UPDATE: see below.
Got this today. Yes, G31000’s Allen Gluck is illegally spamming the guy they are suing. Doh!
The worst part of this is that it came after I wrote to Alex Dali and Allen Gluck about the spamming issue, after various other LinkedIn folks forward me copies of the spam. None of the folks writing me had agreed to get promotional emails from G31000, and of course I didn’t either, but Gluck and Dali appear to think that joining their ISO 31000 group constitutes a voluntary opt-in.
Hint: it doesn’t. Harvesting LinkedIn member information and then using it for spam is against the LinkedIn User Agreement, as well as a violation of the US CAN-SPAM Act. And yes, this has been reported to LinkedIn, and yes, it will probably mean their ISO 31000 group gets shut down — again.
(UPDATE: LinkedIn has indicated that since the spam mails originated outside of LinkedIn, they are OK under the User Agreement, meaning that they have no problem if folks harvest information and then spam, so long as they don’t send the spam using the internal LinkedIn mail system. That doesn’t seem to jive with the actual language of the User Agreement, but that’s fine. Regardless, it’s still a CAN-SPAM violation.)
(UPDATE 2: The number of people being spammed by Allen Gluck is growing, and lots of folks are sending us copies of the spam mail, asking for help. In one email, a person complains, and Gluck openly admits he got the addresses from his own contacts list, as well as from “Alex [Dali]’s list of thousands of people in his contact list of over twenty years.” The email will act as proof, in court, that Gluck did not receive permission first for the spamming, making it a tacit admission that he willingly violated the CAN-SPAM Act.)
(UPDATE 3: Never mind. After a few more people on LinkedIn complained, it seems they have changed their tune and are now saying that G31000’s bulk emailing was “both inappropriate and a violation of our User Agreement.” Here’s a screenshot:
Way To Support Your President, Dr. Hardy
On another topic, a keynote speaker at the upcoming G31000 conference is none other than Dr Karen Hardy, a senior adviser to US President Barack Obama, and Deputy Director of Risk Management for the US Department of Commerce.
Which means that the United States’ senior adviser on risk never assessed the risks associated with buying an unaccredited risk management credential from a French guy on the internet. Because that should never set off any alarms, right?
If New York State — or some other government agency — does rule that G31000 is operating a pyramid scheme, then this will be a giant embarrassment for the US Dept. of Commerce because, after all, they are supposed to be the folks who regulate pyramid schemes.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
