Selling all of the citizen's email addresses

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Hi everyone,

I have, in theory, the email address of all of the citizens of the Kingdom.

How much do you think I should charge if someone wanted to buy from me a copy of all of those email addresses to then spam them?

Is 20$ USD enough?

What would you say if I did that? Allow anyone to get the list of the email addresses of all of the citizens for a mere 20$.

And yet, this is what the law says! Any citizen can register a party for 20$ and then, I have to give that citizen the list of all of the citizens along with their email address.

In fact, a spammer could come here, post for a few days, become a citizen, and for only 20$ get the list of emails and then, resell the list to someone else.

Do you think that is fair? 

And yet, how are we supposed to let party leaders campaign?

Easy! I have a script which allows the SoS to email every citizen of the Kingdom, WITHOUT party leaders knowing what the email of the citizens are. 

I already used it once, testing it, when I sent a PC party advert. 

I now have a party leader asking me for the email addresses, but I have this alternative, my script. People have said it's not the job of the SoS to email citizens party adverts, but isn't it better than giving parties a free door to them? 

I can put restrictions, like forcing the parties to identify themselves, limiting to 1 email per week or 2 per week. But if I give the email adresses, they can start emailing some citizens as if they were another party, or send 20 emails per day, etc...


Isn't it time to fix this? 


As it turns out, this was already fixed: www.talossa.ca/files/bills.php?bill=15&cosa=47&clark=4

And no one seemed to have noticed.

I since then created a script to set the privacy, sent an email, broke the script, fixed it, resent an email, and now, we wait.

On the other hand, the election was postponed until February 15th, giving us more time to get the privacy setting loaded.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Cet homme-ci, il a tellement raison ! Donnez-lui un biscuit !

More seriously, it would indeed be worth a debate in the Ziu!

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

I can't seem to find the law which asks me to give the email address either in the Organic Law or in El Lexhatx.

Did we get rid of it or did I just miss it?

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Dec 31, 2015 12:07:54 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

I can't seem to find the law which asks me to give the email address either in the Organic Law or in El Lexhatx.

Did we get rid of it or did I just miss it?

Lexh. D.8.5.

[Breneir Itravilatx]

8.5. Information Available to Political Party Leaders
8.5.1. An Electorate Database shall be made available to political party leaders.
8.5.2. The Database shall only be accessible by leaders of parties which have been fully registered with the Chancery and provincial officers, provided the conditions in D.8.5 are met.
8.5.3. The Database shall contain the following information on each of the Kingdom's Citizens only: Name, Province, E-Mail address.
8.5.4. The E-Mail address of a citizen shall only be made available to party leaders if the citizen has opted-in to receive election communications
8.5.5. Measures shall be taken to ensure that the database is kept non-public and can only be viewed by the audience intended.
8.5.6. Additional information may be held upon the database against any given person ONLY if that person requests such information to be included.
8.5.7. Any citizen may request to opt-out of having their E-Mail address included in this database for any reason at any time by notifying the Chancery.

[Breneir Itravilatx]

Dec 31, 2015 8:19:40 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

I now have a party leader asking me for the email addresses, but I have this alternative, my script. People have said it's not the job of the SoS to email citizens party adverts, but isn't it better than giving parties a free door to them? 

Full disclosure, the party leader requesting the voter email list per Lex D8.5.1 is me. In the past as a party leader and dealing with different Secretarys of State I have not had an issue on this matter.

Upon sending Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. the section of statute which does allow party leaders to get email lists for the purpose of voter education and campaigning he informed me that 'he has his attorney working to find a way around it.'

I am working with my party colleagues to consider my next course of action but I want to state publicly that we are in dangerous territory. The office of Secretary of State is one of our nation's most powerful institutions and we should not have an official seeking to contravene or nullify statutes at his or her whim.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Dec 31, 2015 13:59:15 GMT -6 Breneir Itravilatx said:

Full disclosure, the party leader requesting the voter email list per Lex D8.5.1 is me. In the past as a party leader and dealing with different Secretarys of State I have not had an issue on this matter.

Upon sending Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. the section of statute which does allow party leaders to get email lists for the purpose of voter education and campaigning he informed me that 'he has his attorney working to find a way around it.'

I am working with my party colleagues to consider my next course of action but I want to state publicly that we are in dangerous territory. The office of Secretary of State is one of our nation's most powerful institutions and we should not have an official seeking to contravene or nullify statutes at his or her whim.

The SoS is actively trying to "find a way around" the clear letter of the law? That is disappointing.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

I am only trying to protect the privacy of voters.

I might have an alternative that is 100% suitable. I will find a way to supply email aliases for all citizens over the next few days.

If you want to email citizen # 101 (me), you would email 101[at]talossa.ca and the citizen would get it. If he replies, his email will be shared, but at least, they will have a choice in the matter.

In that way, the law is respected : the email of all citizens will be respected, but the party leaders will have a copy of it

[Breneir Itravilatx]

What you are doing is not implementing the law and attempting to interpret in a way which fits with your opinion on privacy. This is not respecting the law rather it is enshrining your personal opinion to a level higher than the plain, easily understood and history of successful enactment of the statute in question.

Work to change the law but do not ignore a law when you do not like it.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Dec 31, 2015 14:42:20 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

I am only trying to protect the privacy of voters.

I'm not sure I understand. D.8.5.4 says the database provided to leaders includes only the email addresses of citizens who have opted to receive election communications from parties. What privacy concern is there?

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Dec 31, 2015 15:27:39 GMT -6 Sir C. M. Siervicül said:

Dec 31, 2015 14:42:20 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

I am only trying to protect the privacy of voters.

I'm not sure I understand. D.8.5.4 says the database provided to leaders includes only the email addresses of citizens who have opted to receive election communications from parties. What privacy concern is there?

Oh, then it's fine!

No citizen has opted to do so. For real. I do not have any records of any citizen opting in.

Case closed!

Now, my solution is still available...

[Breneir Itravilatx]

I ask these questions with honest curiosity.

Could someone please elaborate on the privacy concerns which apparently caused the introduction of the 'opt-in' protocol?

How do political parties contact Talossan citizens who do not use Witt regularly?

How many complaints has the Chancery received concerning receipt of spam from Talossan political parties or government agencies?

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Dec 31, 2015 16:11:39 GMT -6 Breneir Itravilatx said:

I ask these questions with honest curiosity.

Could someone please elaborate on the privacy concerns which apparently caused the introduction of the 'opt-in' protocol?

How do political parties contact Talossan citizens who do not use Witt regularly?

Here is the Hopper thread for the bill that changed us from an opt-out regime to an opt-in regime. I thought it was a bad idea then, and I think it's a bad idea now. But a system like what MPF proposes would be better than the status quo.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Dec 31, 2015 14:55:56 GMT -6 Breneir Itravilatx said:

What you are doing is not implementing the law and attempting to interpret in a way which fits with your opinion on privacy. This is not respecting the law rather it is enshrining your personal opinion to a level higher than the plain, easily understood and history of successful enactment of the statute in question.

Work to change the law but do not ignore a law when you do not like it.

Oh, I wouldn't ignore it. But I can try to find a legal way around it that pleases everyone, as long as my intentions is the protection of the voters.

It's not like I am trying to prevent some people from voting. My intentions are truly to protect the privacy of our citizens, while still allowing parties to contact them.

I remember in 2010, about 3 years after I had unofficially left the Republic of Talossa, I got an email from from Miestra asking me if I wanted to be in a constitutional reform.

Ok, Miestra was one of my friends, and we were the founding member of our own party back then, but still, it felt weird after so many years not thinking about Talossa!

Can you imagine a citizen who gets a ballot every 7 months or so and ignores it who suddenly starts receiving a ton of party emails?

With an email relayed by the SoS, at least they can say to only 1 person: "leave me alone", and they will no longer receive ANY emails from ANYONE, since I can put that citizen as inactive, or at least, in a do not contact list.

But if they tell me, and you send a mailing 1 week later with an out of date list, they WILL be contacted again!

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Dec 31, 2015 16:11:39 GMT -6 Breneir Itravilatx said:

I ask these questions with honest curiosity.

Could someone please elaborate on the privacy concerns which apparently caused the introduction of the 'opt-in' protocol?

How do political parties contact Talossan citizens who do not use Witt regularly?

How many complaints has the Chancery received concerning receipt of spam from Talossan political parties or government agencies?

In short, many countries, including Canada, have strict laws regarding who you can email, and they ban all opt-out email lists.

In Canada, the law is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY strict and can lead to major fines.

In the past, it wasn't a concern, but now, just sharing email addresses is criminal in many cases, including in Canada: If I share the emails of my customers to another party, I can be fined and possibly jailed (thought that would need them to prove conspiracy to commit fraud).

People are FEED UP with spam and pseudo-spam. Really feed-up.