Ok, since my last spam attack, I have been a lot more watchfull. Anyhow someone signed up, two days later they started upload a bulk cgi mailer, I wonder what that could before. I figured Id wait, and once the list of 3500 names got uploaded, which was acually pretty small compared to 30k*6. I suspended his account and sent an email. Now things get complicated. He says that he did not know yadda yadda yadda. I do not know if he is telling the truth, and in all honesty I do not care. What I do care about is giving a responce to him. He said that he got the cd of names from a friend. This friend got it off a newsservers. Now this is not allowed in my TOS, but is it acually illegal. If he honestly did not know, I want to be able to tell him if this is illegal or just agienst the TOS.

Thanks

I have heard the same thing many times. If it is against your TOS then you have every right to tell him and/or remove his account.

Generally we apply a one strike rule except in extreme circumstances.

Its not that, Im going to terminate him, acually he told me to cancle his account if he cant use the mailer program. I want to know if I can tell him that it is illegal.

I would try to find the actual law and send that to him. Then I would explain to him that not only what he is doing is against your TOS, I'd show him how it is against the law. Then watch for his reaction. I would bet he has been down this road many times before and will just want you to kill him and he'll find another host to bother. Most people that do this BS bounce form host to host, it is just part of the gig to them.

Originally posted by brently27
I would try to find the actual law and send that to him. Then I would explain to him that not only what he is doing is against your TOS, I'd show him how it is against the law.The only problem with that is, it's not. You won't find "the actual law" if you try, but you will find that it violates the TOS of any host and of any host's upstream providers. He won't be able to do it without violating agreements he will have made no matter where he goes.

So just tell him that: it's universally regarded as a violation of terms of service.

Well it would be at least a breach of contract, that you could probably sue him for lots of money for. I don't think you'd have a hard time proving damages, had he actually sent the email. But since he didn't, you could probably still sue him, but probably not for as much. Of course, IANAL.

http://www.phillipsnizer.com/int-spam.htm

To clarify, the question was whether spamming is "illegal."

There's a lot of legal gray area around spamming right now but, in my opinion, it wouldn't be accurate for davidb to tell his former customer that his actions were "illegal." It would, though, be appropriate to point out to him that people have been sued for it, and legal monetary judgements have been issued against people who have done what he was trying to do.

The best thing is to say that you would be able to cater to his needs and cancel the account . I'm sure he knows all the rules about spam better than you and me.. No point educating someone who wants to spam. It's his right to spam (atleast he thinks that way) and it's your duty to keep your servers clean.
Just be nice so that you do not get a bad name...

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Originally posted by JayC
... It would, though, be appropriate to point out to him that people have been sued for it, and legal monetary judgements have been issued against people who have done what he was trying to do.
.. I'm sayin'