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The "Institute for Cultural Diplomacy" threatens WP editors with legal action over the ICD not having a WP page, due to a strong appearance that the deleted page was mostly maintained by the ICD itself, which to my surprise doesn't *quite* violate WP policy but comes close. (Hard to maintain a Neutral Point of View about yourself.)
Edit: some research finds many people saying they're spammers.
http://crookedtimber.org/2013/03/27/the-institute-for-cultural-diplomacy/ "an organization that I only know of because they relentlessly spam me with unsolicited emails about tedious-sounding events"
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=78735.0 "I keep receiving email invitations to attend "conferences" of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin despite my best efforts to block them, and now students are receiving emails as well. It looks like unpaid interns are harvesting contact information off the web so that academics can be spammed."
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2012/05/13/spam_alert_the_institute_for_cultural_diplomacy " I never received a response from him, just more spam. I called the ICD’s office, in Germany, and asked to be removed from their list. The woman who answered the phone promised I would be. She lied: the email continued." "Hey, I can’t get off their list either!"
With a founder reply: "I have checked with my colleagues as to why they emailed you, and the reason for that is because of our sincere respect for the New York Law School and we felt that since you are a professor of law, you would be very interested to know about our activities and perhaps support us." In other words, "yes we repeatedly sent you unsolicited e-mail, but it was out of respect!"
Edit: some research finds many people saying they're spammers.
http://crookedtimber.org/2013/03/27/the-institute-for-cultural-diplomacy/ "an organization that I only know of because they relentlessly spam me with unsolicited emails about tedious-sounding events"
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=78735.0 "I keep receiving email invitations to attend "conferences" of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin despite my best efforts to block them, and now students are receiving emails as well. It looks like unpaid interns are harvesting contact information off the web so that academics can be spammed."
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2012/05/13/spam_alert_the_institute_for_cultural_diplomacy " I never received a response from him, just more spam. I called the ICD’s office, in Germany, and asked to be removed from their list. The woman who answered the phone promised I would be. She lied: the email continued." "Hey, I can’t get off their list either!"
With a founder reply: "I have checked with my colleagues as to why they emailed you, and the reason for that is because of our sincere respect for the New York Law School and we felt that since you are a professor of law, you would be very interested to know about our activities and perhaps support us." In other words, "yes we repeatedly sent you unsolicited e-mail, but it was out of respect!"