[SC-Help] Re: How to contact somebody sending a complaint.

[Cat]

Benoit Panizzon wrote:

<snip>

> After the complaint we asked our customer why he sent spam. His reply way: 
> This is not Spam. We sent this Email to all of our registered customers. 
> 
> So now I would like to ask the complainer if he is not maybe really a 
> subscriber of that magazine. And thus should not have reported this email as 
> spam as there is a relationship between the email sender and recipient.
> 
> But without his email address I can't contact him, and I can't ask our 
> customer for more data like when and how he did subscribe to that magazine 
> and agree to get email news.

In this case, you should ask the customer to provide proof that he got 
all the addresses on his mailing list through confirmed opt in. You do 
not need to contact the complainer. You only need proof of confirmed opt 
in mailing list practices from your customer. Asking for the spam 
victim's e-mail address only opens up the possibility for abuse by your 
customer and is a serious violation of the spam victim's privacy. This 
is a sore spot for me because I have had clueless ISPs in the past to 
pass on my complaint to the spammer after the spammer claimed that all 
of the e-mail addresses on his mailing list had opted in. You only need 
proof that the customer actually had permission to send e-mail to the 
addresses on his mailing list. All you need for that is copies of opt in 
confirmation.

> Well, maybe it's best just to drop that report and flag it as 'not spam' in 
> Spamcop.

Maybe it's best to further investigate your customer as I said above to 
check whether or not the customer just blindly e-mails every address 
that he receives through his web site or whether he acquired those 
addresses legitimately through confirmed opt in. Claiming that you think 
it's best to just drop reports is a cop out and shows that you don't 
really care to properly investigate whether or not your customer is a 
spammer.

-Cat
  SpamCop user, not an admin