My word, how things have changed since I was a boy. I grew up in a world where “gay” meant happy and “queer” meant odd. Sex was something missionaries did and being offensive was a military maneuver. Spamming meant doubling the portion of meat in your sandwich and ranting was something Enoch Powell did. On reflection, I guess I led a rather unremarkable boyhood playing knock-down-ginger and breaking windows along the privet hedged byways of suburban London.
At the time I could hardly appreciate what a spirited woman Mary Whitehouse was or the extent to which she was a champion for my moral wellbeing. Mary Whitehouse campaigned tirelessly to help keep the Britain of my youth decent, a society free from the ravages of television and radio violence, homosexuality, pornography, foul language and avant-garde comedy. Basically, if you produced tasteless rubbish like Top of the Pops or the Naked Civil Servant Mary would haul you off to court and sue the pants off you.
Yesterday I took a call from a rather bemused client. Apparently, as part of a direct sourcing project, one Daniel L. Balsam had received an HTML email telling him that his background and experience matched the profile of my client’s open position. The email explained the opportunity in detail and invited the said Daniel L. Balsam to apply for the job. To all intents and purposes the mailing came from my client, employer-branded and all, although my company created and sent the piece out as part of an integrated sourcing strategy. Rather than apply for the job, this man decided to sue my client for “spamming” him. I told my client that this happening is as rare as being struck by lightening and that I had the data to prove it. I do.
Two points:
1. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if someone posts their resume on the internet they are advertising themselves and inviting the attention of recruiters. As I explained to my client, this blowhard sounds like a kook to me but I would try and find which board the offending email address was sourced from.
2. As is my habit, I googled first. When I found Mad Dan’s web site I said to myself, “Ah-ha, a kook!” but, you know what? The guy has every right to sue every email marketer under the sun if he feels that strongly about it. Let the courts decide who is right and who is wrong. Abiding by the court’s ruling is a small price to pay for a society where right-minded people can go about their legitimate business.
Interestingly, the decision to file this suit as a small claim appears to be more tactical than practical on the plaintiff’s part – certainly not a venue that draws the kind of attention to put this matter in the court of public opinion – but the convenience of settling out of court would itself be an injustice. So, what to do?
Mary Whitehouse fought tirelessly for the traditional values she honestly believed in. She used the courts to wage war on what she viewed as a degenerating society. Personally, I think she was out of touch with reality, a self-opinionated and romantic fool. I would not put balsa-head in the same category as Mary Whitehouse though, far from it. While Desperate Dan may be out of touch with reality, Mary Whitehouse never profited from taking the moral high-ground. So, Mary, rest in peace; PayPal-Danny – the hapless marketer – we’ll see you in court.
My guess is this will be dismissed because the email more than likely will be found compliant with the CAN SPAM act. It was not misleading (he provided his email address in his resume so a recruiter has a reasonable expectation that he wishes to be contacted about employment opportunities or else he wouldn’t publically display A) his resume and B) his contact information). It had a legitimate return email address not a fake one, and he probably only received this message once. Not to mention, of course, that the message is not selling any commercial products. In my opinion this is legitimate professional communication. All Mad Dan needs to do is say “please don’t contact me” or better yet take his resume down.
My question to Mad Dan is this.. if the same unsolicited email he received was sent from a company where he DID want to work, would he still call that same message spam?
Shally - great points. Stay tuned. There is more to this story than meets the eye.
Amitai
Re: Shally, I think Mad Dan’s point is that since the headers are malformed/forged, CAN-SPAM does not supersede state law, which in this case is stricter.
Still, this strikes me as being perilously close to barratry. I suspect the website he posted his resume on had something in the T&C about allowing clients to contact him. Someone as familiar with the law and angry about spam as the mad hatter must have a good reason for putting his resume & email out in the open like that. If he’s not looking for a job why is he leaving his resume up? Maybe he is trolling for suckers. Or maybe not. But useful lines of questioning, I think.
Although the more relevant question may be whether the money he wins from suing spammers is sufficient to pay for the blood pressure meds he must need if he gets this stressed over such small beer.
Alleged spammers, Colin, alleged. As for the headers they were exactly as they should have been, although you are right, that is one of his bones of contention.
I wonder if this person is YOUR Mad Dan?
“Mad Dan” here. Yes, really. I just came across this blog and I thought I’d respond with the FACTS of what happened. Amitai Givertz tells a highly misleading story.
1. California Pizza Kitchen hired a company in Florida called Recourse Communications Inc. to send email to fill open positions.
2. I did have my resume posted online on a couple jobsites when I lived in Los Angeles. I removed that resume sometime in April or May 2005, and with that any permission I had given to contact me re: jobs was revoked. I never re-posted the resume.
3. A YEAR later, I begain getting email from RCI advertising jobs for CPK in Los Angeles. Because the emails specified LA positions, obviously they were coming from the old resume that had gone down a year before.
4. The first 3 emails were legitimate.
5. Then I opted out.
6. Then I got confirmation that I had opted out and that I wouldn’t receive any more email.
7. And then I DID get a 4th email. Shally, sending email after a person opts out violates CAN-SPAM. Email that’s unsolicited — like the 4th one — is spam.
8. This 4th email purported to come from an actual individual at RCI, whom I will not name here to protect her privacy. I actually tracked her down. Turns out she had left RCI a MONTH before that 4th email was sent. So the email headers that SAID she sent it are obviously falsified, because she DIDN’T send any emails after she left the company. Colin, you’re absolutely right, under 15 USC 7707(b), CAN-SPAM does not preempt state laws to the extent that state laws prohibit falsity or deception in any part of the email. And, Colin, as I said above, I DIDN’T leave my resume up. I took it down a year before! And Recruitomatic, if an email says that Joe Blow sent it, but Joe Blow didn’t, that’s a FALSE HEADER.
9. At trial, the representative from CPK falsely claimed that I had opted in to receive these emails by posting my resume on jobwarehouse.com. Except, I never did post my resume at jobwarehouse.com. I had never even HEARD of jobwarehouse.com. I suspect jobwarehouse.com was just trying to build up its own database, and spidering resumes from hotjobs, monster, etc.
10. Even if I had granted permission to send me email originally, that permission was revoked when I removed my resume from the sites where I DID post it, and that permission was AGAIN revoked after I opted out. And yet there was a fourth email…
So, that’s the truth of it.
Dan: Thank you for posting your comment.
To restate my position:
“The guy has every right to sue every email marketer under the sun if he feels that strongly about it. Let the courts decide who is right and who is wrong. Abiding by the court’s ruling [case 817845] is a small price to pay for a society where right-minded people can go about their legitimate business.”
Two asides:
1. Have you considered suing JobWarehouse for “scraping” your resume? I see you reference WSACorp on your site as a case in point.
2. Why when visiting your site why did warnings pop up indicating that you had attempted to install spyware/Trojans? Is that legal?
When all is said and done, Dan, I understand we all have to make a living. If your chosen path is to sue “spammers,” so be it. I am only grateful that - unlike many of those you have targeted - CPK were principled enough to make the trek to court - and win - not taking the path of least resistance, paying you to simply go away.
Good luck.
Yes, I considered suing Jobwarehouse.com. But they’re in Florida, which means such an action would have to be in superior court, not small claims. I decided for one such infraction, superior court isn’t worth it. I have no problem bringing claims in superior court, but I prioritize which ones go there. Besides, such an action would be barred at this point by doctrine of res judicata.
I never put spyware/trojans/viruses onto my website. I am informed that someone in Korea hacked into a NUMBER of websites hosted by Ipowerweb. I don’t even know HOW to put spyware/trojans/viruses onto a website. But I deleted the corrupted page and reposted the correct page after I found out about this.
Yes, CPK won its case. By lying and claiming that I had opted into Jobwarehouse.com. And, as a point of procedure, CPK did not allow me to see this information before trial started, which violates rules of small claims court.
Hey there, Mad Dog, I feel your pain, I really do. Look, e-mail marketing is important. Yes, I agree with it wholeheartedly. The problems that I personally have seen is when the Opt out is not being respected.
I receive about 300 emails a Day! No exaggeration. It is a royal pain in the arse! So, what really get’s my blood boiling is when I receive emails from some idiots who have about 2000 email addresses, that send me candidates and jobs that have NOTHING to do with the industry I recruit in.
Well, that really doesn’t hurt, really, the insult to injury came when after I asked them to REMOVE me in bolded, Red letters from their lists, they responded back with several more emails that said –
Karen, I know you said REMOVE ME from your list (yes this was with the bolded red letters) but can you please help us fill these following positions, or look at these ‘wonderful’ candidates.
These idiots were sending me about 30 emails a day. Okay.. to me, that is obnoxious. So I did end up reporting them. Hey, I did give them several warnings.. even called the idiots.. But those emails kept on comming..
So, my question, when is too much too much, and when do we acknowldege the please remove?
Oh what tangled webs the Internet weaves.
It’s obvious this kook has only one goal in mind and that is money.
He could care less about the spam he receives. In fact his own website says he’s a former marketer himself.
I could respect his position if I wasn’t convinced in his ultimate goal here.
This had bloodsucker written all over it.
Fred,
You are clearly mistaken. I tired of asking spammers nicely to stop spamming — to no avail. I receive thousands of spam a day advertising porn, penis enlargement pills, stocks, etc. The only way to make them pay attention is to shift the cost back onto the spammer (and the people who hire them.)
I have my resume on my web site. This is for relevant jobs, not jobs making pizzas, or resume writing services, or resume spamming services. I don’t want a job making or delivering pizzas.
Hello,
Mad Dan is threatening to sue me as well. I didn’t spam him but someone did using a vulnerable script on my site.
He wants me to pay to keep him from suing, but I have been advised by counsel that it would be unenforceable and he could still sue me.
However, I don’t have the funds to fight this as I am a college student and my site makes little to no income.