Spam Yoon, Round 2

jik — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:56:30 +0000

In June, I wrote about Sam Yoon’s unfortunate habit of adding people without their consent to his campaign’s spam distribution lists.

I’ve complained to Yoon’s office twice about the spamming — once in August 2006 and once in March 2009. Yoon did not have the courtesy to respond to either of my complaints.

I thought the spamming had stopped after my March 2009 complaint. Alas, it appears that I was wrong. I just received another piece of spam from him announcing that he and Michael Flaherty are joining forces to beat Menino.

Here’s the complaint I sent in response:

To: Sam Yoon , Sam Yoon
Cc: Michael Flaherty
Subject: Spamming constituents and ignoring their complaints is not a good way to win votes

Dear Councilor Yoon,

I think it’s time for a new mayor in Boston. I think abolishing the BRA and instituting term limits for the office of major are great ideas, and I’d love to be able to vote for a candidate who promises to put them into effect as mayor.

However, I also believe that how a candidate treats his constituents when he’s running for office is a good indication of how he’ll treat them afterwards. How, then, can I vote for your joint ticket with Michael Flaherty, if you insist on treating me and other voters with disrespect and ignoring our complaints?

I wrote to you in August 2006. I complained about the fact that you had added me to a bulk email list without my consent. I asked you to remove me from your bulk email lists and to reconsider your practice of adding people to spam lists without their consent. You did not have the courtesy to respond, although at least the spam stopped for a while.

Then, in March 2009, you spammed me again to announce your candidacy for mayor. Again, I wrote to you and complained about your spamming. Again, you did not have the courtesy to respond. And again, the spam continued; you’ve just spammed me again this morning with the announcement of your joint ticket with Flaherty.

Political campaigns are exempt from following the CAN-SPAM act. However, that is an onerous loophole inserted into the law by politicians putting their own interests ahead of the interests of their constituents, and therefore, most politicians who send bulk email abide by the provisions of the act even though they are not required to do so. The spam you sent me this morning violated the act, because it provided no contact information about the sender and no method for unsubscribing from future mailings. The spam you sent me in March at least was in compliance with the act, but although I followed the unsubscribe instructions and complained to you about it in email, and you still spammed me again today. Unsubscribe instructions that don’t work are worse than no unsubscribe instructions at all.

What I must conclude from all of this is that you consider your own selfish needs and desires to be more important and more worthy of respect than the needs and desires of your constituents. A person who thinks like that is not the kind of person I want to be working for me at City Hall.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

CC: http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/
CC: http://www.universalhub.com/

Spam Yoon

jik — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:13:18 +0000

In a recent email message to me entitled “Fighting the Good Fight,” friend, author and politician Michael Burstein referred me to Kate Hutchinson’s blog entry about spamming by Sam Yoon. Michael is an avid reader of my blog and therefore knows that I’ve been in more than a few scraps of my own like Kate’s. What is most amusing about Michael’s referral is that I, too, have first-hand experience with Yoon’s spamming. Here’s the complaint I sent to Yoon on March 3, 2009:

To: sam.yoon@cityofboston.gov
Subject: Political spam => you lose my vote

Mr. Yoon,

Back in 2006, I wrote to you at this email address about an issue which concerned me.

You took my email address from my message to you, and without my knowledge or consent, you added me to your bulk email list.

I sent you a complaint about this. Here is what I wrote on August 1, 2006:

It is inappropriate to subscribe someone to a bulk-email newsletter merely because they exchanged email with you. I didn’t ask to be put on your spam list, and you shouldn’t have added me without my permission.

I sent you *private* email about an issue which concerned me, and I expected my email address to remain *private*.

You could have *invited* me to join your newsletter mailing list, but it should have required *positive action from me* for me to actually be subscribed. That’s what it means for a list to be “opt-in”, and opt-in is the *only* reputable way to do bulk email.

I hope you will reconsider your practice of adding people to spam lists without their consent.

You did not respond.

Today, you spammed me again with your announcement about running for mayor.

I don’t patronize businesses that spam. I don’t support charities that spam. And I don’t vote for politicians who spam. Adding me to your spam list back in 2006 without my consent was bad enough; keeping me in your database after I asked you to remove me is completely unacceptable.

Shame on you.

Jonathan Kamens

Something better to do » Sam Yoon

Spam Yoon, Round 2

Spam Yoon