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Is this actually email address scraping as a service? This is going to be used to enable spam. Any email sent to an address acquired from this service will be

by agwa 13y ago

Is this actually email address scraping as a service? This is going to be used to enable spam. Any email sent to an address acquired from this service will be, by definition, unsolicited. Thus, if the email is in any way bulk (and honestly, what will the addresses returned from your service be used for, if not for sending substantively identical content to multiple people?), then the email fits the commonly-accepted definition of spam[1]. This is not OK, and will only make things more difficult for people who do legitimate, consent-based, email marketing. I'm glad you're respecting robots.txt, but please say what your bot's user agent string is, so site administrators can block specifically your bot. I'm loathe to be so negative on a "Show HN" post, but I strongly believe that this business is disreputable and that businesses of this type cause harm to the Internet. There may be value in finding blogs/bloggers matching specific queries; perhaps take email addresses out of the equation? [1] http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/ http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/ Edited to add: just yesterday I received an email from someone I don't know asking me to try out his "weather API." The same email was clearly sent to a lot of different people, and it was sent to an address I have posted on websites, so it must have been scraped. I suspect the sender didn't think his email was spam, since he didn't try to hide his identity or use a bot net to send it. But being unsolicited and bulk, it was spam. It was sent via Mandrill so I reported it to Mandrill's abuse team; most people would probably just mark it as spam, harming the reputation of Mandrill's mail servers, thus making it more difficult for Mandrill to be used for legitimate email sending. I have a feeling "blogger outreach" would follow a similar pattern as this.

monkeyspaw 13y ago
Would you consider it spam if someone manually went to a site, found their contact information, and sent them an email by hand? It appears to fit the same definition as "unsolicited", and yet, that is one of the purposes of a business placing their email address on their website. I work in b2b software, where it's common for sales and marketing people to use publicly posted contact information for outreach (both buying and selling products). IMO, the formal definition of spam as "unsolicited commercial email" is somewhat broken in b2b spheres -- it feels a lot like "it's spam if I publish my information and you send me something that I don't want." The problem is the "something I don't want" is only determined after the fact.
- agwa 13y ago
  The definition is not "unsolicited commercial email", it's "unsolicited and bulk." In your example, if you send the same email to every address you collect by hand, it would be spam. But if you send a different email to each recipient, actually making it relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is not spam[1]. (You're likely to get a much better response rate too!) If the OP's service wasn't focused on email addresses, and instead enabled the user to research similar blogs and tailor an individual outreach to each one, then it would not be a spam enabler. [1] Edited to add: this is per the definition from Spamhaus. According to lutusp's comment below, the legal definition in CAN-SPAM is different. IANAL.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > But if you send a different email to each recipient, actually making it relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is not spam. Don't mislead your readers on legal issues. If the e-mail is unsolicited and doesn't contain an opt-out link, in most cases it meets the legal definition of spam and violates the Can-Spam Act.
    - agwa 13y ago
      Thanks for pointing that out; I edited my comment to reference yours. To be clear, I am not claiming to inform anyone on legal issues, but rather on the industry definition of spam that's used by blacklists and email providers worldwide. Unfortunately, we must still obey applicable law even when it's totally stupid.
    - talkingquickly 13y ago
      Not a lawyer so don't count this as advice but as far as I know, there's no requirement under can-spam to provide an opt out link, just that you make it clear they can opt out (e.g. by replying). [1][2] That's a big difference if you're using database's such as the OP to find contacts to email personally and individually but in a commercial context. I might be missing something with can-spam though? [1] http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
geuis 13y ago
You are completely wrong, flat out. Your argument is basically that "spam matters". This is false. I am a gmail user. I get thousands of spam messages a month. In the course of a year, the number of those messages that make it to my inbox are less than 10. Most people these days use mail providers that offer excellent filtering. People in companies most certainly do. If you are one of the minority that host their own email, filtering options are readily available. There is no benefit to masking your email. You just make it harder for real people to contact you. Case in point: Send me an email if anyone wants to say hi, geuis.teses@gmail.com. This service has a lot of benefit if I want to try finding someone under a type of description. Maybe I need a developer, or someone wants to contact me but didn't get my email at a conference we met at. If someone contacts me that I don't want to converse with, it's just email. Delete and ignore, or mark as spam. Simple. Hope this clears up your misconceptions.
- david_shaw 13y ago
  > You are completely wrong, flat out. Your argument is basically that "spam matters". This is false. You're right that contemporary email providers like GMail do a great job of filtering spam emails, but that doesn't change the fact that sending commercial emails to harvested addresses is illegal, per the CAN-SPAM Act. The act clearly states that the destination address "cannot be sent to a harvested email address." More information (albeit paraphrased) is available here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address_harvesting#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address_harvesting#Legal... or you can read the full text of the act itself here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ187/pdf/PLAW-108publ187.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ187/pdf/PLAW-108pub... Just because spam filters work very well does not mean that creating a web application that enables illegal activity is a good idea. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM#Sending_behavior_compliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM#Sending_behavior_comp...
- prawn 13y ago
  I'm a Gmail user who also gets thousands of spam messages a month. The number that get to my inbox, despite attempting to train it with classification of spam as such, would be 20+ per day. Despite training as "not spam", I end up with 10+ legitimate messages a month ending up in my spam folder. Unsubscribing, shaming, reporting to the ACMA - none of these actions seem to have any noticeable effect. Spam matters to me.

by agwa 13y ago

monkeyspaw 13y ago

Would you consider it spam if someone manually went to a site, found their contact information, and sent them an email by hand? It appears to fit the same definition as "unsolicited", and yet, that is one of the purposes of a business placing their email address on their website. I work in b2b software, where it's common for sales and marketing people to use publicly posted contact information for outreach (both buying and selling products). IMO, the formal definition of spam as "unsolicited commercial email" is somewhat broken in b2b spheres -- it feels a lot like "it's spam if I publish my information and you send me something that I don't want." The problem is the "something I don't want" is only determined after the fact.

agwa 13y ago
The definition is not "unsolicited commercial email", it's "unsolicited and bulk." In your example, if you send the same email to every address you collect by hand, it would be spam. But if you send a different email to each recipient, actually making it relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is not spam[1]. (You're likely to get a much better response rate too!) If the OP's service wasn't focused on email addresses, and instead enabled the user to research similar blogs and tailor an individual outreach to each one, then it would not be a spam enabler. [1] Edited to add: this is per the definition from Spamhaus. According to lutusp's comment below, the legal definition in CAN-SPAM is different. IANAL.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > But if you send a different email to each recipient, actually making it relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is not spam. Don't mislead your readers on legal issues. If the e-mail is unsolicited and doesn't contain an opt-out link, in most cases it meets the legal definition of spam and violates the Can-Spam Act.
  - agwa 13y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out; I edited my comment to reference yours. To be clear, I am not claiming to inform anyone on legal issues, but rather on the industry definition of spam that's used by blacklists and email providers worldwide. Unfortunately, we must still obey applicable law even when it's totally stupid.
  - talkingquickly 13y ago
    Not a lawyer so don't count this as advice but as far as I know, there's no requirement under can-spam to provide an opt out link, just that you make it clear they can opt out (e.g. by replying). [1][2] That's a big difference if you're using database's such as the OP to find contacts to email personally and individually but in a commercial context. I might be missing something with can-spam though? [1] http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

geuis 13y ago

You are completely wrong, flat out. Your argument is basically that "spam matters". This is false. I am a gmail user. I get thousands of spam messages a month. In the course of a year, the number of those messages that make it to my inbox are less than 10. Most people these days use mail providers that offer excellent filtering. People in companies most certainly do. If you are one of the minority that host their own email, filtering options are readily available. There is no benefit to masking your email. You just make it harder for real people to contact you. Case in point: Send me an email if anyone wants to say hi, geuis.teses@gmail.com. This service has a lot of benefit if I want to try finding someone under a type of description. Maybe I need a developer, or someone wants to contact me but didn't get my email at a conference we met at. If someone contacts me that I don't want to converse with, it's just email. Delete and ignore, or mark as spam. Simple. Hope this clears up your misconceptions.

david_shaw 13y ago
> You are completely wrong, flat out. Your argument is basically that "spam matters". This is false. You're right that contemporary email providers like GMail do a great job of filtering spam emails, but that doesn't change the fact that sending commercial emails to harvested addresses is illegal, per the CAN-SPAM Act. The act clearly states that the destination address "cannot be sent to a harvested email address." More information (albeit paraphrased) is available here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address_harvesting#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address_harvesting#Legal... or you can read the full text of the act itself here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ187/pdf/PLAW-108publ187.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ187/pdf/PLAW-108pub... Just because spam filters work very well does not mean that creating a web application that enables illegal activity is a good idea. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM#Sending_behavior_compliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM#Sending_behavior_comp...
prawn 13y ago
I'm a Gmail user who also gets thousands of spam messages a month. The number that get to my inbox, despite attempting to train it with classification of spam as such, would be 20+ per day. Despite training as "not spam", I end up with 10+ legitimate messages a month ending up in my spam folder. Unsubscribing, shaming, reporting to the ACMA - none of these actions seem to have any noticeable effect. Spam matters to me.