Why Is Peter Ueberroth Spamming Voters?

from the what-is-he-thinking? dept

No link on this one, as it appears the press hasn't picked up on the story yet, but this ridiculous California recall election has led to political spamming. On Friday I received a spam from the campaign of Peter Ueberroth. I was not amused - nor was I influenced to vote for Mr. Ueberroth. I was, however, influenced not to vote for anyone who thinks that spamming is an effective way to communicate with the voting public. I most certainly did not sign up for any such list, and since I've heard from a number of others who also received the spam, it seems that the Ueberroth campaign wasn't particularly selective in figuring out who to spam. Are politicians really this clueless? Anyway, in trying to figure out who to complain to (other than to Verio - where the spam came from, and whose Terms of Service this clearly violates) I discovered that the Ueberroth website doesn't actually include any email addresses - suggesting that no one involved with the campaign (gasp!) wants to get spammed. Nice to see that they don't extend the same courtesy to the rest of us.
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  1. identicon
    aNonMooseCowherd, 2 Sep 2003 @ 2:04am

    No Subject Given

    Are you sure it wasn't one of his 134 opponents (or a fan of one of them) trying to make him look bad?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    LittleW0lf, 2 Sep 2003 @ 12:14pm

    Ridiculous?

    this ridiculous California recall election

    While I agree that having 200 candidates is ridiculous, I have a hard time believing that the recall process itself is. After all, despite what the media and the political pundits say, the recall process is written into the state constitution, and it is entirely legal to recall any representative who fails to provide what the voters want, (and not what special interests want.)

    There is a large percentage of Californians who believe that our current governor has lied, cheated, and stolen his way into the office, and many who voted for Mr. Davis last year felt that Mr. Davis put us where we are now, and didn't tell us anything about it until after he was elected.

    Had he been up front about things, and had he offered plans to fix the problem, he may not have been elected (I still would have voted for him,) but at least we wouldn't have felt cheated like we did now.

    Of course, had Mr. Davis taken the entire sum Oracle had given him as a bribe for buying 3 times the number of Oracle licenses we needed, then we probably wouldn't have been here now, would we?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Helden, 4 Sep 2003 @ 11:11am

    Ueberroth Spam?

    I went to Pete's official site & have received campaign updates ever since. I'm wondering if this is what you mean by spam?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Issueguy, 4 Sep 2003 @ 11:32am

    Ueberroth Spam

    Please tell me you aren't basing your vote for Governor based on receiving an unsolicited email. Some candidates, rather than taking special interest money, are finding creative and inexpensive ways to reach voters. I urge you to take a look at his record of accomplishment before dismissing his candidacy. California needs a non-partisan problem-solver like Mr. Ueberroth.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    suzi, 4 Sep 2003 @ 5:57pm

    Ueberroth spam

    I received spam from him and am just as disgusted by it as you. Several other bloggers have written about it as well. I called his campaign office to complain. I got voice mail and left a message but no call back. I don't know how they got my email address either. I had never been to his sight. My guess is that they purchased lists from spam organizations.
    Low low low!
    His campaign organizers should know better in this timeframe where people are up outraged by spam. If they are not smart enough to realize that, then they are not smart enough to run the state IMO.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    suzi, 4 Sep 2003 @ 6:16pm

    No Subject Given

    Ueberroth's site has a form you can use to send emails, but you are right, no email address. Here is someone else thinking about contacting the media about the spam: http://www.marginalone.com/2003_08_31_archive.html#106240823913272761

    Read comments on the first post about it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Steve Koppelman, 9 Sep 2003 @ 5:53pm

    Bob Graham might have tried it too

    I got a message that sure seemed to be from Bob Graham's presidential campaign, on a POP account that I haven't used for much of anything in years--apart from two old newsletters and spme password-recovery emails, all it gets otherwise is spam. 200 or so pieces a day. I followed the trail and it started looking even more like spam. Adding to the fun, I don't think I've ever been a registered Democrat anywhere, and I'm a fairly recent transplant to the good senator's state of Florida. Maybe his campaign hit everyone who's ever sent an e-petition his way. I don't know.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    w.h., 10 Sep 2003 @ 5:51pm

    Not a joe job

    Not a joe job.

    The spam is quite heavily linked back into his official website. It would have been hard for him to claim that it was somebody else.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Sep 2003 @ 12:59pm

    No Subject Given

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Steve Koppelman, 12 Sep 2003 @ 7:58am

    More from Graham

    I got another message from Graham yesterday, this one even more suspicious: it paired my e-mail address with a name. It's the name of someone I know, who has never been a user of the address in question.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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