Thanks for your visit, and comment.

I have no problem with email lobbying - I’ve done it myself in this case and 72 hours later I have personal responses from 4 out of 6 MEPs who represent me. I’ve quoted several on the article here:

http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/06/06/meps-to-greenpeace-get-on-your-bike-sunshine/

I do have a problem with emails sent en masse by auto-script, especially when it is promoted with this sort of statement:

“MEPs don’t receive many letters from the public, so every letter really does carry weight”. Source

My “distortion of democracy” point stands, I think.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/ask-meps-to-support-energy-efficiency-declaration

That is why writetothem.com is a good model, and the way your campaign is set up is a bad one.

It seems to me that Greenpeace now has to “get over it” , i.e., to get over the hostility you are creating among MEPs.

You are really not doing yourself any favours here.

Matt

Grassroots and online activist communities will continue to be outgunned and outspent by corporate lobbyists who can afford massive distortions of justice, unless we use the tools we have. Email lobbying is one of them, and it’s not going to go away.

Full disclosure: I work for Greenpeace.

Thanks for the comment.

I was feeling deeply ironic when I saw the stuff abour confirmation.

I find the idea of an organisation running what amounts to a lobbying SPAM facility to fake individual emails to dozens of MEPs being concerned about good practice risible.

I don’t think Greenpeace can expect or deserve anything but contempt for this little project - they are trying to traduce the democratic lobbying process. Nothing more, nothing less.

Matt

It’s good that Greenpeace use confirmation emails (as do writetothem.com) and that’s a separate issue from who they get people to email.

Getting people to respond to a confirmation email is good practice as it cuts down on spam because it ensures that the sender is using a valid email address etc.

The problem with these confirmation emails is that they *do* often get tagged as spam, which can be very frustrating as it is inconvenient for the punter and also can put people off following good practice.