7 ms·

>Get your legal department involved. We have repeatedly been taken off various public and private blacklists by having lawyers do their job. What's the partic

by jasode 5y ago

>Get your legal department involved. We have repeatedly been taken off various public and private blacklists by having lawyers do their job. What's the particular law that makes those curators of blacklists pay attention to your company's lawyers? Do you have example text of those legal requests?

_0ffh 5y ago
Just guessing, but maybe threatening to sue for damages might work?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  But the companies aren't obligated to accept your email are they? What grounds do you have to ask for damages?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      If someone threatens to sue for damages for something where they are clearly not entitled to damages, why would your lawyers advise you to act on that? If I wrote to you now threatening to sue you for damages unless you delete your comment would you delete it? Why?
  - dqv 5y ago
    I guess you could try to go for the tortious interference angle: I have a contract with the customer which involves interacting with them by email. Customer uses EmailCompany. EmailCompany unfairly blocks me from emailing customer. EmailCompany is interfering with the contract. Both myself and the customer have a reasonable expectation that we should be able to carry out our contract by emailing back and forth, so EmailCompany is obstructing the contract. Any of this sort of "advocacy" only works if the customer actually cares about receiving your emails though. In my experience, the customer will just switch email providers when I tell them we're blocked. I had an email provider just the other day who wasn't accepting my emails. I tried to get them to unblock us, but to no avail. I told my customer and he went and registered a new email elsewhere.
  - ILMostro7 5y ago
    Good point, generally. However, it depends on the list or the tactic that's used. Blacklisting an ISP's ASN or entire network range because the blacklist creator set an arbitrary threshold of acceptable number of spam activity from 1 or more IPs. I'm really not sure about the legal aspects here, but there are so many practices that blatantly approach extortion. And it's skillfully done in the name of "online etiquette" or a "safe internet". Obviously, legitimate use-cases exist for such services, provided that they are operated by faithful people/entities with some level of credibility.
  - ThrustVectoring 5y ago
    No, they aren't. This tactic isn't effective when you've truly pissed off the other party. If it could plausibly be an innocent mistake, this strategy will cheaply and quickly get things resolved.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    The main benefit of the lawyer here is to break through the bureaucracy on the other end. Your lawyer talks to their lawyer, their lawyer talks to someone on their end who is actually authorized and able to make changes (not necessarily to make them change it - possibly just to figure out what is going on). This causes a human with authority to actually look at your case and likely go "yeah, this is silly, I've taken care of it". Lawyer is very happy because something that looked like a lot of expensive work just went away.
  - quartesixte 5y ago
    Lawyers typically will only talk to other lawyers when interacting with other companies (often are ethically compelled to). An email from legal@companyA.com to legal@companyB.com will be read.
    - terom 5y ago
      But this thread is about companyB.com blocking incoming email delivery from companyA.com :D You need to involve legal.com.
      - quartesixte 5y ago
        Yeah I guess that’s when you rain down BigLegal.com. Or you send certified mail with return signature requested. Snail mail to the rescue?
- beerandt 5y ago
  You don't even need to threaten. Just a letter of representation from a lawyer is magically effective for things like this. ETA: We refer to it as "6mins and a stamp".
  - eertami 5y ago
    Hmm. If lawyer isn't a protected title in my home country, I wonder if it's possible for anyone to take a template and refer to themselves as a lawyer with an email to legal. I suspect they'd see through it, but it might convince someone in some cases?
    - beerandt 5y ago
      That's not smart for a number of reasons. But why not just give the template to legal and let them do their job? Or just write and snail-mail a letter from yourself. People respond surprisingly well to requests and offers in a personal/non-bulk letters.
ThrustVectoring 5y ago
It's not a law, it's who handles the request. There's two types of employees in any company with very different KPIs. The first has their performance measured in number of tickets closed. The second has their performance measured in number of incidents allowed. Support tickets get handled by the first type of employee, anything that's plausibly a legal threat gets handled by the second. The easiest way to close a ticket is a quick wontfix. The easiest way to avoid a possible six-figure minimum legal issue is to spend 15 minutes figuring out what they want and giving it to them. The law is almost entirely irrelevant; the cost-benefit analysis doesn't change enough when comparing a frivolous vs meritorious lawsuit.
- mvkel 5y ago
  This is brilliant logic. It considers all parties involved and what they want.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Is it a tort of negligent interference? Libel?

by jasode 5y ago

_0ffh 5y ago

Just guessing, but maybe threatening to sue for damages might work?

chrisseaton 5y ago
But the companies aren't obligated to accept your email are they? What grounds do you have to ask for damages?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    If someone threatens to sue for damages for something where they are clearly not entitled to damages, why would your lawyers advise you to act on that? If I wrote to you now threatening to sue you for damages unless you delete your comment would you delete it? Why?
- dqv 5y ago
  I guess you could try to go for the tortious interference angle: I have a contract with the customer which involves interacting with them by email. Customer uses EmailCompany. EmailCompany unfairly blocks me from emailing customer. EmailCompany is interfering with the contract. Both myself and the customer have a reasonable expectation that we should be able to carry out our contract by emailing back and forth, so EmailCompany is obstructing the contract. Any of this sort of "advocacy" only works if the customer actually cares about receiving your emails though. In my experience, the customer will just switch email providers when I tell them we're blocked. I had an email provider just the other day who wasn't accepting my emails. I tried to get them to unblock us, but to no avail. I told my customer and he went and registered a new email elsewhere.
- ILMostro7 5y ago
  Good point, generally. However, it depends on the list or the tactic that's used. Blacklisting an ISP's ASN or entire network range because the blacklist creator set an arbitrary threshold of acceptable number of spam activity from 1 or more IPs. I'm really not sure about the legal aspects here, but there are so many practices that blatantly approach extortion. And it's skillfully done in the name of "online etiquette" or a "safe internet". Obviously, legitimate use-cases exist for such services, provided that they are operated by faithful people/entities with some level of credibility.
- ThrustVectoring 5y ago
  No, they aren't. This tactic isn't effective when you've truly pissed off the other party. If it could plausibly be an innocent mistake, this strategy will cheaply and quickly get things resolved.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The main benefit of the lawyer here is to break through the bureaucracy on the other end. Your lawyer talks to their lawyer, their lawyer talks to someone on their end who is actually authorized and able to make changes (not necessarily to make them change it - possibly just to figure out what is going on). This causes a human with authority to actually look at your case and likely go "yeah, this is silly, I've taken care of it". Lawyer is very happy because something that looked like a lot of expensive work just went away.
- quartesixte 5y ago
  Lawyers typically will only talk to other lawyers when interacting with other companies (often are ethically compelled to). An email from legal@companyA.com to legal@companyB.com will be read.
  - terom 5y ago
    But this thread is about companyB.com blocking incoming email delivery from companyA.com :D You need to involve legal.com.
    - quartesixte 5y ago
      Yeah I guess that’s when you rain down BigLegal.com. Or you send certified mail with return signature requested. Snail mail to the rescue?
beerandt 5y ago
You don't even need to threaten. Just a letter of representation from a lawyer is magically effective for things like this. ETA: We refer to it as "6mins and a stamp".
- eertami 5y ago
  Hmm. If lawyer isn't a protected title in my home country, I wonder if it's possible for anyone to take a template and refer to themselves as a lawyer with an email to legal. I suspect they'd see through it, but it might convince someone in some cases?
  - beerandt 5y ago
    That's not smart for a number of reasons. But why not just give the template to legal and let them do their job? Or just write and snail-mail a letter from yourself. People respond surprisingly well to requests and offers in a personal/non-bulk letters.

ThrustVectoring 5y ago

It's not a law, it's who handles the request. There's two types of employees in any company with very different KPIs. The first has their performance measured in number of tickets closed. The second has their performance measured in number of incidents allowed. Support tickets get handled by the first type of employee, anything that's plausibly a legal threat gets handled by the second. The easiest way to close a ticket is a quick wontfix. The easiest way to avoid a possible six-figure minimum legal issue is to spend 15 minutes figuring out what they want and giving it to them. The law is almost entirely irrelevant; the cost-benefit analysis doesn't change enough when comparing a frivolous vs meritorious lawsuit.

mvkel 5y ago
This is brilliant logic. It considers all parties involved and what they want.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Is it a tort of negligent interference? Libel?