Cease-fire

MAPS agrees that Yesmail’s no spammer; suit on hold LITTLE MORE than a week after it erupted, the great war between e-mailer Yesmail.com and Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC (MAPS) over alleged spamming ended in a truce.

The two sides agreed on July 25 to put the litigation filed by Yesmail July 13 on hold pending further discussion. This means Yesmail will not be listed on the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL) of spammers.

Why the sudden turnaround, when MAPS had stated that it was looking forward to a court fight?

“Once we started peeling back the covers on this, it turned out that yesmail.com’s stated business interests and the policies they were willing to put in place made them ineligible for listing on the Realtime Blackhole List,” said Paul Vixie, a managing partner of Redwood City, CA-based MAPS in a statement.

In an interview, Vixie said that MAPS wants a confirmed or verified opt-in protocol from the industry. “Opt-in that isn’t verified is extremely abuseable so there’s just no way for the e-mail industry to continue without verified opt-in,” he said.

At presstime, the two sides were working on agreement that they hoped would “represent a very strong statement from both of us regarding policies and practices for consumer permission and protection in the e-mail marketing industry,” said David Tolmie, CEO of Yesmail, in a statement. The details of that deal will “outline a model for all companies in the electronic marketing field,” he added.

Meanwhile, a temporary restraining order issued by a Federal court against MAPS, was lifted by mutual consent. The order prevented MAPS from listing yesmail.com on the RBL.

The suit marked the first legal challenge to MAPS, an Internet watchdog group that was actively been seeking litigation to legitimize its actions. (A link on its Web site reads “How to Sue MAPS.”). However, this may not have been the suit it wanted.

In its complaint yesmail.com charged that MAPS had announced it was going to list yesmail.com on its RBL. At issue was yesmail.com’s refusal to adhere to MAPS’ double opt-in protocol pending further study, according to the complaint. Yesmail.com offered to consider switching to the double opt-in protocol, but explained that it would need time to study the business and technical implications of the switch.

Yesmail.com termed the spammer label “a false, misleading and demeaning statement about the quality, nature and character of yesmail’s goods and services.” And it argued that an RBL listing would “prove devastating to yesmail and seriously threaten its continued existence.”

The complaint added that MAPS “has gone overboard in its misdirected and over-zealous efforts.”

However, with the agreement MAPS has conceded that yesmail.com’s particular method of opt-in is acceptable and that MAPS cannot dictate a requirement of double-opt-in to avoid landing on the RBL. On its Web site, http://www.mail-abuse.org, MAPS touts opt-in as its method of choice and states that opt-out violates its fundamental principles that “all communications must be consensual.”

An unknown number of firms have found their Web sites shut down and their e-mails blocked after being listed on the RBL, which began operations in mid-1997. The RBL lists about 3,200 alleged spammers and is queried by an estimated 20,000 Internet service providers, corporations, government agencies and individuals.

MAPS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing the Internet from being abused by spammers. Both staff members and the number of products MAPS offer are growing rapidly. Paid staff has increased from four last November to 16. Volunteers now total about 24 compared to six 10 months ago, said Kelly Thompson, RBL project manager.

Volunteers are required to devote a minimum of 5 hours each week working on assigned projects and are asked to commit to working on projects for at least 90 days. Volunteers have to be at least 18 years of age and must adhere to a number of policies including confidentiality and non-disclosure of internal discussions and activities. The majority of the volunteers are known as SWAT or the Spam Wrangler’s Action Team. The team handles spam targeted directly at staff and board members so the staff can concentrate on incoming complaints.

The group is headed by managing partners Vixie and David Rand. Vixie is also vice president of Metro Media Fiber Networks and founded Men in Black Helicopters, a network service provider, which was purchased earlier this year by Metro Media, Thompson said.

There have also been some staff changes at MAPS. Nick Nicholas last month resigned his position as staff director of policy and communications and spokesman for the group. The decision reportedly came after internal disagreements over the future and mission of the organization. Sources said that he was considered to be somewhat more moderate in his positions than others in the organization.

The RBL service is free to those interested in querying it. The group is partially funded by Vixie and Rand and partially funded by for-pay services such as MAPS’ consulting group and its Instant Response Service (IRS) that subcontracts out the abuse handling functions of an Internet Service Provider, Thompson said. “One of the reasons why we are doing consulting and IRS is so that the [RBL] service can remain free,”Thomspon said.

Yesmail.com was founded in 1995 as WebPromote. The firm has provided Internet marketing services to more than 5,000 clients over the last five years. The YesMail Network provides access to 11 million permission-based e-mail subscribers. In March the company became majority-owned by CMGI Inc., Andover, MA, in a stock-for-stock merger. Yesmail.com revenue for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, was $8.2 million, a 114% sequential increase over the $3.8 million reported in the third quarter. Total revenue for the year ended Dec. 31 was $15.6 million compared to $4.6 million in 1998.

Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC has forced the shutdown of an e-mail append service operated by Walter Karl, an infoUSA company under the Donnelley Marketing umbrella.

MAPS considers such services spam support sites, said MAPS Realtime Blackhole List project manager Kelly Thompson. “We are pleased with the outcome.”

Sources said that other firms offering e-mail append services are also being closely watched by the Redwood City, CA-based Internet watchdog group.

E-mail appends operate by guessing at likely e-mail addresses and then send test messages looking for a match. Those that do not get returned are considered valid addresses and are added to compiled databases. “It’s a tool designed to send mail to people who at the very least have not indicated a desire to receive it,”Thompson said. “That pretty well fits the criteria of spam support services.”

According to Thompson, MAPS received several nominations last spring to list Walter Karl on its RBL for offering the append service. One of the nominations came from an individual who had been on the Walter Karl Web site and noticed the service.

Thompson said MAPS contacted officials at Walter Karl requesting that it modify its service to not send unsolicited e-mail to those who had not asked to receive it.The two were unable to come to a resolution and MAPS forced the issue by listing a group of four Internet Protocol addresses registered to Walter Karl on its RBL. Calls to Walter Karl were not returned.

Walter Karl responded by shuttering its service. “They decided that rather than modify the product they would just stop offering it,” Thompson said. “That is an acceptable resolution as well.”

Once the service closed Walter Karl was removed from the RBL.