Legal Question in Technology Law in Michigan

Publicly Posting E-Mail Address on Website

Is there any legal action that can be taken to have e-mail addresses that were posted on a website without permission removed? About a dozen e-mail addresses from employees at my company have been posted on a website within a list of supposed spammers. The author of the website claims to have posted the list in an effort to help deter the practice of spammers harvesting e-mail addresses from websites. He calls the list ''spam bait''. Since from the time our employees addresses have been in the list our e-mail system has been bombarded with spam. We are a small engineering company. Our company NEVER spams nor does any of these employees. So we are being falsely included within this list. I have sent e-mail to the people that run the website asking them to remove our corporate e-mail addresses from their website and have not gotten any reply nor have the addresses been removed. What course of action can we take?

Thanks in advance!!


Asked on 1/27/03, 7:52 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Irving M. Weiner Weiner & Burt, P.C.

Re: Publicly Posting E-Mail Address on Website

You need help on two fronts: 1) IT; and 2)IP (intellectual property). First, tackle the IT by contacting Tek3 Data Services, Inc. at 888-372-TEK3 or [email protected]. Then, I can address the IP.

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Answered on 1/27/03, 8:54 pm
Lawrence Graves Coolidge & Graves PLLC

Re: Publicly Posting E-Mail Address on Website

You're already going to have problems no matter what actions you take at this point. The problem is not legal but practical:

Once ANY spammer adds your e-mail address to a list and the address fails to generate an error-on-delivery message, the spammer codes your address as valid. If anyone actually responds to a spam message, the spammer codes the address as even more desirable. Spammers sell and/or exchange their lists with other direct marketers, and the buyers pay a premium for validated addresses. Once your address has entered the system, your spam intake volume will increase for a period of months and then remain relatively constant for years thereafter. Nothing can reverse this process.

Accordingly, even if you succeed in getting your addresses removed from the offending Web site, you will not remedy the spam problem. Changing your address is the only certain cure.

Best wishes,

LDWG

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Answered on 1/28/03, 8:37 am


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