Forum Moderators: skibum
This means that email will have the same rights and restrictions as traditional mail.
The legal restrictions against obscene material will apply as well as bulk mailing restrictions.
These requirements mean that the Bulk Emailers must have an effective way to accept opt-outs from email recipients. Once a person has opt-ed out, Bulk Emailers will be restricted from emailing that person under threat of legal prosecution by the government. The address of people that have opt-ed out may not passed on to third parties. The same legal redresses and penalties would apply to both email and traditional mail.
The premise is that the rules on traditional mail are balanced to protect the rights of both the mailers and the recipient. Anti-spam legislation by States has proven ineffective because they lack wide enough jurisdiction. Acceptance of the regulation of email as a Federal responsibility is seen as a first step to curbing bulk emailing from outside the US. US citizens and US corporations will be prosecutable for illegal bulk emailing from outside our borders.
Anti-spam tirades have already begun against this first positive step to effectively curb email abuses, so a real fight is expected before this legislation can become law.
Historically many anti-spam proposals have run afoul of the US Constitutional guarantees. Legislators have drawn the ire of the anti-spammers by learning from past legislative mistakes and introducing a bill modeled on traditional mail practices.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[usatoday.com...]
Congress has learned from the child protection legislation that constitutional issues must be addressed or the legislation fails in the courts.
Spam is an inflammatory word and when it is used it stops serious discussion.
The Supreme Court has already held that the emails is just an extension of traditional mail and as such enjoys the same rights. So the civil liberty issue has been settled against the anti-spammers.
Those that want to curtail civil liberties that aren't satisfied so they shout SPAM to drowned out any reasonable discussion.
The current Federal laws only restrict bulk-mailing practices when the mail passes through the US Postal system. It does not apply to what is sent through companies like Fed Ex. And the Postal Laws don't extend to email.
So there is a hole in the restrictions that Bulk Emailers exploit.
The legislation seeks to close this hole. It does not seek to extend the restrictions into requiring an opt-in because that is a settled constitutional issue. Direct mailers have fought those cases and won for over 100 years.
The thrust is let's get what we can now within safe constitutional limits. It will provide for wide relief.
If any group wants to attack the constitutional issue of requiring opt-in, they are still free to do it. However few expect that any mailer will ever be required to get people's approval before sending them any form of mail.
There are common law cases as far back as the Magna Charta upholding the right of merchants to advertise. The opt-ing out by posting "POST NO BILLS" signs on fences predates the founding of the United States.
IOW, if you opt-out of one list, the spammers just use the Opt-out list to make another list and sell it. Sometimes more than once. Pure evil.
If the current legislation has nothing on the opt-out side, then forget it. It's only going to keep the train a-rolling.
The 'Net is global, and any law they pass on US spammers will have no effect on foreign spammers.
Spam is something we'll have to live with, and teach our children to avoid.
