Steve Langford is a Democratic state senator now running for governor in Georgia. The message of a recent email listed reasons to elect him: He's pro-business, pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-taxpayer. But after a messy experiment in bulk emailing, he may well take an antispam stance.
Langford's campaign organizers sent out the bulk email message on Thursday, and the subsequent fallout prompted them to issue an statement of apology on Friday.
"While we believe strongly in the freedom of speech, we also believe that it is inappropriate to send unwanted information to people who must pay for the capacity to receive it," read an apology by Langford's campaign manager, Lee Raudonis, to anyone who received an unwelcome email from the Langford campaign on Thursday.
Raudonis said that he was "horrified" at some of the angry responses his office received. Further, the Internet service provider used to send the emails, MindSpring, has a strict appropriate-use policy that the campaigners violated in sending out the spam. MindSpring got at least 30 complaints out of the 500 mails sent, and promptly notified the campaign office of its offense.
The email mess, as Raudonis described it, began when Langford's campaign staff searched for creative ways to get his campaign message out to the state's voters. They hit on the idea of using email as an efficient, inexpensive method, and at first, his supporters emailed all of their friends and associates.
Then a member of the campaign staff received an unsolicited email advertising software for sending bulk email called Bull's Eye Gold. The package is sold by WorldTouch Network, a California company that has drawn criticism for its alleged spam abuses.
The software package promises to help users develop targeted mailing lists. This appealed to Susan Lagana, the press secretary of Friends of Steve Langford, who purchased the program for US$259 and began collecting addresses of Georgia Democrats. Or so she thought. On Thursday, she sent out a batch of 500 emails and, within minutes, people of all political persuasions around the country began receiving emails that listed reasons to vote for Steve Langford.
Lagana had been advised by WorldTouch to make up a nonexistent return address, so the campaign's email box would not be cluttered with returns and bounces. So she forged an address -- or so she thought. Unfortunately, the address was an actual customer of the same ISP used by Langford.
Lagana said that she never intended to offend anyone, much less violate MindSpring's appropriate-use policy.
"We aren't selling anything and have not solicited anybody, we're just trying to get our message out and didn't think anyone would find it offensive," said Lagana, when reached on Thursday evening. "It's like putting an ad on TV; if people don't want to see it they don't have to -- but it's our job to inform the voters."
MindSpring, however, disagreed.
"It was a flagrant violation. It forged headers and implicated another customer, which is grounds for termination," said Harry Smoak, the "abuse captain" who oversees MindSpring's use policy.
By Friday morning, [email protected], the email address listed in the text of the spam, was closed, the software package had been returned to WorldTouch, payment stopped, and the Friends of Steve Langford had issued its apology.
"After discussions with MindSpring officials and the head of the Forum for Responsible and Ethical Email, I recognize that what we did was inappropriate and I am very sorry for any problems this may have caused," said Raudonis. He added that, if elected governor, Steve Langford may consider legislation to ban such forgeries.
The Georgia state legislature had considered a proposal to outlaw the use of forged-header information in email, but the law was struck down because the wording was vague and could have been applied against other, more innocent uses of trademarks.
If it had passed, said Smoak, "[Langford] not only would have violated our terms of service, but he would have broken the law as well."
