Cyber Promotions in privacy initiative; company in pact to shield e-mail addresses, facilitate individual choice.WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 1997--Consumers wishing to have their electronic mail addresses shielded from unsolicited, "bulk" e-mails will benefit from an agreement between Philadelphia-based Cyber Promotions A Philadelphia-based company that specialized in mass mailings of unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam). Founder Sanford Wallace proudly called himself the "King of Spam." The company sent out millions of e-mail advertisements daily and seemed to be enjoying a thriving business until , and Aristotle.org, the Washington-based Internet site that helps consumers get their names off of junk mail See spam and junk faxes. , telemarketing and e-mail lists. Cyber Promotions accounts for more than 4 million e-mail ads daily. Beginning immediately, the company will block unsolicited e-mails from going to any of the nation's 138 million voters who request blocking at the Internet address There are two kinds of addresses that are widely used on the Internet. One is a person's e-mail address, and the other is the address of a Web site, which is known as a URL. Following is an explanation of Internet e-mail addresses only. For more on URLs, see URL and Internet domain name. www.aristotle.org . To date, individuals at more than 1.27 million e-mail addresses have requested blocking. There is no charge for the service. Requests are made at www.aristotle.org and up to five e-mail addresses may be blocked for individuals who request it. Sanford Wallace Sanford "Spamford" Wallace is a spammer who came to notoriety in 1997, promoting himself as the original Spam King. Career In the late 1990s, his company, Cyber Promotions, aka Cyberpromo, was widely blacklisted as a source of unsolicited email. , president of Cyber Promotions (www.cyberpromo.com) hailed the agreement and hopes other bulk e-mailers will follow his example. "This is a clean, hassle-free way for people to have their wishes honored. That's good business and we're pleased to take the lead," he said. Aristotle is a private company that maintains the only list of legal addresses for every registered voter in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . The company has established a "legal Emailbox" for American citizens, from which mail of a governmental or commercial nature may be retrieved. Consumers who pick up their mail at their Aristotle Legal Emailbox are compensated a portion of the savings, generally 25 cents to one dollar, saved by the government or commercial mailer. Mailers calculate that they would otherwise have spent the money on postage and printing sending the notice or catalog through the postal service postal service, arrangements made by a government for the transmission of letters, packages, and periodicals, and for related services. Early courier systems for government use were organized in the Persian Empire under Cyrus, in the Roman Empire, and in medieval . Aristotle.org expects to deliver hundreds of millions of official notices, from the IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. , Social Security Administration, Department of Motor Vehicles In the United States of America, Department of Motor Vehicles (or DMV) is a commonly used name of the government agency of a U.S. state which administers the registration of automobiles (e.g., by issuing license plates), and/or the licensing of drivers (e.g. and other large mailers in the future. California Secretary of State Bill Jones was the first high-profile client who began to test the service last fall. "E-mail is more cost-effective, convenient and efficient than traditional printing and mailing," said Jones. "When one adds up the printing and postage costs for two statewide elections this year, the printing and mailing of Franchise Tax Board forms and instruction books, DMV DMV abbr. Department of Motor Vehicles license and registration renewal forms, plus all the other various statewide mailings, the price tag can be staggering. E-mail delivery of these documents could save taxpayers a fortune." The average consumer gets more than 1,000 pieces of unsolicited junk mail each year and many unwanted telephone solicitations. "Aristotle helps consumers put a stop to the unwanted mail, e-mail and telephone calls," said John Phillips, president of Aristotle. "The only requirement is that you must be a registered voter to qualify." "It's an extremely novel approach," said Stanton McCandlish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation See EFF. (body) Electronic Frontier Foundation - (EFF) A group established to address social and legal issues arising from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of computers as a means of communication and information distribution. , San Francisco, a non-profit public interest organization focusing on social responsibility on the Internet. "It's completely voluntary," he said. "You get the mailbox but you don't get any ads without wanting them." CONTACT: Aristotle Publishing John Phillips, 415/882-9924 or Cyber Promotions Sanford Wallace, 215/628-9780 or Electronic Frontier Foundation Stanton McCandlish, 415/436-9333 |
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