Belligerant Anti-Spammer Watch: Mumma’s Claims Debunked

Self-proclaimed tireless anti-spam litigator Mark Mumma has been telling anyone gullible enough to believe him that he had no idea I was a reporter during an interview in which he went ballistic earlier this year.

He is also claiming that I edited out a big portion of the interview that would have vindicated him.

“The ‘so-called’ Magill ‘interview’ wasn't an interview at all,” Mumma wrote in a post on TheCarPCStore.com. “Ken Magill sent me an e-mail asking me to call him. He never identified himself as a reporter, he didn’t ‘ask me for an interview’ then he fabricated most of the content. He wasn't liking the answers I was giving him to his questions so he decided to answer his questions FOR ME. What a guy!”

Mumma continued: ”He left out a good chunk of the phone call. Mostly the parts where I shot down his lame assumptions about the reliability of the ‘opt out’ system.”

There is a large pile of evidence that contradicts every assertion Mumma makes above.

For example, during the interview in question, Mumma made the following threat: “I may find time to sue you if you defame me in your article, which it sounds like you’re going to.”

And later in the exchange, he made the following statement: “I know that with editing, you’re going to be able to make me say anything. I’m sure I’ll probably be accused of being some kind of cross-dressing baby killer or something by the time you’re done with me, so whatever.”

Those are not the words of a man who doesn’t know he’s being interviewed.

As for his allegation that I fabricated content, that’s a firing-squad offense in this business. Mumma has an audio and visual recording of the whole interview. He can post any or all of it anytime. He has so far failed to publish anything more than three-minute, highly edited snippets.

Mumma also claims that my initial e-mail message requesting him to call me came through truncated and that, as a result, he had no idea I was a reporter. According to Mumma, my message arrived with only my name and telephone number intact.

However, my original message appeared intact at the bottom of a reply Mumma sent to me after the interview.

If it came back to me in one piece, what are the chances it didn’t originally arrive to him intact? I’ll forward the whole message to anyone who requests it.

Here is content of the initial message I sent to Mumma using his Web site’s contact form:

“Hello Mark,

“I'm a reporter with Direct Magazine in New York, a trade publication for marketers.

“I interviewed John Lawless of Omega Travel last week and he says you've admitted in court that someone supplied your e-mail address or addresses to Omega's Web site.

“This, of course, would mean that Omega was responding to a request for information.

“When did you find out that someone supplied Omega with your address or addresses? Do you have any idea who it was? And how did you find out?

“Lawless also said you are still defaming his company online. Any response to that allegation?

”Sincerely,

”Ken Magill”

Folks, introductions from reporters don’t come more straightforward than that. What’s more, no one with even a shred of common sense can accuse me of approaching Mumma with a hidden agenda after reading that message.

Also, Mumma filmed himself calling me. Why would he do that if he didn’t know he was being interviewed? I sent him an e-mail asking that very question. He has yet to answer.

As for Mumma’s claim that I edited out a portion of the interview that vindicated him, I did excise a passage in which Mumma made possibly defamatory claims about a company unrelated to the discussion. Our corporate attorney instructed me to cut the passage because he thought it was irrelevant and could be actionable.

However, since Mumma claims the deleted exchange is so crucial, it’s time everybody got a look at it. Below is the excised passage with the name of the company removed.

For background, a jury earlier this year awarded Omega World Travel $2.5 million in a defamation suit against Mumma for calling the company and its proprietors spammers on a Web site he owns. The exchange below took place during a 17,000-word interview in which Mumma admitted he was aware that someone had registered his e-mail address with Cruise.com, yet he continued his failing legal battle against parent company Omega.

In the passage, he is trying to say that his dealings with another company justified his behavior with Omega. Interestingly, although Mumma claims the following passage vindicates him, he has failed to publish it.

Here it is:

Mumma: What you’re doing is you’re living in an imaginary fairytale land where everybody knows which links are safe to click and which aren’t and that’s just not the case. [unnamed corporation] owns about 50 [locations]. They’re a very highly respected company. They’re the other spam lawsuit that I lost.

Magilla: Why’d you lose that one?

Mumma: I opted out of their e-mail three times! Three! Times! And they never would take me off their list … 120 days.

Magilla: Why’d you lose that lawsuit?

Mumma: Well, they sent an e-mail to my Yellow Page ad thanking me for [doing business] there, and the judge said “well it’s ok that they sent an e-mail to your Yellow Page ad because you’ve [done business] there.” And they didn’t even know who I was. They were just blanketly spamming the Yellow Pages saying “thank you for [doing business] here” when they were in fact were addressing an inanimate object.

Magilla: So how did they get your e-mail address?

Mumma: Well, obviously they got it out of the Yellow Pages because that’s the only place it’s ever existed.

Magilla: So apparently they were harvesting, but that’s not who we’re talking about here. We’re talking about Omega.

There you have it folks, Magilla’s version of the proverbial 18-minute gap. Also, there is no evidence that the company in question harvested e-mail addresses.

In fairness, the point Mumma was making was that it’s not always possible to tell by looking at an e-mail whether or not the sender will honor opt outs. I had said previously that it’s usually pretty easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys by their e-mail.

Point taken. But that doesn’t remotely justify Mumma’s reckless and malicious disregard for the truth in his actions against Omega World Travel once he became aware someone forge subscribed his e-mail address, a charge a jury of his peers agreed to, to the tune of $2.5 million.