

Show HN: Contacts finds email addresses - wsieroci
http://contactsanalytics.com/

======
agwa
Is this actually email address scraping as a service? This is going to be used
to enable spam. Any email sent to an address acquired from this service will
be, by definition, unsolicited. Thus, if the email is in any way bulk (and
honestly, what will the addresses returned from your service be used for, if
not for sending substantively identical content to multiple people?), then the
email fits the commonly-accepted definition of spam[1]. This is not OK, and
will only make things more difficult for people who do legitimate, consent-
based, email marketing.

I'm glad you're respecting robots.txt, but please say what your bot's user
agent string is, so site administrators can block specifically your bot.

I'm loathe to be so negative on a "Show HN" post, but I strongly believe that
this business is disreputable and that businesses of this type cause harm to
the Internet. There may be value in finding blogs/bloggers matching specific
queries; perhaps take email addresses out of the equation?

[1]
[http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/](http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/)

Edited to add: just yesterday I received an email from someone I don't know
asking me to try out his "weather API." The same email was clearly sent to a
lot of different people, and it was sent to an address I have posted on
websites, so it must have been scraped. I suspect the sender didn't think his
email was spam, since he didn't try to hide his identity or use a bot net to
send it. But being unsolicited and bulk, it was spam. It was sent via Mandrill
so I reported it to Mandrill's abuse team; most people would probably just
mark it as spam, harming the reputation of Mandrill's mail servers, thus
making it more difficult for Mandrill to be used for legitimate email sending.
I have a feeling "blogger outreach" would follow a similar pattern as this.

~~~
monkeyspaw
Would you consider it spam if someone manually went to a site, found their
contact information, and sent them an email by hand? It appears to fit the
same definition as "unsolicited", and yet, that is one of the purposes of a
business placing their email address on their website.

I work in b2b software, where it's common for sales and marketing people to
use publicly posted contact information for outreach (both buying and selling
products). IMO, the formal definition of spam as "unsolicited commercial
email" is somewhat broken in b2b spheres -- it feels a lot like "it's spam if
I publish my information and you send me something that I don't want." The
problem is the "something I don't want" is only determined after the fact.

~~~
agwa
The definition is not "unsolicited commercial email", it's "unsolicited and
bulk." In your example, if you send the same email to every address you
collect by hand, it would be spam. But if you send a different email to each
recipient, actually making it relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is
not spam[1]. (You're likely to get a much better response rate too!)

If the OP's service wasn't focused on email addresses, and instead enabled the
user to research similar blogs and tailor an individual outreach to each one,
then it would not be a spam enabler.

[1] Edited to add: this is per the definition from Spamhaus. According to
lutusp's comment below, the legal definition in CAN-SPAM is different. IANAL.

~~~
lutusp
> But if you send a different email to each recipient, actually making it
> relevant to the recipient's identity, then it is not spam.

Don't mislead your readers on legal issues. If the e-mail is unsolicited and
doesn't contain an opt-out link, in most cases it meets the legal definition
of spam and violates the Can-Spam Act.

~~~
talkingquickly
Not a lawyer so don't count this as advice but as far as I know, there's no
requirement under can-spam to provide an opt out link, just that you make it
clear they can opt out (e.g. by replying). [1][2]

That's a big difference if you're using database's such as the OP to find
contacts to email personally and individually but in a commercial context.

I might be missing something with can-spam though?

[1] [http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-
com...](http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-
guide-business) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-
SPAM_Act_of_2003](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003)

~~~
lutusp
> Not a lawyer so don't count this as advice but as far as I know, there's no
> requirement under can-spam to provide an opt out link

Source: [http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and-
em...](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and-email)

Quote: "Opt-Out – _The email must provide_ easily-accessible, legitimate, and
free ways for you to reject future messages from that sender"

Not "allude to", not "hint at", not "suggest." The law requires that the
sender's email message _provide_ an opt-out method.

> just that you make it clear they can opt out (e.g. by replying).

Absolutely false and universally discouraged -- _never reply_ to a spam
e-mail.

> That's a big difference if you're using database's such as the OP to find
> contacts to email personally and individually but in a commercial context.

Spam is spam, and it is clearly defined in the law. The reason for spamming
the victims is irrelevant.

> I might be missing something with can-spam though?

I'll say.

~~~
monkeyspaw
I would consider saying "please reply to this message to unsubscribe" easily
accessible, legitimate, and free.

I think spam is more complex than just saying "spam is spam". Especially in
b2b (see the other comment about pharmaceutical reps).

There is a factor that includes relevance (negative correlation with spam).
Another factor is automation versus doing it by hand. Another factor is the
intent of the person who publishes their email. Another factor is whether the
sender stops sending messages once requested. Another factor is the existence
of a previous relationship.

Anyhow, I have one more question: can any message that is sent without
automation (i.e., I type the message specifically to a recipient) be
considered spam?

~~~
lutusp
> I would consider saying "please reply to this message to unsubscribe" easily
> accessible, legitimate, and free.

You're missing the point that by replying, the recipient establishes a
relationship with the spammer -- he confirms that his is a working e-mail
address, and he invites more mailings to that address. This is why security
professionals warn to never reply to a spam e-mail.

"Don't Reply to Spam - Spam Control Tip":

[http://www.hoax-slayer.com/don't-reply-spam.html](http://www.hoax-
slayer.com/don't-reply-spam.html)

"Don't Respond to Spam: Here's Why":

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376031,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376031,00.asp)

> I think spam is more complex than just saying "spam is spam".

It's very clearly defined, so there's no mystery about it. That's why I say it
that way.

> Anyhow, I have one more question: can any message that is sent without
> automation (i.e., I type the message specifically to a recipient) be
> considered spam?

Yes, of course it can. Why? Because if that were accepted, spammers would hire
poor third-world people to type out spam messages at one cent per message or
less. Therefore, any unsolicited e-mail, meaning sent to someone who hasn't
invited it, is spam.

~~~
bigiain
"You're missing the point that by replying, the recipient establishes a
relationship with the spammer -- he confirms that his is a working e-mail
address, and he invites more mailings to that address. This is why security
professionals warn to never reply to a spam e-mail."

Can you describe an opt-out mechanism that doesn't provide a spammer with
exactly that same piece of "working email address" information?

If they're sketchy enough that they'd mis-use an "unsubscribe me" email as an
"invitation to more mailings", surely clicking an "opt out" link would be
treated the same?

(Personally, I'm happy to click opt out links for mail that's arrived by
dedicated mass-mailing companies like MailChimp or Campaign Monitor - they've
got a strong business case to not annoy email recipients, and although I as a
Campaign Monitor user can easily generate a list of email addresses that have
opted out of any of my mailing lists, if I were to abuse that list via
Campaign Monitor, they'd shut me down pretty quickly)

~~~
lutusp
> Can you describe an opt-out mechanism that doesn't provide a spammer with
> exactly that same piece of "working email address" information?

An opt-out link carries only the email address, not the entire email header,
so it conveys the absolute minimum information (and it can be visited
independently of the email, by copying the link out of the email). Also,
visiting an opt-out page is different than replying to an email for some
complex legal reasons.

If a spammer ignores an opt-out request delivered to a Web page, he is in a
very different position than if he replies to an e-mail sent by someone who
doesn't know to avoid replying to a spam mailing.

The bottom line is that a spammer can say, "they emailed me, then I replied to
what I thought was a customer's email." And this has been tried countless
times. With an opt-out link, this dodge is removed.

------
ZirconCode
I don't understand your plan selection. "analyzing max. 600 phrases/mo" What
does this mean? I get to query your database 600 times? I get 600 phrases
which weren't in your database? I get analytic s/statistics on them?

If these e-mails aren't guaranteed to be "100%" useful, and seem not to be
hand-selected or have any human element involved, this just seems to be
payment for a mail crawler. It looks a bit too much for me like a spam
enabler.

And as abcd_f already mentioned, the recurring payment may be a mistake. As a
start-up, I wouldn't subscribe for more than my "launch" month (s).

Hope it helps, best of luck!

~~~
wsieroci
Ok, thanks for comment. I will think about that.

------
wvh
The concept is technically interesting, but I don't want my e-mail address to
be harvested by third parties and sold for marketing purposes. I am not a
lawyer, but in the EU (which is where I assume you are located) data privacy
regulations require the user to consent to the use of their private data. The
sites you collect the information from supposedly have permission to process
private information by means of their privacy policy and relationship with the
user; which as a third party, you don't have. One could argue the data is
already public; but since the user can not consent – you have no relation to
the user – you are going to find yourself in muddy legal waters, especially
trying to base a business on that data.

------
joiguru
Very nice concept indeed. The How it Works section is a kind of a bummer. No
real info on how the selection of blogs is done or how they results are
ranked. Also I find the color scheme makes text very hard to read.

------
AznHisoka
I don't find this useful at all. I can easily get similar results searching
for emails in Google. In fact, this service is probably best for people who
don't know how to use Google at all.

If I wanted to find emails of Paleo bloggers, I'd just search for: paleo
blogger "@gmail.com"

Also, good luck scraping Google if that's what you're doing. Even a few
hundred proxies won't be enough after awhile as they're doing a very good job
blocking scrapers.

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abcd_f
This is presumably to be used during PR stints and, given the $20 price point,
this isn't aimed at PR agencies, but smaller companies. As such, a one-time
fee would be a _far_ more sensible option.

I realize that you have bought into the service hype and now probably dreaming
of recurrent revenue and lingering subscriptions, but in your case it's really
trying to fit a square peg in round hole.

~~~
twanlass
I think you're pretty spot on. A PR agency might pay 10x times this, but for a
one off use by a startup or SMB a monthly charge doesn't make sense. Maybe
offer pre-paid credits as well?

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kamilrextin
Give me a free trial and I dont get how it works from the how it works
section. Just figured it's a scrapper of some sort.. looks cool.

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tazzy531
"For every e-mail we show you where we have found it - this way you can check
if this is good contact or not."

Adding a comma after "For every e-mail" will make this sentence much more
clear.

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aroman
How can I, as an individual (or perhaps a company) opt out? I'm sure some
people would benefit from this service, but as others pointed out, I do not
want my emails being harvested.

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ShaneCurran_
Looks awesome - good luck :)

~~~
wsieroci
thank you :)

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pastaking
Hey this is pretty cool! I'll find this useful soon.

