US presidential hopeful's campaign blighted by email blunder

Howard Dean's presidential campaign acknowledged on Monday that it had spammed an undisclosed number of people with unsolicited political advertisements.

The campaign said Dean, the former Democratic governor of Vermont, remained opposed to unsolicited bulk email and blamed the spamming on two contractors who had promised to contact only people who had specifically requested to receive the advertisements.

"We recently contracted with two vendors who made assurances that their lists were opt-in only," the campaign said in an email to silicon.com's sister site, CNET News.com. "On Tuesday, August 12th, Dean for America received notification from a supporter that spam was being sent. We terminated our relationship with both vendors immediately."

The Dean campaign's bulk email, which was sent last week, was disclosed by the Spamvertised.org website, which tracks political spam. The email message touted Dean's accomplishments and asked for political support and donations, saying: "We are going to win this nomination and defeat George W. Bush in 2004, but we need your help."

Last week's spamming has the potential to embarrass a presidential campaign that both the media and its own campaign staff have touted as particularly internet-savvy. A Newsweek cover story last week said Dean "is revolutionising political fund-raising with his clever cyberstumping," while Dan Gillmor, a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, proclaimed that Dean and his staff "truly get the meaning of the Net."

This is not the first time the Dean campaign has been embroiled in a controversy over spam. The campaign's Texas affiliate apologised earlier this year for spamming, saying "from now on, only people who personally sign up for our email lists, contribute money, volunteer or sign a petition will receive emails from Dean for Texas."

There are some signs that politicians see spam as a cheap and effective way to reach voters. For example, out of about a dozen bills introduced in Congress that promise to regulate commercial spam, not one attempts to restrict political email messages.

In January, the campaign of Senator Joseph Lieberman, another Democratic presidential hopeful, acknowledged it had spammed prospective voters. So have many other politicians. The Democratic Party has been caught spamming, as has Bill Jones, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of California, and Florida Govenor Jeb Bush, a Republican.

The Dean campaign did not immediately respond to questions about which email contractors it hired, what kind of 'opt-in' lists the contractors promised or how many people's inboxes were affected.

Declan McCullagh writes for CNET News.com