Scott’s proposition can only be considered true if his skewed definition of “opt-in” is accepted. He says that you opted in when he opted you in, and you confirmed your opt-in status by failing to opt-out. If a judge accepts that definition, Scotty wins.

Of course the major flaw here is that his definition still does not include any actual permission. I never actually ASKED to receive his spam. Unfortunately, the US CAN-SPAM law does not require the spammer to obtain permission, so Scott is technically abiding by that law.

The law does, however, forbid automated harvesting of email addresses, and Scott is gleefully breaking that. The address he’s spamming has appeared in a few public places (like on this very site) so I can’t be sure where he harvested it. So we’re pretty much at stalemate.

This particular suit against SpamCop, however, is just flat-out asinine. There is no law anywhere that says an ISP cannot block whatever email they choose, nor any law forcing a blacklister to reveal the identities of the complainants. Scott Richter is a lying scumbag.