Slashdot Mirror

> Legal action (sadly, no URL...)

Here ya go

As for a url to blacklists, it doesn't get much better than the SBL for prepared evidence and spamcop for raw data, http://www.spamhaus.org and http://www.spamcop.net respectively

I did a little bit of research last week on Spam laws in my home state (Tennessee) According to Tennessee Spam laws, if a company based in Tennessee spams you after you have requested they remove your name, you can sue them for up to $5000 per day they continue to spam them. I found out about this law at SueSpammers.org.

Incidentally, I have a spamcop IMAP e-mail account that filters out potential spam. There was one guy from Canada that kept spamming me over and over. I noticed that the unsubscribe link (which I had tried twice) pointed to a top level domain. Using Internic's WHOIS, I got the jerk's home address, phone number, and e-mail address. Luckily in this case it wasn't forged. After personally contacting him (and threatening legal action), I have gotten no spam from his "company" in 1 week. (Funny thing is, Canada has no anti-spam laws... it was all BSing)

There is a very good reason to have valid whois contact information: so that the reponsible parties can be tracked down and the problem resolved Last week, for a period of about 30 hours, my email server got slammed with over 30,000 copies of the same spam. The spammer aparantly rooted some newbie's RedHat box and installed his sendspam script on it. Aparantly he didn't know how to write code, because it kept sending the same message to the same 20 or so people over and over. Thanks to a little work with dig and whois, I was able to get a phone number for the guy who owned the rooted redhat box and was able to get him to shut it down. [A little more investigation of the addresses used on the spammed webpage led me to the spammer himself. Now I'm going to get a chance to try out all the things I learned from spamcon.]

If you are in states with so-called "anti-spam" laws, you can start taking legal action against spammers. Check out:

• SpamLaws.com
• SueSpammers.org
• WA-State-Resident.com/
• Washington AG's spam page
• Spam Free Washington
• My small claims page :)

Sorry for the Washington-heavy links; it's my home state.

We got our Internet access through Infoasis, which told us on the 22nd about Northpoint. Yet, all we had was a week's notice, not nearly enough time to get another DSL line (from say, Pacbell) or a T1. Giving a week's notice was nothing short of irresponsible on the part of Northpoint.

Thanks Northpoint, thanks for not show any compassion for your customers and making us now have to scramble for alternate connections.

--

The so-called "Anti-spamming Act" (HR 1017) was introduced a full month *after* the much better "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001" (HR 95), in an apparent attempt to weaken antispam law.

Goodlatte's copycat "Anti-spamming Act" (HR1017) takes away service providers' rights to enforce their policies: The "Unsolicited Commercial Email" act (HR95) preserves that right..

The "Anti-spamming" act gives spammers free run of your server, until you explicitly tell them to stop. The "UCE" act lets admins proactively keep spam off their system. (Note: Goodlatte's Virginia constituency includes AOL, which has fought hard for the right to spam for several years, and which pushed to defeat last year's HR3113.)

(Both bills allow end recipients to sue, both require valid sender information, both penalize forgery. Both ostensibly mandate opt-out -- i.e., you have to tell the spammer to stop before they're forced to -- but HR 95 allows service providers to supersede that issue by setting their own policies to equal opt-in.)

Don't be fooled. Rep. Goodlatte's "Anti-spamming" bill is a mandate to spam: The "UCE" Act (HR95) is the real thing.

But don't take my word for it. See what others have to say:

• US legislation pages for The Suespammers Project
• US legislation pages at spamlaws.com
• Suespammers discussion list

The so-called "Anti-spamming Act" (HR 1017) was introduced a full month *after* the much better "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001" (HR 95), in an apparent attempt to weaken antispam law.

Goodlatte's copycat "Anti-spamming Act" (HR1017) takes away service providers' rights to enforce their policies: The "Unsolicited Commercial Email" act (HR95) preserves that right..

The "Anti-spamming" act gives spammers free run of your server, until you explicitly tell them to stop. The "UCE" act lets admins proactively keep spam off their system. (Note: Goodlatte's Virginia constituency includes AOL, which has fought hard for the right to spam for several years, and which pushed to defeat last year's HR3113.)

(Both bills allow end recipients to sue, both require valid sender information, both penalize forgery. Both ostensibly mandate opt-out -- i.e., you have to tell the spammer to stop before they're forced to -- but HR 95 allows service providers to supersede that issue by setting their own policies to equal opt-in.)

Don't be fooled. Rep. Goodlatte's "Anti-spamming" bill is a mandate to spam: The "UCE" Act (HR95) is the real thing.

But don't take my word for it. See what others have to say:

• US legislation pages for The Suespammers Project
• US legislation pages at spamlaws.com
• Suespammers discussion list

The so-called "Anti-spamming Act" (HR 1017) was introduced a full month *after* the much better "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001" (HR 95), in an apparent attempt to weaken antispam law.

Goodlatte's copycat "Anti-spamming Act" (HR1017) takes away service providers' rights to enforce their policies: The "Unsolicited Commercial Email" act (HR95) preserves that right..

The "Anti-spamming" act gives spammers free run of your server, until you explicitly tell them to stop. The "UCE" act lets admins proactively keep spam off their system. (Note: Goodlatte's Virginia constituency includes AOL, which has fought hard for the right to spam for several years, and which pushed to defeat last year's HR3113.)

(Both bills allow end recipients to sue, both require valid sender information, both penalize forgery. Both ostensibly mandate opt-out -- i.e., you have to tell the spammer to stop before they're forced to -- but HR 95 allows service providers to supersede that issue by setting their own policies to equal opt-in.)

Don't be fooled. Rep. Goodlatte's "Anti-spamming" bill is a mandate to spam: The "UCE" Act (HR95) is the real thing.

But don't take my word for it. See what others have to say:

• US legislation pages for The Suespammers Project
• US legislation pages at spamlaws.com
• Suespammers discussion list

The so-called "Anti-spamming Act" (HR 1017) was introduced a full month *after* the much better "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001" (HR 95), in an apparent attempt to weaken antispam law.

Goodlatte's copycat "Anti-spamming Act" (HR1017) takes away service providers' rights to enforce their policies: The "Unsolicited Commercial Email" act (HR95) preserves that right..

The "Anti-spamming" act gives spammers free run of your server, until you explicitly tell them to stop. The "UCE" act lets admins proactively keep spam off their system. (Note: Goodlatte's Virginia constituency includes AOL, which has fought hard for the right to spam for several years, and which pushed to defeat last year's HR3113.)

(Both bills allow end recipients to sue, both require valid sender information, both penalize forgery. Both ostensibly mandate opt-out -- i.e., you have to tell the spammer to stop before they're forced to -- but HR 95 allows service providers to supersede that issue by setting their own policies to equal opt-in.)

Don't be fooled. Rep. Goodlatte's "Anti-spamming" bill is a mandate to spam: The "UCE" Act (HR95) is the real thing.

But don't take my word for it. See what others have to say:

• US legislation pages for The Suespammers Project
• US legislation pages at spamlaws.com
• Suespammers discussion list

Having said this, some people *have* dunned spammers and collected. See this post.

While I'm sympathetic, such cases present a dangerous precedent. If the City of Champaign passed an ordinance setting a $25 fine per incident for any web site that makes its contents available to a Champaign resident without first registering the site with the City, should they be able to collect on that? Should China be able to make it illegal for US sites to provide certain types of information, or should France be able to block a US auction site?

In fact, the response to the entry in the forum you linked to mentions that there have been problems with the WA law when applied outside of Washington because of the Commerce Clause.

1. Court is expensive and time-consuming. If your idea works so well, how many spammers have YOU taken to court?

2. Before you can even enter the court system, you have to identify the plaintiff. Whoops, there goes more time and expense.

3. Even if you win, collection is a bear.

4. It's highly unlikely that the judge will accept receipt of an SMTP banner as constituting a valid contract -- unless that's specifically written into law. In the one place it's implied (Calif. Business and Professions Code 17538.45 (f)(3)(B)), it's still debatable, and never been tried.

In short: Your idea is an unoriginal fantasy. If I were still a moderator, I'd mark you post down as "inaccurate".

--Tom Geller, founder, The Suespammers Project.

1. Court is expensive and time-consuming. If your idea works so well, how many spammers have YOU taken to court?

2. Before you can even enter the court system, you have to identify the plaintiff. Whoops, there goes more time and expense.

3. Even if you win, collection is a bear.

4. It's highly unlikely that the judge will accept receipt of an SMTP banner as constituting a valid contract -- unless that's specifically written into law. In the one place it's implied (Calif. Business and Professions Code 17538.45 (f)(3)(B)), it's still debatable, and never been tried.

In short: Your idea is an unoriginal fantasy. If I were still a moderator, I'd mark you post down as "inaccurate".

--Tom Geller, founder, The Suespammers Project.

1. Court is expensive and time-consuming. If your idea works so well, how many spammers have YOU taken to court?

2. Before you can even enter the court system, you have to identify the plaintiff. Whoops, there goes more time and expense.

3. Even if you win, collection is a bear.

4. It's highly unlikely that the judge will accept receipt of an SMTP banner as constituting a valid contract -- unless that's specifically written into law. In the one place it's implied (Calif. Business and Professions Code 17538.45 (f)(3)(B)), it's still debatable, and never been tried.

In short: Your idea is an unoriginal fantasy. If I were still a moderator, I'd mark you post down as "inaccurate".

--Tom Geller, founder, The Suespammers Project.

In addition to have a witty domain name <g>, it also contains information on existing state laws which can be used to sue a spammer in court.

Share and enjoy.

In addition to have a witty domain name <g>, it also contains information on existing state laws which can be used to sue a spammer in court.

Share and enjoy.

I'm not normally one to jump on the "sue everyone" bandwagon, but since Sandbox is a reasonably reputable company and not some random, faceless spam operation, pointing this out to them might at least get them to sit up and take notice. You can also complain (or threaten to) to the relevant Attorney General. Actually, that might not be a bad idea anyway, since if they get enough complaints about a company they will look into their practices.

I'm not normally one to jump on the "sue everyone" bandwagon, but since Sandbox is a reasonably reputable company and not some random, faceless spam operation, pointing this out to them might at least get them to sit up and take notice. You can also complain (or threaten to) to the relevant Attorney General. Actually, that might not be a bad idea anyway, since if they get enough complaints about a company they will look into their practices.

A few weeks ago, we were having severe (>9000 ms delay) latency problems, and upon our first call to them, they told us things like "clear your cache". Morons. After about 2 days, and them finally sending someone over to the place where the DSL line is installed, we finally determined that the problem was on our LAN. Had Pac Bell bothered to do something so trivial such as to ping the DSL modem from their location, and see that ping times were normal, they could have avoided having to come out in the first place. (Yes, I should have pinged the modem myself, but I missed that step in my troubleshooting..)

The full story about our experience with Pac Bell can be found here.

--Tom, Suespammers.org founder

See http://www.suespammers.org for all the juicy details.

--Tom Geller, Founder, The Suespammers Project

See http://www.suespammers.org for all the juicy details.

--Tom Geller, Founder, The Suespammers Project

For the record, I don't see how a government-sponsored bounty program could work for spam. The problems aren't in finding good examples of spam -- we all get those every day! The barriers are:

1. Having good laws (that define spam accurately and give right of action to both the individual and the ISP)
2. Getting a name and address to which you can serve papers
3. Collecting after judgement.

--Tom Geller, Founder and Administrator, The Suespammers Project (http://www.suespammers.org)

For the record, I don't see how a government-sponsored bounty program could work for spam. The problems aren't in finding good examples of spam -- we all get those every day! The barriers are:

1. Having good laws (that define spam accurately and give right of action to both the individual and the ISP)
2. Getting a name and address to which you can serve papers
3. Collecting after judgement.

--Tom Geller, Founder and Administrator, The Suespammers Project (http://www.suespammers.org)

1. Forging headers/contact info on commercial e-mail is illegal. Noncommercial e-mail is not affected.

1. Using somebody else's mail server to send commercial e-mail without their permission is illegal.

1. "E-mail service providers" can post a policy, either on their Web page or in the SMTP banner, as to whether or not they allow spam to be sent
2. to their users. Violators of the policy can be sued by the ISP for $500/message.

1. Commercial e-mails must be identified as such with "ADV:" in the subject line.

1. End-users may sue spammers for $500/message if the spammer does not honor "do not mail me" requests.

1. The Federal Trade Commission has the power to go after unrepentant spammers.

More info is available on the Web sites of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (CAUCE, www.cauce.org) and the SueSpammers Project (www.suespammers.org).

John Mozena
moz@cauce.org

1. The spam's content, and
2. The "legitness" of the sending company.

That's why I'd like to encourage meritorious suits against both classes of spammers, the chickenboners and the "pros". See http://www.suespammers.org for hints on how to do it.

--Tom Geller
Founder, Suespammers.org

http://www.antitelemarketer.com/ - Anti-telemarketer website, lots of information and information on laws

http://www.telemarketing-laws.com/ - More of the same

http://www.suespammers.org/ - Information on how to sue spammers under existing state laws

http://www.cauce.org/ - A grassroots advocacy group for Federal anti-spam laws

Share and enjoy.

Uh-oh, I'm about to get slashdotted...

--Tom Geller, suespammers.org czar

As an anti-spammer, this bill is my worst nightmare come true. The opt-out clause is especially nasty, since now it means that we can get hit by each spammer once under the law, and we will have NO recourse whatsoever, thus, this bill isn't going to have any effect on the current spam situation. A much better law, IMHO, would be something like the current junk fax law, which states that if you get an unsolicited advertisement, you can sue the person for $500 per offence, or for $1,500 if the offence was "willful".

Okay, that's enough bitching from me, since there are already a few good laws on the books that are just waiting to be used against spammers in court. There's more information to be found on these laws at suespammers.org.

--Tom Geller
Founder, The Suespammers Project

See The Suespammers Project.

Tankyouveddymuch.

--Tom Geller, Founder, The Suespammers Project.

--Tom Geller
Founder, The Suespammers Project

Are you *nuts*, Rob? If the spam "warning" goes in the Subject line, you wouldn't be able to filter it until the SMTP DATA parameter. By that time, the spammer has already stolen from you, making the point moot.

I could understand labeling earlier in the transaction -- like, right after HELO -- but labeling in the Subject line is useless. (This was the point of California's Bowen bill, BTW, memorialized inCalifornia Business & Professions Code 17538.4. See http://suespammers.org/ca/laws /bpc_17538-4_full.html for the full text.)

--Tom