Abuse complaints to hosts / ISPs

I recently had a competitor of mine scrape my customer DB, specifically their email addresses and proceed to spam them.

Nothing out of the ordinary here, its nothing I wouldn't do myself but then I figured this guy is stealing my customers that ive spent a good deal of time collecting, mostly WH site but with some BH promotion.

First thing I did, cos I didn't wanna over-react to what is effectively a pretty minor thing, I emailed them to ask for an apology. Hey I figured if I get an apology that would be a result. They didn't reply to my request of an apology....

So I complained to his host and to his ISP in the hope that he would get cut off from his ISP for a little while and possibly have something happen to his hosting. So far the webhost has replied stating that the guy has confirmed he sent out 80 emails and that they are working on apology to be sent directly to me.

This competitor is no small fish, they rank pretty high and have been around for a good few years so if anything I should have been scraping their database. I originally just wanted them to admit what they had done but instead of doing that they ignored me. Now they have admitted guilt Im wondering how far I could push this.

The spam they sent out had no unsubscribe link or anything of the sort and was pretty misleading, usual spam I guess only this was targetted. I have proof they did it in the form of IP logs of 19k pages in less than an hour (heavy browsing eh ) and I also have my own email addy in the DB so I get spammed and know exactly where its coming from etc.

How far do you guys think I could push this? Not only have they stolen my data and done a mini-Dos on my server they have under taken an illegal spam campaign.

I am sure if you can prove that the content belonged to you first and prove what he has done, you can report him to his isp and surely they would ban him.

Godmonkee

Err thats kinda what I said I had done.

I emailed his ISP and his host. His host got back to me saying he had confirmed what I said and that he would be sending an apology directly to me.

His ISP is yet to get back to me regarding the issue. I was just wondering if I could try and get his hosting pulled or something to basically fuck with his service. I realise nothing major is gonna happen to him just really doing it to prove a point than anything else.

Sorry not reading it right, I really wouldn't hold your breath on the apology, personally I believe he will keep arguing the fact that it is his, and realisticly your best bet is just to let it go, you really don't want to stoop down to his level, it is just one of those things that can happen in im'ing. Sorry to sound negative but I believe that is what you should do.

Thanks
Godmonkee

well ... you can try and sue him even if you can't prove he stole your db .... maybe just to scary him a little

I wonder how he stole your DB.. ?
Did you have the emails public readable ?
Otherwise it would be computer fraud if he hacked your system ..

godmonkee said:

Sorry not reading it right, I really wouldn't hold your breath on the apology, personally I believe he will keep arguing the fact that it is his, and realisticly your best bet is just to let it go, you really don't want to stoop down to his level, it is just one of those things that can happen in im'ing. Sorry to sound negative but I believe that is what you should do.

Thanks
Godmonkee

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Dude, as I said he isnt arguing the fact with his host. He has stated he did exactly what I accused him of so there really isn't any arguing. I have a copy of the email that came from his IP address, I have logs of him accessing 19k pages in minutes so I have plenty of proof. Im not gonna stoop down to any level just wondering if its possible to give him whats coming to him.

His emailing tactics were illegal, just wondering if I could get it upheld.

keinehabe said:

well ... you can try and sue him even if you can't prove he stole your db .... maybe just to scary him a little

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He didn't exactly steal the DB he scraped it and used it to spam the list. I have one of my emails in that list so I was one of the people he spammed. He did not stick to any of the legal mass emailing tactics just spam.

justone said:

I wonder how he stole your DB.. ?
Did you have the emails public readable ?
Otherwise it would be computer fraud if he hacked your system ..

Click to expand...

As I mentioned earlier in this reply he didnt exactly steal it, sorry for how I explained this, he scraped it from my website so cannot get him done for hacking or even fraud I dont think.

If his apology isn't here by the end of the week you can bet I will be contacting Rackspace right away to let them know, they were actually very quick to respond as I wasn't just wildly accussing him, I have the proof.

I would have hoped BT to contact me quicker than rackspace, I guess rackspace are more scared of letigation.

This may not be the best approach. What of a competitor tries to do the same to your hosting?

I know what I meant but couldn't word it right, Maybe I shall just stay quite in the future it might be easier lol

Godmonkee

Website said:

This may not be the best approach. What of a competitor tries to do the same to your hosting?

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Well if I left such major footprints as he did I would kind of expect it lol.

I realise most of us here do this sort of thing routinely but it doesn't mean we shouldn't retaliate in the same way that others would if they knew we were doing it. As a side note I have never targetted that particularly websites users, not that it makes much difference.

godmonkee said:

I know what I meant but couldn't word it right, Maybe I shall just stay quite in the future it might be easier lol

Godmonkee

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Nah man its a forum, everyone gets confuzzled from time to time. Sorry if I jumped on you.

Still no apology. Did I mention that I actually contacted the owner of the website through his whois email address and through the contact form on the website requesting an apology before reporting him to anyone? Well he ignored it which is the only reason I did it really. All of this is more to warn him not to be doing it again. Hopefully it will work.