Spam King Alan Ralsky Gets Four Years In Jail

from the how's-that-house-looking-now? dept

Remember Alan Ralsky? The "spam king" came to be well known online in 2002 after agreeing to a profile in the Detroit Free Press, where he bragged about all the spamming he did and the huge house it had bought him. The folks on Slashdot decided to do something about Ralsky, and started signing him up for all sorts of snail mail marketing offers, so his real life mailbox was overflowing with ads. The humor-impaired Ralsky apparently couldn't see the irony, saying he was going to sue the people involved. He never seemed to actually get around to that. Instead, while it took quite some time, law enforcement started investigating Ralsky. While he had loudly insisted that the CAN SPAM law wouldn't impact him, the FBI disagreed. Last year, he was finally indicted. Earlier this year he entered a guilty plea and has now been sentenced to four years in jail for his spamming and fraud activities -- reported in the same Detroit Free Press that ran that original profile of him. Maybe he should have avoided bragging about the mansion that spam built.

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Sanford Wallace Loses Again; Owes Facebook $711 Million

from the good-luck-collecting dept

Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, of course, was the original "spam king" back in the 1990s. Despite his claim to have reformed at one point, he apparently has been spamming various social networks and advertising spyware. Back in 2004, the FTC investigated him and fined him $4 million. Last year, MySpace won a $234 million judgment against him. Wallace responded by disappearing. At one point, even his lawyer couldn't find him. Earlier this year, when Facebook sued him for spamming their users as well, it seemed unlikely that he would bother to respond. Surprising pretty much everyone, he showed up in court, though claimed he was totally bankrupt. Either way, Facebook has just been awarded a $711 million judgment against him. Facebook, of course, will never see a dime of that money. But, the real question is what else can be done to stop Wallace. He's been spamming for well over a decade at this point, and despite multiple multi-million dollar judgments against him, he hasn't stopped. What else can be done?

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Zombie Spam Blacklists Return From The Dead To Make A Point

from the if-your-mail-isn't-getting-through... dept

I have to admit that I don't follow the "spam" world as closely as I used to, but I remember back around 2003, one of the hot topics was whether or not the various spam blacklists went too far at times. The anti-spam fighters behind those lists would often take a rather... inclusive attitude to putting IP addresses and address ranges into their lists, and plenty of giant ISPs relied on the judgment of those spam fighters by simply plugging in their lists. This often resulted in significant collateral damage, as perfectly legitimate emails would get blocked as coming from a "spam IP." Of course, those lists needed to change frequently, but at times, they would just suddenly disappear. That last link was about a popular anti-spam blacklist from Osirusoft that was shut down -- with its owners changing the settings to include all addresses. The idea was to make it clear to ISPs who didn't pay attention, to stop using the list, but in the meantime, think of all the damage?

It looks like that same sort of thing may be happening six years later. Michael Scott points us to the news of another long-abandoned blackhole list, called blackholes.us, that was abandoned a couple years ago -- but which some ISPs still rely on. However, whoever now controls the nameservers where blackholes.us used to be, apparently decided to set up a new "list" that (again) includes the entire range of IP addresses -- so every query is returned as being a spammer IP.

Again, the idea is to force ISPs to stop using that blacklist -- and perhaps you can make the argument that (unlike the Osirusoft situation) these ISPs have had two years to stop relying on the "zombie" blacklist, but it still seems unwise to create so much collateral damage, just to force the issue.

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Why Would The Copyright Lobby Be Concerned About An Anti-Spam Bill?

from the because-it-may-hurt-their-rootkits dept

Up in Canada, there have been ongoing discussions and negotiations over an anti-spam law. While I have various reservations over anti-spam legislation (here in the US it's done little to stop spam, but plenty to outline how to "legitimately" spam people), it's a bit surprising to find out that the copyright lobby is heavily involved in the process as well. Why would the copyright lobby care about an anti-spam bill? Apparently, they're afraid that it'll hinder their use of DRM, since the current bill requires consent before installing software on computers. And, as we learned in Sony's famous rootkit debacle, plenty of DRM works by surreptitiously installing software that watches what you do with content. Of course, the last thing the entertainment industry would want is to be required to be 100% upfront and truthful with you when it's installing spyware/DRM on your computer. That would -- in their minds -- defeat the point.

So, the copyright lobby has been making sure to water down the bill, to try to cut out the language that would cover their use of surreptitious spyware/DRM:

Sources say that the Liberals have introduced a motion that would take these practices outside of the bill. In its place, they would define computer program as, among other things, "a program that has as its primary function...inducing a user to install software by intentionally misrepresenting that installing that software is necessary to safeguard security or privacy or to open or play content of a computer program." This sets such a high bar - primary function, intentional mispresentation - that music and software industry can plausibly argue that surreptitious DRM installations fall outside of C-27.

And, of course, once the copyright lobby can put spyware on your machine, they want to be sure they can spy on you and use that information against you:

PIPEDA currently features a series of exceptions to the standard requirements for obtaining consent for the collection of personal information (found in Section 7). Bill C-27 includes a provision that bars those exceptions in cases involving computer harvesting of email addresses and the "collection of personal information through any means of telecommunication, if the collection is made by accessing a computer system or causing a computer system to be accessed without authorization." In other words, email harvesting and spyware would not be permitted and would not qualify for the PIPEDA exceptions found in Section 7.

The copyright lobby is deeply concerned that this change will block attempts to track possible infringement through electronic means. The Section 7(1)(b) exception in PIPEDA currently states that collecting personal information without consent or knowledge of the individual is permitted if it is reasonable to expect that the collection "would compromise the availability or accuracy of the information" and the collection is "related to investigating a breach of an agreement or a contravention of the laws of Canada."

It's really stunning what kind of sense of entitlement the entertainment industry has -- insisting that it should have the right to install spyware on your computer without you knowing about it, and to then collect all sorts of private info about you and what you do on your computer. Shameful.

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Craigslist's Dumb Lawsuit Against Spam Tools Provider

from the what-are-they-thinking? dept

It's hard to come up with an adjective to describe Craigslist's decision to sue Red Trumpet other than "dumb." Nothing good will come of this lawsuit for a variety of reasons, and Craigslist is asking for trouble in filing it. Now, I can understand why it sounded like a good idea. Last year, we wrote about the increasing problem of spam on Craigslist, highlighting how a variety of spammers had figured out ways around each attempt by Craiglist to stop the spam. And, yes, we absolutely agree that spam on Craigslist is a problem and a nuisance, and it's good that Craigslist is working hard to try to stop it. But that doesn't make this lawsuit make sense. The full lawsuit is below (it's a bit long), and highlights all of the different claims that Craigslist is making against Red Trumpet, a company that offers tools and services to help advertisers post messages on Craigslist (some of which may be spammy, though, certainly not all):

So what are the problems? Well, as Eric Goldman notes, Craigslist is "playing with fire" on a variety of legal doctrines, almost all of which could come back to bite Craigslist. For example, Craigslist is blaming Red Trumpet -- a service provider -- for the actions of its users in spamming the site. Think about that for a second. For the past couple of years, law enforcement officials have been trying to use that exact argument against Craigslist over things like prostitution posts on the site -- to which Craigslist has always put forth a strong defense that as a service provider (under Section 230 of the CDA) it's not liable for the actions of its users. Does Craigslist really want to try to establish a precedent that would chip away at Section 230 protections?

Next, Craigslist is making a really weak DMCA claim here. It's claiming that its various anti-spam technologies (captchas, phone verification, etc.) act as "technological protection measures" that Red Trumpet is circumventing... and thus running afoul of the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules. But the circumvention has nothing to do with violating Craigslist's "copyright," though the lawsuit makes a half-hearted attempt to claim that it does.

Then, there's the trademark claims. There are a few different ones, but it argues that Red Trumpet is violating Craigslist's trademark by mentioning Craigslist on its website and in its ads. While again, you can see why this is annoying to Craigslist, if the company is accurately describing services it provides (the ability to post on Craigslist) it's difficult to see the "confusion" being caused. The ad in question doesn't appear to imply any endorsement at all by Craigslist. And, does Craigslist really want to open up a can of worms concerning trademarks being used in ads? After all, there must be a ton of posts on Craigslist that mention trademarks.

Finally, there's Craigslist claiming that Red Trumpet violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing its site despite violating its terms of use. Does this sound familiar? It's the same argument that was used to try to punish Lori Drew, and was recently tossed out by a judge. Basically, it's claiming that if you happen to violate the terms of use of a site, and then still access the site, you've effectively "hacked" into the site. This is a really bad reading of the law, which is why it was good that the Drew ruling got tossed out. So why is Craigslist trying to re-establish that as a rule?

Yes, clearly, Craigslist is upset about the spam on the site -- and it should be. Plenty of users are upset about it, and Craigslist wants to help those users, help itself and stop the spam. But this particular lawsuit, with these claims, seem highly problematic -- such that even if Craigslist wins, the precedents it sets could come back to haunt Craigslist... and many other parts of the internet as well. Is Craigslist really so desperate to stop spam that it's willing to do all this other damage as well?

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Serial Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filer Loses Appeal... And His Possessions

from the time-to-get-a-job dept

Back when CAN SPAM was passed, one of the (many) parts that annoyed anti-spam fighters was that the law was quite clearly limited in who could bring lawsuits. It was basically designed so that only the government or ISPs could bring lawsuits -- not individuals. This was done on purpose, as lots of marketing companies freaked out that they'd end up dealing with constant spam lawsuits from people upset about receiving their marketing messages. However, some anti-spammers worked on ways to get around this by setting themselves up as "ISPs," though only for the purpose of trying to sue spammers. This strategy backfired. A couple of years ago, one of the most fervent supporters of using this trick (his only "job" was filing these lawsuits against spammers) lost his case, and the court even told him to pay $110k to the firm he had sued.

He appealed, and the appeals court came down even harder on the guy for clearly abusing the law, pointing out that he was clearly a professional litigant, and not someone running a real ISP. But, perhaps even more fascinating is that the guy, James Gordon, didn't just lose the lawsuit, it appears he lost most of his possessions as well. Remember that ruling telling him to pay the $110k to Virtumundo? He refused. The company sent the debt to a collections agency, but told Gordon they'd call off the collections agency if he dropped the appeal. Gordon didn't:

When Virtumundo's collections lawyer showed up at Gordon's house with a moving van and a sheriff, Virtumundo again offered to stop its pursuit of Gordon's assets if he would drop his appeal, and he refused again, according to Newman.

Virtumundo's collections agency then cleared out Gordon's house, according to Newman.

He added that after seizing the contents of Gordon's home, Virtumundo offered to return Gordon's belongings if he would drop his appeal and again, Gordon refused.

As much as I thank anti-spam activists for trying to stomp out spam, that doesn't mean they get to ignore what the law allows, and set up what was effectively a professional anti-spam litigation service.

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Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines

from the just-so-you-know... dept

Scott Richter was a bigtime spammer, who was so proud of being a spammer, at one point he planned to release his own line of "Spamking" clothing (seriously). In 2005, though, he filed for bankruptcy (even though it appeared his spamming operations were still rolling in cash. That same year, there were reports that Richter had actually gone legit and he was actually removed from the infamous ROKSO list of known spammers (not an easy list to get removed from). Except... sometimes it's just difficult to stay away. MySpace sued Richter in 2007 and won a $6 million award against him (though, Richter claimed victory since MySpace wanted much more).

Now, Michael Scott alerts us to the news that Richter tried to have his insurance company pay the fines, but a court has now said that these fines were excluded from the policies, and thus Richter is on the hook for the fines instead. That seems like a good thing. It would be pretty troubling if spammers were able to buy insurance against getting fined.

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Proud, Bragging Spammer Alan Ralsky Pleads Guilty

from the about-time dept

Remember Alan Ralsky? He was the super proud spammer that way back in 2002 gave a defiant and proud interview with his hometown paper, the Detroit Free Press, where he showed off his home and other expensive purchases, all paid for with spam -- which he insisted was "the greatest business model in the world." So what happened? Well, the folks at Slashdot used the info in the article to figure out where he lived and started signing him up for a ton of snail mail marketing offers, overwhelming his actual mailbox. Rather than recognizing the irony, Ralsky flipped out. Apparently, it's only the greatest business model in the world when you're not on the receiving end.

It definitely took a while, but the law finally caught up to Ralsky, and he learned that "the greatest business model in the world" is actually called fraud -- and it can put you in jail. The FBI started investigating Ralsky in 2005, but he wasn't actually indicted until 2008. And, the latest news is that he's agreed to plead guilty and could face both jailtime and fines for wire fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN SPAM Act (wow, it does sometimes work!). Of course, since Ralsky's time, spammers have gone underground and overseas. The era of the great proud American spammer who courted the press seems to be over.

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Court Says Anti-Telemarketing Law Covers Unsolicited Text Messaging

from the this-is-a-good-thing dept

Via Michael Scott we learn that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) also applies to unsolicited text messages. The TCPA covers certain kinds of commercial marketing over telephones, and has a rule against the use of "automatic telephone dialing systems," but it wasn't clear if text messaging was an automatic telephone dialing system. The court has now said yes.

Separately, the case looked at whether or not agreeing to a basic terms of service also represented "express consent" which is needed under the TCPA. In this case, the woman had purchased a ringtone, but did not believe she had consented to commercial text messages. In buying the ringtone, the woman agreed to an extremely broadly worded terms of service that was probably purposely designed by lawyers to cover a wide swath of potential other things -- such as allowing the company to let others market things to the user. The question was whether or not other companies, who purchased the phone number from the ringtone company, could then market to the woman. The court here finds that dubious as well, noting that "express consent" is "[c]onsent that is clearly and unmistakably stated," which the court feels was not the case here, since the consent was only for the ringtone company to market messages, not anyone else (even though the marketing company -- in this case Simon & Schuster -- noted that the text message was "powered by" the ringtone company): "Thus, Satterfield's consent to receive promotional material by Nextones and its affilliates and brands cannot be read as consenting to the receipt of Simon & Schuster's promotional material."

This ruling isn't the final say on the matter -- as the appeals court was just reversing a lower court's summary judgment, and telling the lower court that it needs to actually go further in paying attention to the case. However, the points raised above are certainly important ones that I imagine will start showing up in other cases as well. Finally, it's also worth pointing out that the defendant in this case is Simon & Schuster, rather than Nextones. This does raise some interesting questions. Simon & Schuster believed that it was purchasing the right to contact these phone numbers legitimately via a marketing company partnered with Nextones. It had no idea that the "agreement" may be faulty, but it may now be liable for breaking the law. If that moves forward, you would have to think that Simon & Schuster has an argument to sue either Nextones or the marketing company it worked with for misrepresenting the "explicit consent" on those numbers.

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Spammers Solving Difficult AI Problems With An Underground X Prize

from the fascinating dept

Slashdot points us to an interview with Luis von Ahn (who we're a big fan of), where he talks about how spammers who are frustrated by various types of CAPTCHA tests have set up their own sort of "innovation prize," offering up somewhere in the range of $500,000 for software that can automatically pass CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA reading tests (the things where you have to fill in a series of letters to sign up for a service or post a comment). As von Ahn points out: "If [the spammers] are really able to write a programme to read distorted text, great -- they have solved an AI problem." It is, effectively, an "X Prize" for optical character recognition. Not that we like to encourage spammers, but it is rather fascinating how the underground business seems to mirror the above ground innovation world as well.

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Utah Senate President Looks To Sue Jack Thompson For Continual Spam

from the with-friends-like-these... dept

Disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson, made famous for never missing an opportunity to blame violent video games for any sort of violent activity (despite a near total lack of evidence to support this), has focused his post-lawyer life on trying to get states to pass anti-violent video game laws. Of course, this has been a tough slog. Utah appeared to be his only hope, but even that state eventually vetoed the bill, noting that it didn't make much sense. Thompson, who is known as a prolific emailer, has apparently been emailing Utah politicians quite a bit since this decision came down, and now the President of the Utah Senate (who supported the Thompson's bill) is threatening to go after Thompson using CAN SPAM anti-spam laws, telling Thompson:

I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed I will turn you over to the AG for legal action.

Can't wait to see Thompson claim that this is all part of the conspiracy of video game fans against him. Clearly, the video gamers have somehow brainwashed the President of the Utah Senate...

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97% Of All Email Is Spam, But How Much Of The Other 3% Is Just Noise?

from the overwhelmed dept

A new report from Microsoft says that 97 percent of all email is spam, reflecting the degree to which email systems worldwide are swamped with the messages. The figure seems high, but perhaps that's just because anti-spam tools have gotten better at deflecting spam away from most people's inboxes. But clearly enough is still getting through -- and enough people are buying what it's selling -- to make it financially worthwhile for spammers. Personally, I don't see too much spam these days, as Gmail's filter works pretty well for me. But what I do see lots of is "soft" spam -- messages that come from web services, retailers, mailing lists and thanks to writing on the web, PR people. Most of these messages come from things with which I've had some sort of relationship, commercial or otherwise, in the past, but most of them are still uninteresting and unwanted. While many of these people are pretty good about honoring unsubscribe requests, many are not, and also seem to share my email address with impunity. The result is that my email account is full of noise -- while my inbox isn't overrun by V1*GRA-type spam, all the other soft spam, as well as the bacn, or messages I've subscribed to but never read, obfuscate the messages I actually care about, making email a pain to deal with.

The point here isn't really to complain about my inbox, but rather to illustrate how even as "real" spam becomes more and more hidden from many users, email still has plenty of problems. Eliminating the 419 scams, joe-jobs, fake drug spam and the like would certainly be great, but even beyond that, email still has its flaws, leading people to communicate through IM, social networks and other means. To be sure, email is still eminently useful, but will that usefulness soon be outweighed by its detriments? And will it be salvageable?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Supreme Court Won't Consider Virginia Anti-Spam Law

from the spammers-have-rights-too dept

The US Supreme Court has passed on the state of Virginia's appeal to keep its anti-spam law in place. The state's Supreme Court had ruled the law was unconstitutional, following the appeal of a spammer that had been convicted under it. He argued that the law overstepped the boundaries by outlawing non-commercial, as well as commercial spam, including things like political and religious speech that have generally been protected under the First Amendment. By not taking up the case, the high court appears to be extending that protection to cover spam as well. On balance, that's probably a good thing -- particularly as this "loophole" is unlikely to really make the spam problem any worse.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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As Long As People Keep Buying, Scams (and Spam) Will Keep On Coming

from the pt-barnum dept

It looks like if anything is going to be able to effectively stop spam, it might be pressure on spammers' profit margins that makes spamming a less attractive line of work. But that still seems a ways off, as long as enough people continue to buy the stuff being sold in spam messages. Spammers know if they can reach a high enough volume, they'll find enough suckers to make it worthwhile. Scareware, too, is a volume business: a new report looked at a recent scam in which users were sent to booby-trapped web sites which said their computers had a virus. They were then directed to a site selling them some $50 "anti-virus" software. While a small percentage of people actually ponied up the cash, enough did to allow the scammers to pay more than $10,000 per day to the people who used SEO techniques on keyword typos to drive marks into the scam. It's easy to say that people shouldn't be so stupid and fall for the scams, but at the same time, perhaps a bigger issue lurks for the legitimate security software industry: if people can't distinguish between legitimate warnings from their products and scams, it could be a problem for them.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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The US Marines And The Mormons Are Buying Votes On Digg?

from the say-what-now? dept

The LA Times has a short story on one of a bunch of companies that claims to be able to let you buy votes on Digg (as well as some other sites, but Digg is apparently the main attraction). There have been a bunch of such companies over the years, but what caught my eye was the claim in the article that among the customers of this particular company were the US Marines, the Mormon Church and the Korean Dept. of Tourism. Perhaps I don't follow the Digg spamming world that closely, but I'd mainly assumed that it was focused on random publications or no-name companies incorrectly believing that getting onto the front page of Digg would boost the company into the big time. But the US Marines and the Mormon Church? That seems really odd. Oh, and as for the claims that if you get on the front page of Digg it can send tens of thousands of visitors to your site in a matter of hours... don't buy into the hype. Over the past few years we've been on Digg's front page a bunch of times and it certainly drives a nice stream of traffic, but never more than a few thousand visitors (sometimes significantly less). It's always nice when one of our stories makes it, but I can't see how the amount of traffic Digg drives could possibly be worth the rates this company supposedly charges.

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Can The Solution To Spam Be Hoax Spam?

from the creative...-but... dept

Kevin Stapp points us to a proposal by Glyn Moody that one way to tackle the spam problem is to have the government send out more spam itself. Yes, it sounds crazy at first, but there's more to the plan. The basic idea is that the sort of folks who fall for spam are likely to click on the links found in this "fake" spam as well -- and we'd then use that as an opportunity to "educate" those poor deluded fools to stop clicking on spam links or responding to spam emails. The good thing about this plan is that it's one of the very, very few anti-spam ideas out there that actually focuses on the real problem: that spam works. There are still people out there who respond to spam. Where it gets more questionable, though, is in figuring out whether or not this plan would work. The people who regularly fall for spam don't seem all that likely to "learn" from such actions. While a few might, I'd guess that most won't -- and the additional burden on email networks hardly seems worth it to convert a few clueless emailers over to the bright side.

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India's Do Not Call List Now Covers SMS Spam, Too

from the would-you-like-to-extend-your-size-to-160-characters? dept

The problem of spam text messages sent to mobile phones has been a significant one in many countries, though it hasn't reached epidemic proportions (yet) in the US. Operators have done a pretty good job of stopping the messages from getting delivered, while the cost and difficulty of sending them has also been a useful obstacle. Some, however, still manage to get through. Over in India, the government has extended its do not call list to cover commercial text messages as well, and has mandated that operators must add some tracking information to the messages so regulators can track down their senders. In the US, it's illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones, while the not-particularly-effective CAN-SPAM act makes it illegal to send spam email to phones. At least one court has ruled that SMS spam is covered by the law banning telemarketing calls to mobiles, but it would be nice to see cell phones get some extra protection from spam -- especially since it often brings some financial pain as well as annoyance.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Student Cleared Of Charges She Spammed Teachers At Her University

from the common-sense-prevails dept

Back in December, we wrote about a student at Michigan State University, who was disciplined by the school for spamming, after she sent out an email to all of the professors at the school concerning a schedule change that would impact their class schedules in a future semester. One teacher complained, and the student was found to have violated the school's anti-spam policy, which said you couldn't email more than 30 people at a time. This seemed silly, as the message was clearly not spam in the traditional sense at all. After a widespread public outcry, and the EFF preparing a lawsuit on the student's behalf, the school has backed down and cleared the woman of any wrongdoing, and said that it will review and potentially change its anti-spam policies.

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AT&T Text Spams Customers Promoting American Idol; Insists It's Not Spam

from the redefining-spam dept

For the most part, mobile operators have been good about trying to prevent SMS text spam, but it appears that AT&T has gone in the other direction. It's actually spamming people. Apparently it sent a text message promoting the TV show American Idol to anyone who had voted in past American Idol contests or anyone that AT&T considered to be a "heavy texter." I can almost (but not quite) understand contacting former voters. But randomly targeting other "heavy texters" is simply pure spam.

But that's not the way AT&T sees it. In a statement that entirely redefines spam, a spokesperson said that it wasn't spam because they didn't charge people to receive the message. He also claimed it was no problem because people could opt-out of future messages. This shows an incredible (but all too typical for AT&T) tone deafness to the issue. Email spam is already quite annoying. But text messaging spam takes it to an entirely more ridiculous level by proactively interrupting what a person is doing, no matter where they are. At least email spam can be compartmentalized to when you're actually checking your email (and, these days, can be pretty effectively filtered). Text messaging is a lot more intrusive, and for AT&T to claim that this is somehow "okay" because the TV show is "built on texting," is simply ridiculous.

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Lexus' Trial Balloon On Car Spam

from the oh-please-don't dept

Lexus has announced plans to roll out a system that will allow the company to send audio messages to its cars, which most people immediately realized meant we should get ready for spam in our cars. It's pretty obvious that's what Lexus is thinking when it says things like: "messages can be highly targeted, such as tailored for those who have a specific vehicle type or who live in a particular ZIP code." However, the company is obviously sensitive to the spam issue, saying that "We're not going to barrage customers with marketing messages," and noting that some may not want this: "Many of our owners enjoy their car as a cocoon." The whole thing sounds like a trial balloon idea to see how people react, and so far it doesn't sound good. You could see some potentially useful situation -- such as in the event of a recall, but the likelihood of someone in marketing getting a "brilliant idea" for some extra revenue and pissing off a lot of people just seems too high.

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