assure you, they don't, as most of them end up in the trash without me even reading them,) making themselves "rich" off of my internet services, with no regard for my privacy or my costs of operation (yes, every email I receive potentially costs me real money,) but then can get upset and threaten lawsuits when their information is exposed to me to use against them (like they use my information against me,) disgusts and infuriates me.
What lawsuit they can hope to level against Techdirt is beyond me, as nothing illegal occurred, but obviously Mike is playing it safe (I would not have.) Then again, I am not a lawyer, and in this day and age, even if I was I wouldn't venture to guess how a judge would rule on this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
Also, I have nothing against spam filters. I use one myself.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
I hope they dont actully file a lawsuit against you guys. Id hate to see your money and time wasted on defanding yourself from something stupid.
Good luck, and great site. Have been coming here for years and your comments are always great.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
Be sure to track all the time you spent thinking about removing their posts, discussing removing their posts, actually removing their posts and writing articles describing why you removed their posts. That way you can sue them for compensation for time wasted.
It's a great way to handle sue-happy people who's response to any situation is "why... you.... you... I'll sue you!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
Did you give any thought to the consequences of your actions?
If we all just went around being kind to people, even if they're jerks, and refusing to become enraged at the slightest insult, and supporting people's rights, even when they don't support ours, it would spell the end of the Internet as we know it.
Think man, think.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
For myself, I feel that if they don't want me to shoot at them, they shouldn't shoot at me. If spammers didn't push their crap onto so many people, their wouldn't be so many wanting to get revenge.
I believe you were scared of their cartooney threat, and so removed the info.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
If someone starts shooting at you, you call the police and get them arrested and locked up. All we need now are some laws enabling us to do the same thing to spammers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A sad day on techdirt....
"Please mister gunsel. Please wait while I ring the police."
(boop beep beep)
(riiiiiiiing)
(BANG BANG)
(THUD)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What Private Info?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
heh...
And, ahem, if anyone *really* wanted to, they could just look up the google cache version of techdirt's censored article.... (sorry, Mike, for pointing that out, but I don't think it's quite fair for a spammer to get bent out of shape when their info is made public.)
Feel free to delete this post.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
heh
It's amazing how spammers whine about their "privacy" being violated yet they think that launching a dictionary attack and bombarding mail servers with spam is ok.
What hypocrites.
Oh, the Google cache still has the information. ;)
What we need are laws that say "You can't sue me for stuff that's on a website, you punk ass!" to counteract these "I'll sue you because of something someone posted!"
Actually, the NY Times posted that a judge threw out a lawsuit against spammers that had their information posted.
HEY SPAMMERS: Don't bug me, I won't bug you. Fair enough? I think so.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It was me. If you want the addres, here's how to f
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Spam Marketing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Standing firmly behind Mike
To the miscreat: go away and bother us no more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Setting a precedent: Privacy for those who invade
Publicly posting a spammer's contact information allows this road to go both ways.
What you just did is to insulate the spammer from experiencing the sour taste of his own medicine.
If he was a decent guy (well ... at least not a spammer), he could thank you for helping him in his spamming activities. In facts, he'll probably just laugh loudly enough to wake up the neiborhood, and celebrate his victory by sending twice as much spam today, since his hardball tactics worked.
He not only will keep spamming, but what you did sets a precedent that he will share with other spammers so they can use it at their advantage when they will threaten other board maintainers like you and their ISP.
Even if I understand your reasons, I really think you made the wrong decision, and I'd appreciate to see it reversed. (promise them to take it down again the day they'll take all our emails down from their spamming lists ;-)
**********
PS: I originally posted the first version of this msg as a reply to the deleted posts, I hope posting it here now won't be considered spam ;-)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]