SEELANGS Administrivia - (was Re: Spam and English-Russian ...)

[Alex Rudd]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:22:50 -0600 Michael Peltsman said:
>Some members of this LISTSERV expressed indignation that I have sent
>to each of them a PERSONAL, ONE TIME letter announcing the book that
>should be of interest to any Slavic Scholar or anyone studing
>Russian. They used an as they think offensive and politically correct
>word "spam" to describe information I sent. Obviously their personal
>attitude to the subject matter of the message affected their labeling
>of the information. I expected that a Scholar would know the
>definition of the word "spam", that requires it to be "a mass
>mailing". A personal letter, regardless of whether it is useful or
>not, does not constitute spam.

Dear Mr. Peltsman,

Forgive my addressing this reply to you via SEELANGS, but I believe
this is one instance in which other list members will be at least
somewhat interested in my response.

First, although it is true that "spam" is somewhat of a colloquial
term that has come into common usage, I disagree with you that to
constitute spam a message must have been part of "a mass mailing."
In fact, my view is consistent with Federal law; yours is not.

Whereas "spam" is the slang, the more precise term for the subject
matter of this discussion is Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE).
As of January 1, 2004, Commercial Electronic Mail Messages are
regulated in the United States by an Act of Congress officially
known as the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography
and Marketing Act of 2003," and commonly referred to as the
"CAN-SPAM Act of 2003" (hereinafter "the Act").

I'll refer to the Act several times below, so if anyone would like
to pull it up and read it for themselves, just click on this link
(and you'll need the free Adobe Acrobat PDF reader):

http://tinyurl.com/2pjp9

General information about the Act from the agency charged with
enforcing it can be found here:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm

The Act, at section 3(2), defines commercial electronic mail
message as "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of
which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial
product or service (including content on an Internet website
operated for a commercial purpose).  I think we can all agree that
a message promoting the availability of Pushkin's Secret Journal
for sale constitutes commercial e-mail using that definition.

I could expound at great length about the Act, but I'd rather focus
on a few discrete issues of particular interest to you and to other
SEELANGS subscribers.

FIRST ISSUE:  ADVERTISING ON SEELANGS

As contextual background, it must first be acknowledged that you
have been subscribed to SEELANGS for some time (since October 16,
2002).  In other words, you are no stranger to the list and should
be familiar both with the on-list culture and also with the list
guidelines contained in the Welcome message sent to all new
subscribers.  Among others, one of those guidelines is this one:

--- Begin ---

Advertising on SEELANGS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since only subscribers have the ability to post to SEELANGS,
no outside entity will post advertisements directly to the
list.  From time to time the list owner receives requests
from vendors of slavic-related merchandise to distribute
information about that merchandise to the list membership.
If the list owner determines that the information may be of
interest, he may forward it to the list if the vendor complies
with the following conditions:

The advertisement will:

  o briefly identify the company
  o briefly describe the product(s)
  o NOT contain any price information or dollar amounts
  o request that any interested parties contact the vendor
    directly for further information
  o contain vendor contact information
  o NOT be more than 60 lines of text

List members who wish to advertise businesses or products
in which they have a financial interest are discouraged from
doing so on SEELANGS if the businesses or products have
nothing to do with slavic languages or literature.  If they
do have something to do with slavic languages or literature,
list members are asked to comply with the above guideline.

NOTE:  The above guideline regarding advertising on SEELANGS
does not apply to seminar and conference announcements.
Such announcements may contain dollar amounts and, due to the
occasional inclusion of forms, may exceed 60 lines of text.  If
posting an announcement or including a form, please be sure to
insert your own "Reply-To:" tag in your out-going mail header or
write the list owners for assistance if you do not know how that
is accomplished.

--- End ---

After reviewing all 39 messages you (or Alexander Sokolov on your
behalf) have posted to SEELANGS before today, I did note that the
vast majority of those messages are commercial advertisements.
Thankfully, you never included price information or dollar amounts.
However, on several (though not all) occasions you failed to keep
such posts under 60 lines of text, failed to identify that the
message was being posted by M.I.P. Company, and did not include
your contact information (other than a link to some product on
your website).

Am I greatly disturbed by those infractions?  No.  I do request,
though, that should you ever post another commercial e-mail message
to SEELANGS, that you do it in accordance with the terms of the
above policy.  SEELANGS is administered using the hardware and
software resources of the City University of New York, a publicly-
funded institution.  Posting the occasional message to the list to
advise Slavic scholars of resources that might be of interest to
them can be tolerated, especially given the fact that all
subscribers (should) have read the above guideline and know that
they can expect to receive them.  However, repeated advertising,
especially of the same product or service, and especially when
not in compliance with the above guideline, is really not a good
idea.  It is within my inherent powers as list owner to correct
such a situation, should the need arise.

SECOND ISSUE: HARVESTING E-MAIL ADDRESSES FROM SEELANGS

Next, it appears, both from reports made on SEELANGS and also from
your own post of earlier today, that you have sent commercial
e-mail messages to members of this list, whose e-mail addresses
you obtained by virtue of your seeing them on SEELANGS.  These
messages were admittedly unsolicted, and therefore UCE.  List members
joined this list because they wanted to participate in, or view,
on-line discussions related to the study of Russian and other
Slavic languages and literatures.  They did not join it expecting
that in so doing they were opting-in to receive UCE from you.

The CAN-SPAM Act expressly prohibits what you have been doing.
I'm sure you will be surprised, but your actions are criminal
under the Act.  (Though if you cease and desist such actions
now, I'm sure no one on SEELANGS will inform the Federal
authorities.)

To help you understand in what way what you have been doing is
prohibited, I need to explain just a little bit more of the Act.

First, it does not matter that you are in Minnesota and most of
the rest of us are in other states or in other countries.  The
Act supercedes all state law regulating the transmission of UCE.
It states at section 5(a)(5), that:

   (A) It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission
of any commercial electronic mail message to a protected computer
unless the message provides--
     (i) clear and conspicuous identification that the message
  is an advertisement or solicitation;
     (ii) clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity
  under paragraph (3) to decline to receive further commercial
  electronic mail messages from the sender; and
     (iii) a valid physical postal address of the sender.

You are the person initiating the transmission of the commercial
e-mail message.  The rest of us have "protected computers."  The
Act defines "protected computer" in perinent part as "a computer
which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication,
including a computer located outside the United States that is used
in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or
communication of the United States."

Although you have not sent one of your UCE messages to me, I gather
that the UCE messages you have sent to other members of this list
have not conformed to the above requirements of the Act.

Additionally, please be advised that on behalf of all SEELANGS
subscribers, I am informing you that 1) the harvesting of e-mail
addresses via the SEELANGS list is prohibited and 2) all SEELANGS
subscribers, by virtue of their being subscribed, decline to
receive further commercial electronic mail messages from you OFF-
LIST.  Should any of them receive such a message, you are on
notice that your transmission will violate the Act and subject
you to possible criminal prosecution.  In addition, should any
of them receive such a message and then advise me of that fact
by forwarding me your message as proof, I will ban you from SEELANGS.

I find it interesting that you took umbrage at the fact that some
members of SEELANGS "expressed indignation that youÙ sent to each
of them a PERSONAL, ONE TIME letter announcing the book that should
be of interest to any Slavic Scholar or anyone studing sicÙ Russian."
More than one list member has already written to me off-list about
that.  It seems that the same list member received your letter about
half a dozen times over several months.  According to another list
member, you have been sending UCE for years and have resisted
requests to be removed from your distribution list.

I have already written more than I wanted to write and spent far more
time on this than I had to spend.  The bottom line, Mr. Peltsman, is
that as someone with an interest in Slavic languages and literatures,
you are welcome on SEELANGS.  However, should you continue to use your
list membership inappropriately, you will no longer be welcome.

To everyone else:  I don't want this topic to become a distraction.
Should you feel the need to comment on the list, I won't stop you,
but otherwise, I'd be happy to field comments or questions about any
of the above off-list.

Thank you.

- Alex, list owner of SEELANGS
--
Alex Rudd
List owner e-mail: seelangs-request at listserv.cuny.edu
Personal e-mail: ahrjj at cunyvm.cuny.edu
http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
Any opinion expressed above is not necessarily shared by my employers.

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