I’ve decided that I, as a relatively new resident of Washington State, will start filing formal complaints with the state Attorney General’s office (using this form here) for those companies who have harvested or purchased my contact information.

I’ve been doing some of my own work in email marketing on behalf of one of my clients. One example is that they wanted was to target specific locales and a specified surrounding radius with a given client list.

Reputable businesses take steps to police themselves as to not enable spammers to get their services blacklisted and to not get called onto the carpet for enabling CAN-SPAM violators. Either of these could endanger their business.

What I have learned in particular is how the trade now has to be very explicit about not purchasing lists, validating that their consumers have opt-in, and having a management system to remove those that have lost interest. If they do not do these things, they risk financial hardship.

The FCC maintains a more optimized information page about what you can do to report violations, what information you should include in your complaint, and also what state agencies you can additionally inform.

Perhaps the upcoming do not track service will follow a similar vein. (Wired article here)

If something bothers you, do something about it. In this case, I’m making a real world dollar impact to the pockets of those who are selling my information without my consent and those who sell them services.