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Florida Attorney General Spamming?
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-12-28
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Many people see spam email as a vile thing. Many legislators and other elected officials rail against spam as one of the evils of the modern world. It is. Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist (R-FLA) has taken up the cause against spamming but it appears he may be a spammer himself.
A quick trip to the dictionary revealed Webster's thoughts on spam:
Unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses
Barring any strange Monty Python sketches, this seems to be an established definition. As with many elected officials, Crist's office has a place to sign up for newsletters to the AG's office. This isn't an uncommon practice. It would seem though, that Mr. Crist has utilized that same mailing list as a source of re-election campaign emails.
The campaign emails are going out to people who signed up for the AG list. One would think these two lists should remain exclusive of one another. According to a story in the St. Petersburg Times, this is just the activity his re-election campaign was doing. They point out one woman who received the email and she's a Democrat. Crist is a Republican.
While Crist's political director claims it isn't spam, the emails are clearly unsolicited and sent out to a large number of addresses. While not touching on possible conflict of interest issues, this would certainly be a spamming incident. While spam is usually commercial, there's no rule saying it has to be.
Sophos wrote a statement on the issue suggesting this represents an inherent flaw in the CAN-SPAM act.
"Although the CAN-SPAM act has helped catch some spammers, and driven some to base their operations overseas, it has an obvious flaw: it relies on people to 'opt-out' of receiving spam rather than 'opt-in' in the first place," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant.
"Regardless of whether his email campaign is legal or not, there is no doubt that this has backfired for the attorney general and he has drifted into political hot water by annoying internet users with his unsolicited emails. We would call upon everyone to not just follow the letter of the law, but to rise above it and adopt higher standards when it comes to email communications."
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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