At 5:45pm last Thursday I was in the midst of wrestling with the next day's editorial, when Andy Sernovitz of GasPedal Ventures called me up out of the blue.
"They've caught Gaven Stubberfield!" he cried joyfully.
Notorious junk emailer Gaven Stubberfield used stolen lists to send some of his slimy offers. I know this because two of these lists were MarketingSherpa's reader file and GasPedal's list, stolen along with at least 10 other publisher's lists in the summer of 2002.
(At the time Andy, I, and Ralph Wilson were the only publishers to come clean and publicly reveal our lists had been stolen, in hopes that other list owners would be educated about the problem and prevention measures. You can learn more at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=213 )
Although I'd contacted the FBI and other law enforcement officials back then, no one was very interested in hearing my story - besides the NY Times, WSJ, and DM News that is.
However, the wind has definitely changed. Everyone from the President, to state attorney generals, to local police are gunning for junk emailers this month.
Here are some links to related stories in the press you might find useful:
-> New York Attorney General to File Suit Against Junk Mailers (Note: this is important for anyone mailing promotions on behalf of third parties to read, and for anyone who runs an affiliate program. Registration required.) http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/technology/18spam.htm
-> Final, complete text of the CAN-SPAM Law, and a link to a quick summary (Note - we'll publish a special issue on this next Tuesday for all our MarketingSherpa readers, so look for it) http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html
By the way - this is our last issue of Best-of Weekly for 2003. I hope you enjoy the holidays, and thanks for your support.
