Howard Finkelstein sent this objection to the presence of his name in the Rhyolite Software list of related unwelcome domains.
How are you? I am wondering why you put my name on the unwanted domains list for a couple of reasons I dont send any emails the one that went to you was from info@appraisersrus.com Not me also they sent only 1 email about an appraisal request to appraisers and your name is on the appraisal list so thats why you got one and 1 e-mail doesn't count as spam so if you would remove my name I would appreciate. Also I appologize(sic) for any inconvienience(sic) that it may have caused this is not my doing & you can contact me at anytime if there are concerns. Just for your info I am just Hosting that site for them thats all I have to do with that site. My name is Howard Finkelstein please remove ASAP Thanks Howard
I answered by saying
Spam is any and all unsolicited bulk mail. Bulk mail is any collection of a "bunch" or a "lot" of substantially identical messages. Whether a sender of unsolicited bulk mail repeats the offense is irrelevant.How did my address get on a "the appraisal list?" I have no interest in real estate appraising. I have never done anything might be construed as soliciting bulk mail about real estate appraising.
Even if I did not have too much experience with senders of unsolicited bulk mail to accept your unsupported claim of not being involved with AppraisersRUS.com in more than hosting their web pages, your continued hosting of an organization that sends unsolicited bulk mail is sufficient to make mail from you, your businesses, and your clients unwelcome at rhyolite.com.
While I felt Mr.Finkelstein knew the inaccuracy of his claim that spam doesn't count unless an individual target receives more than one copy, he was polite. Therefore I did not at that time add his objection and my answer to the list of objections to the Rhyolite Software list.
I received a telephone call from (I think) Ron Klose of Imperial Web Designs. We spoke for a while and I pointed out the Google Record of the AppraisersRUS spam. Mr. Klose wanted to know how an organization could stay out of blacklists, and I told him of the value of being careful in choosing customers.
Eventually someone else who I think was Mr. Finkelstein took over the telephone call. As is common in such conversations, he demanded to know who I am. I told him that I make no secret of my identity and that my particulars are widely available on the net. He said that he would remove his company's name from the AppraisersRUS.com whois record so that I would have to remove imperialcable.com from my list. I disagreed and was going to point that only local needs to receive mail from listed domain names cause the removal of entries.
Then Mr. Finkelstein demanded to know if I knew his cousin. I answered with silence. Perhaps I've seen too many gangster movies in which people with broad New York or New Jersey accent ask similar question, because I was surprised when Mr. Finkelstein answered his own question with something about his cousin being an important lawyer. He then made clear his intention to have his cousin sue me or at least send threatening legal letters.
It was not until after we ended the telephone call and I checked and I found records of the previous exchange.
The legal threat with which Mr. Finkelstein ended our conversation makes any and all email from him, his employees, imperialcable.com, richardw@ntscom.com, etc. unwelcome at Rhyolite Software. All future communications must be conducted through our attorneys.
Other questions are answered in the list of objections about entries in the Rhyolite Software list of unwelcome domains.
Contact vjs@rhyolite.com but not this spam trap.
