Forum Moderators: skibum
It seems to have teeth with a $10 per email up to $500,000 per incident. It would also be illegal to obscure the sender's identity or using fake subject line or not providing working return addresses.
Under the definition that the Senate is using only about 25% of the mail you received is defined as Spam. Of this group only a very small subset of those emails that originate in the US are covered but only if they involve fraud and ***ography. Of course, the FTC already has laws against emails containing fraud and ***ography already. The FTC legislation hasn't diminished Spam.
The primary problem with this grand-standing legislation is that it effectively kills the productive legislation already passed by the House.
Since the Senate proposal is so out of tune with the feeling of the House, the likely outcome is that no law will emerge from this Congress. In the end the Spammers win.
((Note: the House version seeks to give email the same rights and restrictions as traditional mail. It would cover mailings done by US citizens or US corporation or foreign corporations that have a physical presence in the US no matter where the email originates.))
The House bill wants to extend both the rights and the restrictions of tradition mail to email. It provides for a mechanism of enforcement.
The Senate has reported out the CAN-SPAM legislation that is aimed at adding stiffer penalties to the fraud and ***ography statues that the FTC cannot enforce today against foreign emailers because they lack jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court has already said that emailers have the same rights as mailers. The House is now trying to impose the same restrictions.
Opt-In is a moot point unless it is imposed on traditional mail too. The Senate knowing that all attempts at this in the last 200 years have been found unconstitutional did not dare to try to restrict traditional mail.
Simply put CAN-SPAM with its cute marketing name gimmick is meant for votes in November not as serious legislation.
It won't cost that much to set up shop in a tiny island nation that wants more than tourist dollars to keep the economy afloat.
If it passes, it will be nothing more than "feel-good" legislation that will be used mostly as re-election hype this November. Spam will still run rampant.
No it is not. When a spammer spams you, he has cost you money in bandwidth. When a bulk mailer sends you snail mail, it's cost you nothing.
You may see a difference but the Supreme Court has settled that issue. Email may be regulated but emailers enjoy the same rights as mailers.
Have you considered the societal cost associated with restraining all businesses from sending out unsolicited mailings and emailings?
The direct mail industry would come to an end. The entire postal system would have to shrink to about a third of its current size. Postal rates for the remaining mail would skyrocket.
The rights of radio and TV stations to broadcast commercials are based on the right to send unsolicited commercial mail. That has been a closed issue for three-quarters of a century. Commercials could then be challenged too.
Where would it end? Would censors have to cull out any direct mentioning of businesses on radio and TV too as we do on this forum? Do foreign satellite radio and TV stations broadcasting with commercials replace the US system? Do all unsolicited emailings originate outside the US? Do all newspapers and magazines lose their reduced postal rates if they contain ads?
Does spam-rage win and sink Capitalism and overcome the US Bill of Rights?
Frankly I believe all attempts will be declared unconsitutional. The Supreme Court has been upholding the rights of business mailers for over two centuries. Why should changing the medium to email change those legal rights?
You should have to PAY to send me email.
Or, all email "routing" should be eliminated. It should be point-to-point without a single middle man. The site that sent it should be forced to tag the email with the senders true email address/account name. If they do not, then the isp should be added to a public email ban list.
Anyone receiving email should be able to finger the account with a pgp key and get the orginal account holders name.
I choose to spend alot of time on the net, but if the cost of my presence on the web is being hammered by entities that i would not seek for any reason then, either something has to be done, or my internet activites will become more closeted to hide away from it.
I see no reason why anyone who is forcing me to cover the costs of them advertising at me should be getting up on their high horse and talking about freedom of speech and the costs to the spamming industry
many smaller internet providers are struggling to cope with the load from the spammers...Usenet spam has already caused many ISPs to stop providing a news service...either mass emailing will become regulated and the perpetrators will pay some of the costs incurred, or they will destroy the very thing they make their living from
You should have to PAY to send me email.
That is definitely NOT the direction I want to see email take. I'll delete the spam, utilize filters and remain quite pleased that I can send a message anywhere in the world for the price of my monthly internet service.
If I were receiving 18 pieces of spam an hour I'd rethink the way I approached mailing lists and how I publicized my email addy. Even at 5 seconds per email to delete, I'd still chalk up those 250 minutes per week as the cost of doing business on the web.
Since you seem to be an advocate of regulating email to determine a fee, how would you meter it? A nickel an email? A penny per kilobyte? Would paid for spam make you feel better about deleting it?
DG
Of the 3000 emails you received how many are from outside the US. I expect maybe has high as 80%. So your solution of making unsolicited emails generated within the US illegal won't work.
For a while it might reduce your problem to 2400 emails a day. Of course, within days every marketer would be forced to send the email from outside of the US and you would be getting 3000 emails again.
Next you want to redo the entire worldwide emailing system, so you get paid. Nice idea, but are you prepared to fund the development expense? So I think this idea fails too.
I think the redo of the worldwide email system so that everything is point to point is impractical too.
What is practical? I think filtering is. My hotmail account gets 90% to 95% and lumps them into a junk mail account. I eyeball them quickly and press one button and they are gone. Very, very occasionally I move something into my in-box and grant permission for that site's mailings.
I scan my in-box messages by subject line checking off those that I want deleted and press one button and they are gone.
I don't want to make light of your problem, but the elimination of all business email is a draconian measure and the concept has been ruled unconstitutional. Better filtering just seems more practical.
As a developer and consultant, I see business email including unsolicited email as necessary for me to be aware of new products and technology. So I am not turned off at all. It goes without saying that fraud should be eliminated and adult material regulated, but stopping Sun from informing me of Solaris 9 and IBM from telling me about the forthcoming version of AIX is not something I would support.
if that was what I got as UCE I wouldn't mind...but it isn't
what I get is genuine junk...I get the Christine Hall email every time I open a new domain...I've even had one from her saying my site wasn't on the search engines when it was number 3 on Google and number 1 on MSN for a single keyword...I get a sodding parenting newsletter every three or four days...I get endless appeals to greed and cupidity...I get almost NO product information...and when I do it is almost without fail from a list I have signed up for
your argument would be fair if it applied to a real situation...but it simply doesn't reflect what is actually happening
That's not to say that certain people don't have larger problems.
My take is that the anti-spam movement on the whole is out of touch with the majority.
Get off the techie boards and see if the issue is being discussed anywhere else.
Techie seem like mailmen complaining that their mail sacks are too heavy at Christmas time. Everyone else agrees with them, then shrugs and sends out their load of Christmas cards.
