[RP TownTalk] Illegal activates

[Lou King]

I suppose others in our community have also been subjected to illegal 
activate today.

It is my understanding that only employees of the USPS may place 
articles in Mail boxes or Mail slots intended to receive U.S. Mail. This 
is why companies like FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) put doorknob 
hangers or sticky notes on your door - instead of placing something in 
your mail box.

Today I received, through my mail slot, an unsigned flyer with a stamped 
postcard addressed to the Chairman of the PG county Planning Board.

Without getting into the pros and cons of The Cafritz project, I find 
this effort to spread information without attribution counter productive.

Points to consider:
1. The flyer is unsigned and includes only slight information about who 
distributed or payed for the flyer. The only clue is the 2 references to 
stopcafritz website. (I admit this is guilt by association) There is no 
evidence that the stopcafritz.org owners support the flyer.

The one-liner "Paid for and distributed by your neighbors" does not tell 
me, or anyone, who. Are these "neighbors" from Riverdale Park? or DC? or 
California? (see 5 below)

2. The referenced website does not meet the normally accepted practices 
of identifying contact information. If you follow the about-us link on 
the website there is a list of individual's names. There is no direct 
way to contact the owners of the site - about the site. That is 
different than contacting them about their campaign.

3. FYI - The stopcafritz.org website does use google-analytics.com 
coding and other methods to track your visit to the website and which 
pages you visit.

4. Although the stopcafritz website does want to collect personal 
information (First and last name, email) to "sign up" there is no 
evidence of a privacy statement. It is common practice to include a 
privacy statement to describe what the collector of personal information 
is going to do with your collected information and what they are going 
to do to protect your information from abuse.

5. The owners of STOPCAFRITZ.ORG have chosen to hide their ownership of 
the domain name. A search of www.whois.net, a place to find out who owns 
a domain name/website. All that is learned is:

Registrant Name:stopcafritz.org Private Registrant
Registrant Organization:A Happy DreamHost Customer
Registrant Street1:417 Associated Rd #324
Registrant City:Brea
Registrant State/Province:CA
Registrant Postal Code:92821

It is intended that owners of domains make this information public. 
Under the mantel protecting domain owners from becoming victims of data 
mining, spammers, etc. private listing is legal. However,

"When you register a domain name, the Internet Corporation for Assigned 
Names and Numbers (ICANN) requires your domain name registrar to submit 
your personal contact information to the WHOIS database. Once your 
listing appears in this online directory, it is publicly available to 
anyone who chooses to check domain names using the WHOIS search tool.

There are a variety of third parties who may check domain names in the 
WHOIS database, including:

     Individuals check domain names for expiration dates
     Registrars check domain names when transferring ownership
     Authorities check domain names when investigating criminal activity"

So with all that I still do not know who stuck a flyer in my mail slot 
today. We do not know if the supporters of the flyer really are 
"neighbors" or just using that label to gain support. Unfortunately, 
this needed public discussion, has had lots of unattributed 
unsupportable information/clams.

See you all Monday night, Riverdale Park Town Hall, 9 Jan 8:00pm were we 
all can see/hear what our elected officials are doing AND add our views 
to the process. The Cafritz Development project is THE announced subject 
of this Council working session. At the Council meeting on 3 Jan, it was 
expected the 9 Jan meeting would be the last Council meeting before the 
Planning Board meeting on Jan 12.

-- 
Lou
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