Randolph Thanks to the assistance of Hetzner Africa and Internet Solutions, as well as other people with whom I am not acquainted, a local company who sent out a mailshot (which I received more than once and therefore constitutes spam) has been reprimanded.
Said company, in one of the many emails between Hetzner, myself and the spammer company, asked “what drives this gentleman?” when referring to me, and the ruthless manner in which I attacked them for sending me unsolicited email.
Well, the answer is simple: I don’t like spam, and I’ll do whatever I can to eliminate it. If just one company learns their lesson, perhaps they can pay the lesson forward to others.
To the company who sold my email address(es) to this spammer, I’m going to find out who you are, and report you for theft of personal information (see bottom of this post). Even if the cops do nothing, or I emigrate before then, I’m making a stand for my rights. If I (and similarly-minded people) don’t, we’ll end up with the draconian laws of the UK and USA, where the government can do anything they like to you, without needing a reason.
For the record, here is my complaint to the spammer, after being told that it wasn’t in fact spam. In the interest of good cheer and all that, I’m not using the name of the spammer here.
Dear [name withheld]
Your email refers.
1. The invitations were from [big name in spam], not [name in the small print at the bottom]. This is deceptive behaviour.
2. Your unsubscribe link does not work in Google Chrome, no matter how many times I click it. It is broken.
3. I don’t care if other people appreciate your invitations. I do not. Your "invitation" is by definition an offer to sell "unwanted services or products", and since you’ve admitted to sending the invitation to "thousands of recipients", you are diluting the very exclusivity of the offer. Add to that the fact that you sent me several invitations (albeit to different addresses), you have lowered the barrier to entry of your "club", and devalued the exclusivity even further. My legal background may be rusty, but I can spot deceptive behaviour right there.
4. Who are your business partners, so that I can contact them about sharing my information? Please provide this information within two working days from date of this email, per the appropriate section, sub-section and paragraph of the ECT Act of 2002.
5. I have listed myself and my email addresses on the DMA’s Do Not Contact list, amongst several others. The addresses to which you sent email are only available through website scraping. If you bothered to check, the [scraped email address] address is ONLY available for support queries regarding my software. If you also bothered to check, you’d note that e-llusion.biz and itsol.co.za are the same company. But I know you didn’t bother to check, because I have two unsolicited emails in my inbox, using up my valuable bandwidth, disk space, memory and time to respond to. You simply purchased a list of email addresses known to exist, without comparing it against existing "Do Not Contact" lists, and send out a mailshot. This is unacceptable.
My complaint is therefore justified, and I will maintain my position with your upstream service provider.
Sincerely
Randolph Potter
Of course Hetzner got involved today, when point 4 above went unfulfilled. As it turns out, a company called “MLD” sold them the information. When I find out more information, I’ll post it here.