So Where Did the White House Get Those Names?

And the $64,000 question this week is: Where did the White House get the names of a bunch of people who claimed they were spammed as part of the national healthcare debate?

The White House announced Sunday night it would change its e-mail signup procedure after some people complained they received healthcare related messages they didn’t ask for.

“We are implementing measures to make subscribing to e-mails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf,” spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement Sunday night.

Shapiro added: “The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House Web site. The White House doesn't purchase, upload or merge from any other list. … [A]ll e-mails come from the White House Web site as we have no interest in e-mailing anyone who does not want to receive an e-mail.

“If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the e-mail, we hope they were not too inconvenienced. Further, we suggest that they unsubscribe from the list by clicking the link at the bottom of the e-mail or tell whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore.”

The complaints were over an e-mail sent Thursday under the name of White House senior adviser David Axelrod addressing “8 common myths about health insurance reform.”

As for where the names did not come from, I can vouch for the likelihood the White House didn’t purchase, merge or upload any lists. As some readers may be aware, I signed up for all the viable political candidates’ lists during the 2008 primaries and have been getting e-mail from various political causes—left and right—ever since.

I still receive e-mail as a result of signing up for President Obama’s list. I also signed up for Hillary Clinton’s list and have evidence it’s been shopped around. However, Axelrod’s healthcare message didn’t hit the address I registered with either Obama’s or Clinton’s campaign.

I received other healthcare related massages from Obama’s camp at that address, just not the message that resulted in this recent controversy.

The message also apparently did not go to e-mail addresses gathered at Flag@whitehouse.gov, the address the White House created for people to forward information about the healthcare debate they believed was “fishy.”

As a test to see what, if anything, would happen, I sent Flag@whitehouse.gov an e-mail saying I was having fishy thoughts about healthcare.

I haven’t received any communication as a result of that signup.

So what does all this mean? Apparently it means the White House mailed some list it gathered through other means and we’ll probably never know the details.

It also means someone on Obama’s staff needs—and may have already received—a lesson on permission-based e-mail-list building.