Is Your Email Address Public Data?

quackking writes "Are email addresses public records, accessible under public open-access laws in America? Up in Maine they are fighting about just this issue ..."

If email were public data...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would personal websites be public data?

Would ICQ, AIM, MSN, IRC nicks/networks be public data?

We're talking about new methods of communication here!!

Sure.

[Unknown Poltroon]

AS long as i can get an unlisted one.

Whole article, slashdotting imminent

[Anonymous Coward]

E-mail address request snub has statewide implications

Associated Press

LAMOINE -- A resident's request for a list of all e-mail addresses on file at the Town Office could spark a statewide challenge about whether e-mail addresses are public information.

What Makes Central Maine Special!

The Maine Municipal Association has advised Town Administrator Stu Marckoon that e-mail addresses in the town's database are public records. About 200 Lamoine residents receive town notices by e-mail.

But Marckoon said Maine's Freedom of Access law does not expressly say e-mail addresses are public information, and that he wants to protect the privacy of residents. He has proposed a new town policy to protect the addresses unless their owners give written permission to release them.

"I feel I'm violating their trust if I release the e-mail addresses to any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants them," Marckoon said.

Lamoine resident Robert Sharkey last week requested all e-mail addresses in the town's computer. In his written request, Sharkey said he wanted the electronic addresses because he has "a need for corresponding with residents of Lamoine."

Marckoon sought the advice of the town's attorney, Anthony Beardsley, who told Marckoon he didn't think e-mail addresses were public records under Maine law. Marckoon said Beardsley recommended that the town develop a policy addressing the issue.

But Maine Municipal Association spokesman Michael Starn said e-mail writers should know that their addresses aren't confidential, even if they consider the release of those addresses an invasion of privacy.

"Privacy just isn't there," he said. "People will view this as an invasion of privacy, but it's just a fact of life with the way communication has changed."

Attorney Gordon Scott of Bangor, former longtime counsel for the Maine Press Association, said he has no doubt that towns cannot withhold e-mail addresses. He was unaware of the issue arising in any other Maine town.

Marckoon said the town sends e-mail notices, on things such as dog license renewals and property tax notices, to residents who fill out a form and give their e-mail address.

When Marckoon sends e-mail notices, he uses a "blind carbon copy" computer command to prevent one resident from seeing the e-mail addresses of the other recipients.

Under Marckoon's proposed e-mail policy, all e-mails received or sent by town officials would be public documents. But the e-mail addresses of residents who signed up for electronic notices would not be divulged unless they give their written permission.



(Copyright Infringer: Yes, those box thingies were in the original. Probably a Mozilla/IE-ism, or some kind of conversion problem.)

The issue

[Apreche]

Spam is the issue here. E-mail addresses, house addresses, and phone numbers should all be treated the same way. I wouldn't unlist my phone number if there weren't telemarketers. And I wouldn't mind having the whole world know my e-mail address if it wouldn't get spammed.

Re:Information Wants to be Free

[OMEGA Power]

This is a totally different issuse. The question is not should you be able to read all the emails sent to the government but rather cane any random person demend a list of all the email address the government has. I, for one, don't like the idea of spammers being able to go to the government and get lists of every address the government has on file.

Re:Information Wants to be Free

[allism]

Just playing devil's advocate here...but wouldn't getting the e-mails from the government necessarily have to include the e-mail addresses? For instance, if a government employee sent out an e-mail saying he was going to condemn someone's house, does it really mean anything for public record if it cannot be determined to whom the e-mail was sent to?

If a spammer could request copies of the e-mails, they could easily harvest the addresses from them. And they probably wouldn't be the addresses people use to dump their junk to - if a person thinks they might receive useful information like what was stated in the article, they would probably use an e-mail address that they actually read.

Open gov't

[MacAndrew]

The default rule should be that public data is open to the public, Mr. Cheney notwithstanding. There are exception such as statutorily-granted privacy, (gov't) doctor-patient privilege, national security, executive privilege (narrow!), and so on. In general, though, we should expect such records to be open when we go looking for them and when we turn over data to them. I don't see a reasonable expectation of privacy UNLESS the gov't assured me of one; and I wouldn't give them an email address of any value to me without assurances. If the gov't gave such assurances falsely, they should at least purge the data they have, or be liable for damages.

I do think such records should probably be protected, but by law. There were some nasty problems, for example, when states such as California were not just releasing driver's license data, but selling it for profit. In CA, and at least one other place, this led to stalking/murder, such as by someone who knew only a license plate.

But generally, we should expect gov't to be open by default -- we pay for the system, we gets the fruits -- as always, IMHO....

Re:Open gov't

[nlvp]

I agree, this is just an example of new territory. Nobody's ever asked for this before, and so they're thinking, "is this appropriate?" If it isn't, then they need to legislate, but just because this Sharkey fellow is the first person to come up with the request doesn't mean he should be exempt from the laws that are passed in reaction to his request.

Legislators don't generalise laws if they deem it to be inappropriate, they need to acknowledge (or not) that email is different to regular mail addresses on the basis that the cost-free nature of emailing an address means that should that address become public knowledge, the address itself may become unusable quite quickly.

Hopefully, common sense will prevail and legislators will decide that people that provided their email addresses had a reasonable presumption of privacy, or that if you want to contact them through this method, then you have to go through an authorized third party that will forward certain types of communication (ie not be a spam-forwarder); perhaps neither of these options is the right one, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that just implementing open access policies and letting anyone get access to these email addresses is inappropriate.

Since the article says that the email addresses are used to communicate council business to residents, we can say that the address owners had a reasonable presumption that that was what the address was going to be used for, not for whatever Mr. Sharkey's unstated purposes are.

Re:Open gov't

[jqpublic]

>Hopefully, common sense will prevail and legislators will decide....
Legislators using common sense.
Ha ha, ya, dat's a gut vun.

Re:Open gov't

[Technician]

California isn't the only state that sold or released driver regestration details. I bought a used car in Oregon and registered it. My registration came back with a typo. My middle initial was wrong. I intended to fix it as this is an official document. Then I started getting junk mail addressed with the same error. I decided to overlook the error just to see how far it went. I found about 1/3 of my junk mail was from registering a car.
I've heard they changed the access to the records, but I've since moved 3 times and live in another state.

Re:Open gov't

[MacAndrew]

I encountered that typo oddity a long time ago, and use it to my advantage today by giving every entity a different email address under our domain. I've noticed other people doing this, too. All mail gets forwarded to the same place, but I know who spilled the beans that led to spam. There's not a whole lot I can do to whoevergave, sold, or lost my email address, but that address gets added to my filters, and when I contact them I can really insist it HAD to be their fault not mine, and they should fix their problem, such as vulnerability to data mining (spambots). The last site I complained to -- a group I'm a member of -- commented that ten other people used their name in the given email, in other words at least 10 others were using the same trick.

Thankfully, the amount of physical junk mail has dropped off in recent years, at least here after my various efforts to keep the tree-killers at bay. Spam on the other hand ... sigh.

Isnt it obvious?

[atrophic-one]

Man, I have enlarged my penis (and increased my breast size) while fixing my morgage like 10000 times, and that was after AOL beefed up their anti-spam...

The Real Issue

[DarkKnightRadick]

The real issue at hand is the fact that the government collected this data before they had a policy on how it would be used/abused/protected/advertised. Personally the gov't mucked up on this one, therefore they should be made to pay for damages after they hand out the email addy's. Yes, it might be a violation of privacy, but since no policy existed, the person requesting them just used the law (or non-existance of law's and statutes and rules) to legally spam his neighbors (unsolicited email is unsolicited email, no matter who it's from).

well, I would say no

[Anonymous Coward]

Since phone numbers and addresses are "anonymous" they are public information unless they connect a person to the address. For instance you can make up phone numbers, or you can drive down the street and get addresses.

However once you connect an individual to the address it's an invasion of privacy, in my opinion.

So email addresses aren't always anonymous, for instance "[e-mail]" is clearly the address of Bob Smith. So you have to err on the side of caution and assume all email addresses contain some degree of personal information in the form of names or initials.

Also there is the spam danger: I've often had my email address placed in Cc: lists by mistake (or by stupidity) and as a result gotten signed up for junk, or even started receiving Klez virus, etc.

So one clueless moron who gets a hold of my address "to contact the citizens" might do the same thing and then I have to shut down the address (not a problem since I have my own domain and make up new addresses all the time, but still annoying).

Re:well, I would say no

[quinto2000]

Wha? Phone numbers and addresses are currently public record. Try opening up a phone book.

To put it in perspective

[dacarr]

Your email address is public much as your snail address is public. It is a means to deliver something to a specific location.

And it is as public as you, the holder of said address, make it. If you want people to contact you, you stick it in a website. If you don't want people contacting you, you don't use it anywhere, just keep it out of the public eye.

Re:To put it in perspective

[Samrobb]

Your email address is public much as your snail address is public.

I think it's more like your phone number. Your physical address is a matter of public record because it's a matter of public interest - there are numerous government agencies (postal service, law enforcement, fire stations, EMT) that need to know your phycial address in order to function properly.

It isn't nearly as important that your phone number be a matter of public record, and so it is possible to request an unlisted phone number. Likewise, I think you should be able to have a reasonable expecation of privacy for your email address, and the government should honor this expectation by assuming that you do not want your address / phone number / fax number / pager number / cell phone number / email address / other personal information distributed unless you've given them explicit permission to do so.

The law in question

[Lumpish Scholar]

[Lamoine, Maine]

Town Administrator Stu Marckoon ... said Maine's Freedom of Access law does not expressly say e-mail addresses are public information

The law is here [mainepress.org]. It says:

The term "public records" shall mean any written, printed or graphic matter or any mechanical or electronic data compilation from which information can be obtained, directly or after translation into a form susceptible of visual or aural comprehension, that is in the possession or custody of an agency or public official of this State or any of its political subdivisions and has been received or prepared for use in connection with the transaction of public or governmental business or contains information relating to the transaction of public or governmental business, except [exceptions listed, none relevant]

It's open to interpretation, of course, but I see the problem.

Also from the newspaper article:

Lamoine resident Robert Sharkey last week requested all e-mail addresses in the town's computer. In his written request, Sharkey said he wanted the electronic addresses because he has "a need for corresponding with residents of Lamoine."

Insert joke here.

The request certainly does not adhere the spirit of the law, which is intended to keep decision making "transparent." It may be in line with the letter of the law, though.

No - in a way.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just make up a new phone number. You can't just make up a new address.

You can do that with e-mail addresses. Be it making a new hotspam, err, hotmail address, or be it through owning your own domain name and thus having a virtually unlimited amount of addresses at your disposal.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. If you post your e-mail address to a public forum, it's no longer private. If you send it to some company that requires it and thus, you end up getting spammed, tough luck.

E-mail addresses are inherently private - the fact that people give them out far too easily isn't the fault of e-mail, and it doesn't need any legislation keeping/preventing addresses from being 'public'.

In short, if you want to keep your e-mail address private, no one's going to stop you.

(Just be sure that your 'friends' take you seriously when you point out that they will receive .50 cal pieces of lead in various parts of their bodies if they cause your address to receive spam.)

Unreasonable effort

[bluGill]

Sure, if I go through unreasonabl effort I have a chance of keeping my email address spam free. I need to find someone willing to accept my private domain, as DNS records are public. It can be their domain, but they have to allow me to set up as many email addresses as I want, and not tell anyone what they are. Then I need to be careful who gets that address.

Problem is I can't be careful who gets my email address. I'm looking for a job, and MOST potential employeers email me first when they are interested. If I don't respond they are likely to move on, in this ecconomy they can afford to accept someone else. (Note, see the other /. story about ID theft from job listings for the other side of this)

For that matter I want my email public and some strangers to email me. I don't know who they are, but there might be someone with information I need, or who needs information I have, and email is the best way to communicate. If I need the information I can't expect them to go through extra effort to reach me, if email bounces they won't try again. If they need my information they will try harder, but if my email address isn't public then they will have to give up.

Re:No - in a way.

[walker2030]

Well you can get your phone number changed and unlisted. I think that phone numbers, address, e-mail address should be handled the same way

one solution

[zatz]

If the average netizen had access to a more capable mail server, there would be a technical solution to this. One which I already employ when I need to give an email address to someone I don't trust not to or resell it.

Generate a random string to use as a mailbox name. Forward that to your real inbox. Use procmail or MTA rules to bounce any messages it receives which are not from the expected sender, or just remove the mapping entirely when it outlives its usefulness. Certainly this process could be made more automatic and user friendly if there was demand for it.

This also allows for greater anonymity, although you could still require recipients of the city newsletter to give real names with their special-purpose addresses. Who lives in the city is already relatively easy to determine regardless.

Time for a new type of email

[unitron]

The only solution is a new type of email where you pay postage. Unfortunately that probably means getting governments involved so that a commercial spammer can't get cheap bulk rates but a legitimate charity or such can CC to a mailing list of the willing without spending a fortune.

they aren't public in Canada

[a voice in the crowd]

under the recently enacted Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), email addresses are private information.