Anastrophe's Official Policy Statement, Acceptable Use Policies, and
Terms and Conditions Statement.
The anastrophe mailservers are running RBL, which blocks a
goodly portion of the worst of the worst spam out there. It's not
perfect, we still get a pretty good share of crud, but at least the
most recalcitrant spammers out there don't get through.
Regarding anastrophe's use of the RBL. To prove a point, I'm engaged
in a battle of wits with an individual armed with a plastic spoon, who
believes that since he doesn't like the RBL, nobody else should either
(see this and
this ). I applaud that, since it's a free
country, and he's free to think whatever he wants. However, he's not
free to force people to share his opinion; and of course, he can't,
which I believe angers him no end. Since this lack of control of other
people appears to drive him batty, I'm taking the following steps, to
see if he'll step up the challenge of acting in an ethical
manner. Below, I'll be following his demands to the letter - and I'll
be including my counter arguments as well. By taking these steps, I
will have complied with his demands completely, in both a documentary
and evidenciary manner, and I will have also exercised *my* right to
say - after a fashion - that he's full of jicama. Here goes:
His first demand is that use of the RBL be plainly visible on the main
page. Check out the main page, and you'll see it's there.
His second demand is that we mention that we are not obligated to use
the RBL, and that our use is voluntary and not mandated by any duly
constituted authority. Absolutely! We chose to apply the RBL, which is
a privilege any individual or business has. Nobody forced us to use
it, we wanted to use it, since it works pretty well overall!
Third, he demands that we mention that the RBL is being sued for it's
practices. Duly noted. Since anybody can sue anyone or any entity at
any time for any thing or any reason, that's about par for the course
in America. Mr. Cranky pants could sue anastrophe if he wanted. He
could sue me for having a picture of myself with long hair on these
pages! It's true. There are no restrictions on anyone's ability to
sue in this, a free country.
The next demand is that we list the consequences of our use of the
RBL. We must state that while some unwanted email may be blocked, it
is also quite possible that my customers "will" (actually, "may") not
be able to exchange email with some friends, family, and business
acquantances because of our use of the RBL. Yes, it's true. Legitimate
email might be blocked. However, having employed the RBL in production
for several years now, I've only had one proven instance of this
occurring. And in that case, it was easily resolved by the correspondent
whose ISP was blocked (that is, the ISP stopped being a spam
haven). All of my own personal and business email - all 7,000+
messages per month that I receive! - go through my RBL'ed
mailservers. I've never had a problem communicating with anyone due to
it. Not once. Add that up - 7K messages a month, been like that for
two years now, easily. In my own email, just one person, 168,000
messages, without a single failure. You do the math. The only people
affected or inconvenienced by the RBL are the spammers. Mr. Cranky
pants may disagree - which is of course his right!
The next demand is one that was tacked onto the end of the previous
one. It's a real slippery one, rather sleazy, designed to make it so
that nobody can comply with his demands if they disagree with him. But
of course, I'm smarter than my interlocutor, so he's going to lose
again: The demand is "You may not state that most providers do the
same (they do not)". How's that for slick! If I were to make that
statement, no gold star for me - regardless of whether it were true or
not. So, I won't make that statement. But I do question it. I honestly
don't know how many providers use the RBL - I'd bet Mr. Cranky pants
doesn't actually know either. But in any case, this demand has been
complied with.
The next demand is that we "may not mention that commercial email is
forbidden by law unless your state has an active law on it's books
(California and Washington state do not)." Well, I'm happy to comply
with that, because it's true. Commercial email isn't
forbidden. Perfectly legal. And by the same token, BLOCKING commercial
email is also perfectly legal. I'm required to mention that there is
no Federal law against commercial email. No problem with that
either. The fewer stinking federal laws there are, the better, we have
far too much government intrusion in our lives as it is. I'm required
not to convey the impression (there's another slippery, weasely way to
prevent compliance with the demands), either in words or by the
omission thereof, that all commercial email is illegal. Heaven
forfend! I would never say that, since it's just plain silly. If all
commercial email were illegal, how would anyone do business? I
personally have no desire to see commercial email made illegal. Here's
more compliance with the endless litany of requirements to get the
gold star - i'm beginning to wonder if this guy was an author of the
tax code, he's so hell-bent on making sure there are no "loopholes". I
must state - and I will freely state - that it is perfectly legal for
ANY business to advertise it's product or services via email, and the
RBL, and our use thereof, does not make it otherwise. And again,
complete agreement. I'll also add, that it is perfectly legal for ANY
business to BLOCK that advertising using the RBL. Lawsuits are
irrelevant - there is no law that says I can't run the RBL.
I'm required to mention when I first started to use the RBL, so that
my customers will have some idea of how long we have been blocking
some portion of their email, with or without having previously told
them. I began running the RBL on the anastrophe mailserver well before
August 31, 1999, which is the MTIME of the current rblsmtpd
program. This was before there were any customers on this system other
than myself.
I'm required to state why I feel that decisions regarding THEIR (my
customers) email cannot be made by my customers themselves and, thus,
why I must make those decisions for them. Okey dokey! I don't feel
that my customers can't make decisions regarding their email. I do
feel that I - as a free person - have the right to run my mailserver
any way I choose. Since there is no government requirement mandating
access to the internet for all individuals, and since nobody has a gun
to anyone's head with regard to use of my service, I'm fully within my
privileges to do so. If any of my customers should ever have a problem
exchanging email with any person on the net that they wish, I'll be
delighted to assist them in remedying that. Since the issue has come
up only once in the exchange of millions and millions of email
messages through the mailservers I run (approx 2 million messages per
month!), it's just simply a non-issue. The only people being affected
by our use of the RBL are the spammers. boo hoo. I'm also required to
state why I didn't notify my customers here about use of the RBL
previously. The reason, again, is that it's a non-issue. It's not
important. Nobody has been negatively affected by it, so notifying
people of something that hasn't affected them just isn't particularly
pressing. I'm making the notification here, again, simply to comply
with the tinpot fascist's demands - and note, I have indeed complied!
the last demands have to do with the statements being accessible via a
clear link from the main page - already complied with, and that these
detailed statements be reiterated in our AUP and Terms and Conditions,
which this page is, so that's complied with as well.
So, herein, I've complied, to the letter, with each and every one of
Mr. Cranky pant's demands. Now, frankly, I still don't expect that
I'll see the little 'star' next to our entry on his 'list of
shame'. Why? Because he'll change the rules again after he reads
this. That's how he works. He'll add a further disclaimer, probably
along the lines of "you may not in any way contradict the statements
that i've demanded you place on your pages. you must give the overt
impression that you fully and completely agree with me". Again, this
is the nature of the control freak - he needs to control others, at
all costs. He will never admit that he's wrong, he'll simply change
the rules again, to give the appearance that he holds 'the high
ground', because nobody out there can comply with his rules. Heck,
five'll get you ten, he'll just remove any mention or option of
getting the 'star'. Well, sorry chief, what really happens is that you
lose in the long run. Just like your fascist little policy on your
site that prohibits your customers from advertising or encouraging
people to use other ISP's (talk about a need to control people!),
those who try to control others will always lose in the end, because
doing so only makes you the controlled one - controlled by your
paranoia, and your powerlessness. I hope you find peace some day,
baby, cuz you are never going to control me.
Oh, in case anyone might be wondering if Mr. Cranky pants might be
some courageous freedom-fighter, battling the big bad evil RBL
strictly on ideological grounds, bzzt, sorry, thanks for
playing. Mr. Cranky pants is ranting about the RBL simply because he's
listed! Yup, once a sleazy spam-enabler, always a sleazy spam-enabler,
that's my belief. I've no tolerance for providers who refuse to take
responsibility for spam referencing or emanating from their network. I
hope he goes belly-up. Actually, I take that back. I hope he sees the
light and learns to act as a responsible internet provider. But I'm
not holding my breath. (
see
evidence here )
Addendum, 08apr01 - Well, as the following shows, I was right -
Mr. Cranky pants is incapable of ethical discourse or actions. This is
from his 'list of shame':
"anastrophe.com (Paul, you're right about one thing - in this small
corner of the world, we make the rules, and we can change 'em. Don't
get your hopes up)"
There you have it in a nutshell. What a pity!
The saga continues, 08apr01 - Ah, the ways and wiles of the
pathologically unethical person. Mr. Cranky pants has once again taken
the weasel's way out. Now, his page is listing a little skull symbol
with "RBL" across it next to three sites on the list, ours
included. Next to our entry, it states, "(we think this is a suitable
symbol for such a dictatorial site)". He makes demands, he changes the
rules when the demands are met, we meet the new demands, he changes
the rules yet again. And _we're_ dictatorial! So, we are still
awaiting a truly honest, ethical demonstration from this pathetic
little man. All he'd have to do is put ze leetle star next to our name
- perhaps a six pointed star would be appropriate, to identify us as
yuden (my wife is jewish!). Then, when he takes control of the world,
it'll be easy to identify us as sub-human, and dispensable (I just had
to make the necessary reference to nazis, you can't have a decent
online flamewar without it! ;^)
The only other policy of note is that everybody must be very nice to
everybody else here. Users failing to abide by this policy will be tickled.
Last updated 08apr01 17:41:33 PDT