[Equest-users] getting spammed by energy-models.com

Nick Caton ncaton at smithboucher.com
Wed Feb 26 12:18:51 PST 2014


Thanks for the insight Christian!

As someone who is intimate with the perils and difficulties associated with maintaining a secure mass mailing list, I would still echo/reinforce some of the calls for prudence.  It is not out the realm of possibilities that the security of this domain has been compromised (whose owners which may or may not have "harvested" the emails in question).  Reporting to the domain's host can have harsh consequences, and considering this site is ultimately a useful resource to many (even if I don't frequent the site much myself), I think for our community's sake we should be careful to not set up a domino effect potentially resulting in the site's abrupt closure.  Suffice to say, domain hosts (and savvy domain owners) are VERY sensitive to FTC fines/litigation resulting from reports of spam and mass mailing abuses.

I would give http://energy-models.com/ the benefit of the doubt, and also suggest utilizing the unsubscribe links (or just add to your spam/junk filter) for now.  There may already be too much damage done if multiple people have been reporting these unsolicited emails, in which case the domain owner may be in for some harsh lessons.

My advice for the owners of the energy-models.com domain (and for ANYBODY handling large mailing lists) is to tighten up your passwords and establish a tight lock on your email policies.  Here's a short video regarding the FTC's "CAN-SPAM" act (haha, lawyer humor), but seriously:  http://www.business.ftc.gov/multimedia/videos/complying-can-spam-act

Best regards,

~Nick


[cid:489575314 at 22072009-0ABB]

NICK CATON, P.E.
SENIOR ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers
25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
olathe, ks 66061
direct 913.344.0036
fax 913.345.0617
www.smithboucher.com

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Christian Stalberg
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 10:09 AM
To: 'eQUEST Users List'
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] getting spammed by energy-models.com

As far back as Spring 2012 energy-models was downloading and republishing the onebuilding.org mailing lists including capturing poster's email addresses. Jason Glazer who administers the onebuilding.org email lists can corroborate this fact. The owner of energy-models.com was notified by me and Jason that what he was doing was unauthorized and in fact could be illegal. I personally told him to cease and desist the republishing of my postings informing them that under Section 106 of the Copyright Act with regard to exclusive rights he were breaking the law. I then got busy and did not follow up. Now however they are using the harvested email addresses to regularly spam me, so the issue has resurfaced.

Regards,
_
Christian Stalberg
Natural Intelligence, LLC
http://naturalintelligence.us
Tel. 415.531.4610

From: Pasha Korber-Gonzalez [mailto:pasha.pkconsulting at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 7:24 AM
To: Christian Stalberg
Cc: eQUEST Users List
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] getting spammed by energy-models.com

I didn't see anything come through the eQuest users-list-therefore this company hasn't violated any participating rules of the users list, but I did get the email you are referencing...however my email wasn't "harvested" from the eQuest users list---I have knowingly included my email for their news and info distribution.

It's presumptuous to say that energy-models.com<http://energy-models.com> has illegally harvested email addresses from the eQuest users list.. be careful of the accusations you are insinuating.

By the way, if you don't like getting emails from them--you have the option to "unsubscribe" your email address from their mailings, just like other mass emails...



On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 8:01 AM, Christian Stalberg <christian at naturalintelligence.us<mailto:christian at naturalintelligence.us>> wrote:
Is anyone else on the equest-users list getting spammed by energy-models.com<http://energy-models.com> from a third party email company?

The mass email company energy-models.com<http://energy-models.com> has contracted with is Vertical Response (vresp.com<http://vresp.com>) based in San Francisco, California. They have an anti-SPAM policy which includes using harvested email addresses which you can read at http://www.verticalresponse.com/about/tos_anti-spam.html .

Regards,
_
Christian Stalberg
Natural Intelligence, LLC
http://naturalintelligence.us
Tel. 415.531.4610<tel:415.531.4610>

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