Title: [GreenYes] Ban on harvesting names and addresses on GreenYes
Dear GreenYes list members,
I've received a valid list housekeeping complaint.
It is likely that one or more of our members has
been harvesting names and addresses from GreenYes
for the purpose of distributing information completely
and unabashedly unrelated to GreenYes via another venue.
Regardless of how laudable another venue might be,
or how many excellent posts such a member might
have made to our list, our other members have
not opted to receive those emails and should
not have to worry about whether fellow members
are going to start bulk-emailing them unrelated requests or
proposals - commercial, non-profit or otherwise.
This kind of activity is, at best,
ethically very gray - at worst - just plain spam.
It must cease.
For this reason, I've included a new item
in the netiquette page and am posting at the
bottom of this post as well.
http://greenyes.grrn.org/netiquette.html#culling
The only way I can think that this might have
happened "by mistake" is if someone uploaded their
entire unfiltered outlook contact list to a known
other non-GreenYes web-enabled venue.
If you're really not sure this applies to you,
you're probably not involved. If you know
you've culled addresses for this purpose,
please contact me separately using my greenman
address or use the grrn contact venue below so we
can figure out a solution:
http://www.grrn.org/contact/index.php?cid=2
I do not check my gmail account, so please do
not reply to this post.
Sorry for the spam that posted from my address recently.
As most of our members probably figured out,
someone spoofed my address. The probability of it happening
at all is thankfully very low. Anyone's address could have
been spoofed with the same results.
I've deleted it from the archive.
Thanks to all our excellent members for posting or just listening.
Sincerely,
Chris
GreenYes List Master
<----begin netiquette text----->
***No harvesting emails from this list for use on other lists.***
This is a private list. We accept prospective-member requests
to join GreenYes based on the fact that they are interested
in the topics discussed on this list. In order that there is
no gray area of understanding: no GreenYes list member may
cull, harvest or in any way collect names and email addresses
of our members for purposes of mass-mailing through a venue
other than GreenYes. Members may not create a new mailing list
or enhance another mailling list with our list members at any
time for any purpose. For instance, if you have a non-profit mailing
list for saving whales, you may not enhance your whale mailing
list with our list members. This is not meant to discourage
discourse between members via appropriate backlist
correspondence [as described in the netiquette], but rather to secure
the continued privacy of our members. Our members have
in no way opted in to receive emails from your venue. If you
are doing this now, this would be a good time to remove any
of our members immediately from your list. Please don't make
me enforce this, because I don't like being ugly.
<----end netiquette text----->
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