Hi List I wonder how other Email Ops, especially in Europe, handle Mailchimp and Mandrill App.
They are a constant issue with the Swinog Blacklists. The problem boils down with differences in the privacy laws of US vs EU. In Switzerland (and probably most EU countries too), a company who sends advertising emails, must first get the agreement of the recipient to receive those emails or must be able to proof, that the recipient is a customer who in the past ordered services of the sender. Therefore the recipient must be able to identify and contact the sender. If the sender is hiding behind anonymously registered domains etc. the ISP must identify his customer upon request. Curt cases have confirmed, that the interest of the recipient to get the identity of the sender is more important than the interest of the sender to have his identity protected by his ISP. I came across several cases of anonymous 'spam' emails sent via Mailchimp. Obviously by swiss or European spamers targeting swiss email addresses they bought or harvested illegally. Anonymous Spam means: * Domain registered by anonymous proxy. * No Imprint on Website. * No further contact information on the email except the website. * Order Form on Website, Payment anonymously via Paypal. So the Mailchimp Abuse Desk was asked, with reference to the according legal articles and proof that the email was sent by their customer, to please disclose the identity of the customer sending those emails. Mailchimp always answers, that they are a US company and are only obliged to US law where providing an opt-out link is good enough and disclosure of the identity of their customer is not possible under US law. Also they can not block a customer because of spaming if the customer provides an opt-out mechanism, which is all what us laws require. I was without success trying to find a solution to this issue with the Mailchimp Abuse Desk. Well this is a big blinking sign telling 'SAFE HARBOUR' to all spamers out there, as they do not have to fear any legal prosecution, as they are very hard to identify. This is also why Mailchimp keeps being abused over and over again by spamers and is often being blacklisted because their customers send emails to SWINOG Blacklist spamtraps. Of course their delivery agents then contact us, but usually we don't find a solution, because they stay with the statement, that their customer did nothing wrong and swinog is wrong by blocking such emails. What are your observations/experiences with Mailchimp regarding this kind of legal issue? Is there any chance that they would accept applying European laws when their customers are from countries in Europe and targeting European recipients? Or any chance they would alter their anti-spam and privacy policy to be less spamer friendly? Kind regards -Benoît Panizzon- I m p r o W a r e A G - Leiter Commerce Kunden ______________________________________________________ Zurlindenstrasse 29 Tel +41 61 826 93 00 CH-4133 Pratteln Fax +41 61 826 93 01 Schweiz Web http://www.imp.ch ______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
