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The "Colorado Junk Email Law"
toodrunk2f_ck writes: "News has been slow to trickle out about the new "Colorado Junk Email Law" (HB00-1309). Signed by Gov. Owen on June 6, the law is about to become active. CNET has this article on it and the legislative synopsis is here. Basically, the law allows receivers of unmarked "junk email" to sue senders for a $10 civil penalty per piece plus court costs. It seems unclear, though, how enforcement will work and what effects it may have. Imagine the workload on the courts if every person receiving spam were to sue over it. It will be interesting to see whether Colorado sets a precedent for other states to follow with this law." Hemos posted an article about the law before it was signed; that article is unfortunately no longer available, but the comments are.
Im not a lawyer, but if its a state law, doesnt that mean that it would only be enforceable for spam that comes from companies based in Colorado?
yes, but if you want to receive mail from some legitimate listserv, you've just filtered out that mail. Most legitimate listservers do not put your email address in the two line either
The problem with this is that there may be legitimate email that just happens to have ADV in the subject.
What about legitimate commerical mailing, would it have to have ADV, there's some commercial mail that I specifically request and want to receive.
Or, what if someone, maybe an English teacher, writes the word 'adverb' in the subject? Should the mail just be deleted.
"Your television and cable services cost you money."
Yes, but any advertising on that medium, comes *from* the provider, so the content provider is paying for it (or actually, being paid for advertisement). It is not *costing* them anything, and anything it costs you, you pretty much knew of ahead of time anyway (even PBS now has "commercials").
"Your telephone services cost you money."
And there are several anti-telemarketing laws.
"Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain."
Well, I don't know if there are any junk mail laws but there probably should be. Although that would probably take down the PO profit margin. According to the junk I get I'd say a third to a half of letter-sized mail the PO handles is junk.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"ATTENTION ISP CUSTOMER:
Have you recently been inundated with internet junk mail? Don't you wish it would go away? Well now thanks to a new class-action lawsuit being brought by Dewey, Cheadem & Howe Law Associates, you can get back at those pesky spammers! Just call our toll free number to add your name to our growing list of claimants!"
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
ISPs could advertise that "we fight for you." They could offer a "Colorado-based mail server" and an "experienced legal team" to customers, with a class action suit perhaps every three months. Time Warner (roadrunner, AOL) has the money for it.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
It should be more specifically defined... like:
[ADV:] or something less ambiguous. Plus, if it happens to be all caps to start with, your teacher shouldn't be sending mail that has a subject of: ADVERBS ARE FUN!
That's just not nice.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Playing devil's advocate here (I agree with the sentiment), I doubt language like this would find its way into a court opinion. Your television and cable services cost you money. Your telephone services cost you money. Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain.
TV is different, if you don't pay for cable you're not paying for programming and without advertising you'd get no content. When you do pay for cable you're paying for a service which gives you more and clearer channels, you're not paying for the actual content (some "PayTV" stations excluded) but the service of getting them clearer and more of them.
Your telephone does cost you money, and telemarketers are illegal in many places and during "supper hour" in many more, but regardless if you get one more telemarketing call or not, unless its a cell phone (where you pay for airtime) you're going to pay the same amount anyways, all you've lost is time.
Mailboxes cost money to maintain regardless of how much "junk mail" flyers you get.
The point with spam is that it costs the recipiant to receive it, it costs the ISP to receive it (bandwidth charges), etc, and if you didn't receive the spam it wouldn't have cost you.
-- iCEBaLM
Ultimately, issues like this are interesting, but entirely beside the point. Neither the Congress nor the states are empowered (unless 2/3 of each house and 3/5 of the state legislatures feel otherwise) to limit speech. Period. That's the deal. If the legislation is based on the CONTENT of the message, which it must be to distinguish UCE from other e-mail, then it can only be passed under applicable standards if (by clear and convincing evidence):
(1) there is a compelling governmental interest to justify the regulation; and
(2) there exists no less interusive means by which the interest can be satisfied.
I think even if you can show (1), you have some difficulties with (2). There are plenty of less invasive means by which UCE can be regulated, particularly given government intrusion.
Again, isn't it interesting how the First Amendment absolutists on Slashdot suddenly become mute where it is THEIR petard upon which they are hoisted. I do not defend spam -- I hate it. But just as I defend free speech, I recognize that any regulation of a message based upon the contents of the message must be handled in manner consistent with constitutional sensibility.
And with all due respect, the fact that Spam costs you when you leave an open channel to the world just doesn't cut it. I agree that its true, and I agree that, in a manner of speaking, its egregious. So what? "No law" meant "no law," not "laws that are sensible, or consistent with the consensus of those who do not want to get the speech."
Free speech inconveniences those who do not want to hear it. That's the way of things. It is the nature of first Amendment litigation that the Constitution is most sorely tested by the least attractive candidates: Pornographers, Nazis, Flag Burners and Spammers. That these people are useless slag and a cost to society is beside the point entirely -- they are not made free to speak because it serves our interests to hear them. They are made free to speak so that we can also hear the voices of those geniuses among us who actually do have something to offer.
What is particularly nuts about this colloquy is that there is a way to regulate Spam that is free of cost as well as cosntitutional infirmity. Why defend a clearly unconstitutional law (or one that will at least be unenforceable for the three to five earth-years and decades of web-years it takes to make it to the Supreme Court) when a clearly constitutional alternative exists that will have the same, or nearly the same, effect?
A no-brainer by my reckoning. Stop yielding moral high ground to censors by rationalizing away the First Amendment in the case of spam. Get behind the constitutional alternatives, get the result you actually want, and then have the best of both worlds.
M$: "We're #2!"
CAUCE has an RFC on setting your SMTP banner to report not only your UCE/UBE preference, but your locality for legal situations.
For example, our SMTP banner (provided by SMTPd of the Juniper Firewall Toolkit) says this:
220 Machinename NO UCE C=US L=CO ready.
"Doesn't do a lot of good? Are you mad??"
:)
No, but I play a madman on TV
But seriously, filter all you want...I expect that you may be doing more of it (I'm assuming you live in Colorado). Remember when Sen. Frank Murkowski tried pushing his spam-friendly bill through Congress (S.1618 IIRC)? It never became law, yet I saw a rise in spams that had a disclaimer at the end that read something like "This can't be called SPAM under S.1618 as long as we provide a remove request." All this bill will do is make spam more legitamite, which, in turn, will likely increase the spam flow.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
I agree to a certain extent that some kind of anti-spam legislation needs to be passed. Self-regulation just isn't going to work, and spam needs to have some kind of financial penalty associated with it (both for the sender and the beneficiary).
The problem lies in the fact that its just too easy to use an anti-spam penalty as a kind of denial of service tool and forging spam from a legitimate entity that doesn't and spam leads you into the trap of getting legtimate businesses in trouble.
Hey, I bet you didn't READ the bill, did you?! A, D, V, COLON, in capitol letters. COLON! Did you see the COLON?! Nah. I didn't think so...
I did, but was pointing out that the person who I replied to didn't... chill...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
If you as a lawyer can defend spam, then the same defense can be used to defend sending junk mail postage due. In fact, since it was a lawyer who invented spam in the first place, I think I'll return the favor by creating 'snail spam'. How about we geeks start sending "Hot teen sex at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" postage due letters to any law firm defending email spam? Would those of you in the law get the point then?
Of course the US mail won't deliver such mail, or would it? If defense of spam is successful, I can't see any reason why the postal service couldn't be forced to collect the postage from the recipients. They could send each person a bill based on the amount of junk mail they receive each month. In fact, I think I'll apply for a method of doing business patent, and collect a royalty from everyone who uses my business plan.
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works
Sorry, I just could not resist. You know they did NOT use the GPL on StarOffice as they would like you to beleive, they used the LGPL which says you can use OpenSource Binaries for linking without returning any changes to the community. Then they added a second license wich says any changes made by anyone to StarOffice will have copyrights assigned to Sun.
I Just could not resist when I saw the previous subject.
There's something called small-claims court. That's where you take a $10+court costs suit. It's impossible for that type of suit to "hog time" from a malpractice suit.
Joe Blow the average computer user doesn't need to be able to get past IP spoofing and rerouting. Are you insinuating that there are no computer-savvy people in the entire state of Colorado? There are enough people there that are knowledgeable enough to trace spam back to the U.S., dedicated enough to stop it, and who get spam that sooner or later one of them will be hit by something originating from Colorado. All it takes is a couple suits, and really, how expensive are a couple small claims suits? Remember this is not the same court in which doctors are sued for malpractice (or OJs for wrongful death, whatever). Then all spam from that state could shut down.
Furthermore, IANAL but you could probably sue somebody from any state for spamming you in Colorado if you tracked them to the U.S. Not sure on this though.
BTW, don't most businesses identify themselves in their spam, because it is after all for advertisement purposes, no? So wouldn't you know where they were no matter how re-routed and spoofed they were?
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
See if your state / Province / Country does at www.spamlaws.com. Specifically for us in the Old Dominion, the law can be found at http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html. The pertainent info is section 18.2-152.12 of the bill regarding Civil relief and damages, at the end.
I suggested before that we set up a legal fund to handle this kind of criminal violation and penalties such that all proceeds of the cases would go to a legal fund to help foster more cases. However, I think this may be difficult to organise as IANAL. :) Perhpas a Class Action as suggested above is the best approach, but again IANAL. :)
Time Lord, Dark Horse: The Techno Mage of Gallifrey
Well, he definately wouldn't want to send spam emails advertising that he would sue spammers. Or would he? That would be an interesting marketing technique.
I sorta like
http://www.bighorncenter.org/spam.html
The site has some good, forward thinking ideas geared towards the information age.
-- Good judgement comes with experience. -- Experience comes with bad judgement.
It's not unconstitutional to ban "free speech" (as they say), but it is certainly illegal to fill my mailbox with spam so that important messages bounce off + my time is consumed by their messages for FREE.
> but the bill also allows that customer's internet service provider to collect hundreds or thousands of bad messages sent through its main computers and sue the mailer for $10 on each one, providing the incentive of millions of dollars in potential damages. it's good to see that isps are not being left out of this bill. http://www.johncglass.com/law.htm
- ---------------
i sorta take offense at that. it's not something you think about every day, so it's kinda difficult to put into so many words. maybe this isn't the point you're trying to make.
it sucks major taco it is about the court costs. it can cost quite a bit for court costs, and that provides a means that people aren't going to be making money off of getting spam (such as if it were a $500 fine), but they still get dinged pretty badly, when 50 people suddenly sue, and they have to pay their court costs and the 50 people's... it seems to me that a law like this would only be useful if a large number of people banded together and sued a spammer.
i agree, in part, but as they say, the devil is in the details. isn't there a practical application here? you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
-----------------------------------------------
a lex chebowan (alexchebow@yahoo.com)
Not if they have to pay court costs. Filing in small claims will probably cost at least 30 or 40 dollars, and add to that the 10, and they'd be paying potentionally $50 or so per piece of spam that they send off to an aware and pissed resident. I like it!
i live in colorado and as far as the local papers have reported, this law has never seen an actual court case. it's pretty likely that it won't work (but if it did... ). and bwt, not trying to defend a republican or anything, but it's Gov. Owen_s_.
Everyone's always complaining about wasting tax payer's money. Spending millions to investigate the deeds of politicians is a waste of tax payer's money. Spending millions to fund the wars of other countries is a waste of tax payer's money. Spending money to keep me spam free is a refreshing use of my hard earned cash. Of course for something like this to work, people would have to sue en masse. Spammers are more than likely counting the risk to their pocketbook. If I send one million email, and get a 25% return and only a 2% sue rate, then I'm ahead of the game. They'll need to do something about repeat offenders. Similar to the "three strikes and you're out" law. So here's another solution. If these spammers want to send me their documents, then they should pay a per monthly fee for me to store this information. I will incorporate and go into the documents storage business. I won't even have to advertise. Of course, just like the banks, we'll charge a $2 service charge when they decide they don't want to store on my system anymore and "withdraw" their email.
Hey! Guys! The state is enacting a law to stop spam! If you get any spam messages, forward them to spam@coloradoisp.com and we'll put them on the spamlist. If the spamlist gets over 100 [or 1000, or whatever] then we'll submit the list names and sue.
Thanks,
Ty Coon
Head Honcho, ColoradoISP
And as the "letter" says, when the ISP's spam list that they've received from their customers, they submit their list to the state and file the suit.
The problem is with spam that uses shell accounts and forged headers, in order to mask the true identity of the sender. Those will definitely be harder to track down...
I know we all hate spam, but is it really such a concern that we need to waste taxpayer resources on preventing it?
I'm sure you resent it, but do you have another solution? Banning SPAM completely isn't goint to happen, but it might be possible to legitimize "honest" SPAM -- ie, SPAM that tells you its spam in the subject and doesn't forge headers. If the latter is the case, at least filtering between the MTA and MUA can eliminate seeing a lot of it.
I don't see a solution for people running MTAs off of a dialup account; you don't know what you're getting until you get it.
Note that I haven't actually read it because, thanks to millions of /. readers, the server gives 500 Internal Error ...
Which will just force the spammers offshore to some 3rd world hell hole like the Peoples Republic of Spamistan.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
I have two thoughts on this. First, ten bucks is not much. It's hardly worth the hassel of going to court over for such a small amount.
But, on the flip side, 10 bucks from 100,000 people would certainly be a bad thing for a company. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
-Frijoles-
This will reduce the effectiveness of spam considerably making it less attractive.
My only question is would adoption of this kind of legislation across the US only drive the spammers across political borders?
-- Good judgement comes with experience. -- Experience comes with bad judgement.
So if anyone is interested in shutting down the Colorado legal system, simply send a bunch of spam to people in Colorado. Make sure to set the From: line to marketing@microsoft.com, or even better set it to be the colorado court system so you can take up more resources.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
...must provide the originating e-mail address of the spam
...can't forge third party domain names in the spam unless permission is granted
...can't forge header information
...must use "ADV" in the subject line of the spam (for easy filtering)
...must provide an opt-out mechanism
...can't spam people who've requested to be removed
What makes this bill work is that spammers can't forge header information, which would work right in with forging domain names in the spam. A lot of sites out there (nowhere.com, localhost.com, etc.) have fallen victim to spammers forging their domain names, so this will hopefully save the hapless sysadmins from a lot of headaches. Also, it does say that spammers must honor remove requests. But think about how many spammers there are out there. It's almost like the dilemna of getting off a telemarketer's list. You may have gotten off Company A's list, but Company A may have sold your number to Company B, and you're back to square one. Besides, it's been proven in the past that spammers use their remove lists for spam runs, since the addresses are obviously valid. The requiring of "ADV" in the subject line of the spam works, to a degree. While you can filter out the spam based on that information on the user or system level, it doesn't stop the spam.
And there's a lot that doesn't make this bill worth a lot. For one, requiring that the spam provide a valid From: address is just wasting space on the paper the bill is printed on. The spammer could use a Hotmail throwaway and get away with it, since they could argue that it's a valid address. The opt-out mechanism doesn't work either. It's been a fact that a lot of spammers out there use remove lists for spamming. And while the spammers must obey your request, it falls into the telemarketing scenario above. This bill also doesn't prohibit using an open server as a third party relay (AKA relay rape), which is a big problem, since some servers have crashed due to the load of spam being sent through it.
Basically, as long as your spam has a valid From: address, "ADV" in the subject line, an opt-out mechanism, and doesn't forge header information or domain names, you can spam all you want. And that really doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of good IMHO.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
I think there should be a limit on court costs based on the fine, like maybe a percentage.
I can't understand how, if I got a ticket and didn't contest it, the court costs could easily be EIGHT TIMES the size of the fee, and still generate revenue for anyone.
How about making sure the court costs are less-than-or-equal-to the fee, and making the fee $40 or something? Same sort of money, but at least we know what we're getting. 'Cause if anyone tried to pull a fee like that on me, government or not, you'd bet I'd contest it!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Spam wont stop, its too easy and cheap. Even if it was legislated outta existence in the u.s. and other countries it can still come in from other countries, or even from antartica, or the moon for all we know. But this isnt the real problem. Although there will probably always be occurances of senseless acts of random spam they wont compare to the pseudo-spam caused by "opt-in" tricks: Companies that have their "send me opt-in spam" checkboxes that are "checked", companies that opt you in from nowhere without your permission and then deny it, and those times when you just cant opt-out because their system of opting you out is some temp using excel and the remove@we_arent_spammers.com mail spool file. I've even seen spam that made me make a phone call to be removed. Now multiply that by the increasing number of times your using online businesses. Sure you can keep using throw away addresses and help keep hotmail off nt boxes, or you can use a more elegant and powerful solution called Sneakemail like I do.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
Well, isn't SPAM also a comunity?
Maybe, but I should not be forced to be a member of that community (by means of endless daily spam) any more than I should be forced to be a member of the Love the cactus community.
Couldn't state spam laws be gotten around by routing mail between states? If I send my spam from Maine, route through New York, then go anywhere I want to, wouldn't it fall under federal juradiction (I think like if someone comits a state crime and escapes to a different state)? Better yet, route the spam through a different country.
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Anyway, I'm even more annoyed by junk snail-mail, since it requires me to dispose of the trash. And don't get me started on animated and blinking banner ads on websites...
Washington State's anti-spam legislation was recently held unconstitutional on the ground that states may not regulate the flow of spam, in that doing so is unduly restrictive of interstate commerce in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Does the constitution require that the average citizen pay for the interstate commerce initiatives of Losers Inc. or are we allowed to require that they pick up their own costs?
Didn't you know? Companies are no longer allowed to advertise, because *gasp* they might make money. Can't have that with the NWO.
Oh, you can advertise alright, but you have to pay for the adverts yourself. Suppose you turned on the TV and at the end of the month you got a bill from the TV station for all the adverts you watched. How would that be with you in your NWO?
This expenditure would do nothing then most likely hog court time for real valid claims (like a malpractice suite against a doctor) and make a terribly inefficient justice system more inefficient then it already is. Not only that, but this law is horrible to enforce, because most spammers I'm familar with (yes I actually know some in real life - they're nice guys!) spoof their IP's and reroute their spam from non-US smtp servers. So it ends up looking like the spams from another country and I'm sure it's enough to confuse joe-blow computer user who was hoping to get 10 dollars for getting spam. But how would a normal computer user even know if he was getting a spam from a person in colorado? I mean, this law only is valid in Colorado, correct, so spam from the other 49 states has no consequences?
I mean, laws like these are the first step in eliminating spam -- and our right for free speech. Like it or not, democracy and capatalism are about marketting and money, and we all have had our share of spam in real life (door salesmen, spam in snail mail). I don't believe that just because it causes a slight inconvienence, spam should be eliminated with the cost of inching us closer to the decrement of our personal liberties.
Help me through college please!
Even if you could get say, all of the G7 nations to enact similar laws spammers would just move servers to a different country and it would be business as usual.
What does the location of the server have to do with it? You press your case against the company that is being advertised, not against the advertising "agency".
if(YouWantToMakeM$Lose$) { sendto_smtpservers_through_3_proxies_and_ hotmail_and_two_cascading_wingates (server, "From: Bill Gates \n" "Subject: Buy Win2K today!\n" "a whole lot of other forged headers and requests to forward this message all over the place to make it almost impossible to tell where it came from\n\n" "" ); } I don't see how this law could be enforced. It is my philosophy that it is better to make something that rightfully should be illegal illegal, even if it is unenforcible, and I do hate spam, but... Some ./ers have already mentioned that this law would not be enforcible by the end user because of the legal costs associated with taking such a case to court over $10, but an even greater hurdle for the law is identifying the person who sent the message. It only takes an IQ even lower than that of a script kiddie to forge the headers on an SMTP message, and it isn't too hard to hide the real host the message came from. Do it from hotmail through a few proxies and an anonymising service and through an open wingate(just type stats k on dalnet server for a list of them), and it will be as close to impossible to trace as you get. It would definitely cost >$10 to trace at least. Add to that the fact you could send spam and forge your headers to make it look like it came from someone else and even go so far as suing _them_ for it, and I think this law will bring more troubles than it solves.
X-Has-Sig: yes
tim, I still want to know why we weren't given the opportunity to question the microsoft engineers after IIS's fantastic performance in the mindcraft benchmarks. I can understand if they refused, but did you even ask? and was this interview with this ingo character offered by him, or requested by slashdot? thank you.
My god! I wrote this! Normally I'd be pissed if my Slashdot output was misappropriated (not that that's ever happened, right roblimo?) but I'm honored to know that someone felt my point was valid.
Hmm, as long as I'm posting at +2, I might as well implore you to check out Leisure Town. You will very closely identify, I assure you.
And a nickel's worth of free advice, McFly: Don't be too quick to judge (i.e. moderate) me for the apparent offtopic nature of my message. While I am willing -- nay, proud -- to bear the slings of outrageous moderation, I recommend that you do not waste your points on me. Trust me on that one.
yours,
john
Trollin' for Art and Microsoft since 1992!
Whoops forgot to make fun of timothy. tim -- you're a gun nut. monster.
Having worked in QA at Microsoft, I solemnly swear that this story is 110% accurate!!
cpeterso
More bang for your buck!
You know, government expenditure has the potential to SAVE taxpayers money in the long run. Ever take macroeconomics?
I consider laws like this a possible investment when proven effective. If people do take this to court and it becomes a deterrent against spammers, this could be saving you money. The amount of _your_ taxes spent on pursuing issues like this is miniscule. If this is found to be a deterrent, ISPs and businesses in general may save money on a macro-scale because of a reduction hardware expenses as a consequence of heavy mail traffic. The aggregate amount of money saved may well be greater than the amount spent on ligitation at the public's expense. And that while that might be a miniscule amount that you gain by lower prices or an improved product or increased mailbox space on your free mail account, it may be more than the haypenny or less you paid more in taxes. It's worth consideration, in any case.
I have serious problems with people who immediately consider all government expenditure a "waste of taxpaper resources." That's why I don't vote libertarian.
We do.
It's called "Cable"
One *VERY* friendly spam site is popsite.net . Their whole damn page is dedicated to 'preventing' spam. BS! That's a dead give-away to their real business. 90% of the spam I get is from them on more than one of my accounts, but not for much longer. I'm implementing a sendmail filter to bounce the spam back (with a cease and desist letter) to root@ postmaster@ and abuse@ popsite.net AND their admin/tech/billing contacts on their domain. Each time I get a message originating from popsite.net, I'll increment by one the number of times their spam (with my letter) gets sent back to them. With all the spam they send me, that will be up to over a hundred with a month and a half. That should get their attention pretty fsckin' quick. I have sent numerous letters to them asking them to take action, even threatening legal action, and have never gotten a response from them, or their upstream providers that also received my messages.
Registrant:
StarNet, Inc. (POPSITE5-DOM)
473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
Palatine, IL 60067
US
Domain Name: POPSITE.NET
Administrative Contact:
Intravartolo, Susanna (IS168-ORG) sue@STARNETUSA.NET
Susanna Intravartolo
473 W. Northwest Hwy. St., 1A
Palatine,, IL 60067
US
(847)963-0116
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Technical, Support (TS548-ORG) postmaster@STARNETUSA.NET
StarNet, Inc.
473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
Palatine,, IL 60067
US
(847)963-0116
Fax- (847)963-1302
Billing Contact:
Billing, Department (BD829-ORG) billing@STARNETUSA.NET
StarNet, Inc.
473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
Palatine,, IL 60067
US
(847)963-0116
Fax- (847)963-1302
They are from IL and I'm in KS. Who wants to meet me at their office next Friday for a bitch-slapping session?
I have be receiving spam mail in my mail box at my house for 20 years!
Foooool!
Would you have kept quiet for 20 years if the paper-spam was being delivered COD???
Example:I didn't ask that crook to enter MY garage and use MY electricity when he turned on MY light. I didn't authorize his walking on MY concrete which is causing wear and tear on MY resources.
1) You are wasting my time by driving to slow in front of me.
2) You are wasting my time by writing a check at the grocery store check out line.
3) You are wasting my time by putting me on hold to wait for tech support.
4) You are wasting my time by not having enough employees working at the Motor Vechicle registration line.
5) You are wasting my time by thinking that I am going to waste 10 hours to go to court to get $10 bucks back. That isn't even work 15 min of my time.
Hell I waste very little time deleteing spam, they should make laws for bigger wastes of time first, than for spam.
I hardly think spam is the big problem for individuals here. Give the ISP's so power to sue for use of their equipment, don't waste my time. And even this will just push spammers to some other country.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Couldn't someone send out a whole bunch of spam, posing as a company that they want to 'punish' for some reason? Because of the way this law is set up, if the company couldn't prove it wasn't them, wouldn't they have to pay the fine?
Um... class action? Maybe you could start a spam-watch, where everyone "affected" by a certain peice of spam bands together and sues the pants off the offender.
You missed the point, which is that under this law, when the spammer loses, they must pay court costs and attorney's fees for the person who sued. It would actually be much more expensive for the spammers if the cases are not brought as a class action, because then they'd have to pay the court costs for each of the people who sued, which could add up very quickly.
1. There will be the same problem as witht he Washington law. The problem with knowingly sending the SPAM to Washington. Also, the issue of constitutionality of state laws affecting interstate commerce.
2. Even though there is attorney fees, there still is a resistance for a court to award $5000 in fees for a $10 case.
3. There should be a $1000 or $10/per email violation. And include lost wages to appear in court. Court costs and attorney fees do not include the lost wages for the prosecution.
4. There should also be the same sort of penalty available for the people who had their servers hijacked or addresses forged.
5. A penalty for people who sell an email address that has not been authorized to be spammed.
6. Penalty for a Software publisher that writes software that hijacks servers to spam.
There has been success in having individuals rewarded to stop fraud. That is why Abraham Lincoln put the Qui Tam laws into place. That allows an individual to file a lawsuit on behalf of the federal government
Fight Spammers!
The actual Washington Court decision is here, though it doesn't say a lot. The theory is the the Commerce Clause of the Constitution grants primary authority to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government, not the states. If a state law unduly burdens interstate commerce, then, no matter how noble the intent may be, it is unconstitutional. This is what is known as a so-called dormant commerce clause issue, the "typical" commerce clause issue being one where there is a challenge to whether a Congressional enactment is justified under Congress' (quite broad, but not unlimited) commerce power.
I don't like spam, but as a practicing lawyer, I think the Washington case was decided correctly, and that the U.S. Supremes would agree if ever called upon to visit the issue.
Of course, federal legislation would not address the First Amendment issue, but that issue won't arise until either there is federal legislation or the Colorado courts disagree with the Washingtom court on the dormant commerce clause issue.
personally I wish legislators would keep their hands off the web... I hate spam mail just as much as the next person but really... things will get real interesting now that the US Postal Service is going to give email to every US resident... expect to see alot more ballyhoo like this in the next few years...
And even if federal legislation is passed, there remains the outstanding First Amendment questions. Soon to be seen at an appellate court near you . . .
The whole point of hating spam is not because it's annoying, sure it's annoying, but the bigger picture is someone is paying, usually the email account holder, for these guys to advertise to you. You pay for your internet account, or you pay by seeing banner ads, the ISP pays by using their bandwidth, hard drive space, etc. Spam costs the recipiants money, there is no First Amendment protection which allows you to advertise to someone while costing them money at the same time.
-- iCEBaLM
By the way, I've heard good arguments why none of those things would help at all. The quick list:
Saying that they can't forge the header is a nice gesture, but it's only a small improvement. Many spammers broadcast from ISP accounts that are shut down within hours anyway.
The problem with subject tags is that it doesn't eliminate the cost-shifting. Spammers still get a free ride and everybody else pays to deliver and process their junk.
The problem with opt-out lists is that you still have to receive it. Spammers get one free bite. It wouldn't be *too* bad if it were just that, but all they have to do is "change" their "company" and they get another free bite. Repeat indefinitely. In general, opt-out is not a good solution.
And all this is assuming that they actually honor the law at all.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
This legislation conclusively proves two things:
At first glance, this bill seems too stupid for words--let's be serious. Is there anybody who has been online for, oh, say two weeks that hasn't figured out that on the Internet there are no state lines? And if you've been through law school (which, presumably, most Colorado legislators have been) you have heard something at some time about restrictions on Interstate Commerce? This bill is one colossal exercise in taxpayer-funded flamebait, destined to be overturned by the first judge who reads it. Right?
Except...
Politicians should generally be kept away from computers and other things they might hurt themselves with--but that doesn't mean they don't have a nascent form of Neanderthal cunning. Remember--this is an election year. Periodically politicians have to demonstrate that they are fighting, tooth and nail, for their constituents. That they are defending the weak, empowering the powerless, and valiantly struggling to defeat the wicked schemes and machinations of [if democrat==1 {big business, big oil, Republicans} else {labor unions, environmental wackos, Democrats}]. Americans may revere national leaders who are proven veterans of decades of foreign policy--but everybody votes for the guy who "fights". Nobody gets re-elected because he or she is regarded as a serious legal scholar with a remarkable ability to grasp the subtle nuances of extremely complex litigation.
So a politician must periodically demonstrate that he is a fighter--pretty much regardless of who he fights, or whether he ever wins. At the same time, most politicians really do want to achieve something or other, and they realize that in order to be effective in a group of 100, 200, or 435 Type A personalities you have to have cooperation. Being a "fighter" and working cooperatively would seem mutually exclusive, no?
What happens if they stage a fight, but only one fighter shows up?
Yup. What many politicians have discovered is a way to "fight" that actually doesn't include an opponent. A phenomenon in recent years has been a steady succession of legislation by one "fighting" politico or another designed to prevent the crisis du jour. Cocaine vendors, pornographers, child predators, and now email spammers all have one thing in common: none of them is willing to appear in a public hearing to oppose any legislation. There isn't a Recividist Pedophiles Industry Association wining and dining legislators, or an Alternative Neuro-Pharmacology Association staging demonstrations for government-subsidized blow. Everybody, Republican and Democrat alike, can "fight" email spam with the sure and certain conviction that nobody, anywhere, will oppose them. They all get to print "co-sponsored the Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law" on their campaign brochures, and they look like heroes.
The fact that the Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law is totally unenforceable, absolutely unconstitutional, and guaranteed to be overturned within minutes of getting litigated doesn't mean anything. These politicians may not be that bright--but they're not completely stupid. They know perfectly well that this law is going to get tossed in the hopper by the first judge to see it. And they know that nobody yet has put "...and 47% of my opponent's legislation was overturned within minutes of getting litigated." on a campaign brochure. The practice won't stop until candidates start running ads pointing out how much tax money is wasted by incumbents writing frivilous legislation in order to look like "fighters".
This is an election year. The Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law is an election year gimmick. Don't be fooled into thinking it is anything more--at the very best it is a waste of tax money.
Hmmm, quite true... I actually thought of this after I posted and I was wondering if someone would bring it up.
How hard would it be to pick up a couple of partners or whatever in a non-legislated company and set up the business there? A lot of spam comes from companies who don't really sell a product but rather some sort of electronic service, so the whole company probably exists on a few easily transportable computers. The idea of an entire company moving for the sake of spam is a little far out, but what's to stop a company that exists entirely is a different country?
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
Do you think that this bill could be sent to Congress, or would it not make it through alive without being mangled to the point of non-usefulness. Or worse yet, would that spam law/bill that was passed nationally about legalized spamming with opt-out options (regardless of whether the opt-out takes you out or just verifies that someone is actually reading the spam), supercede the new one in Colorado? If the two were to conflict over the definition of spam it would be a hit to computer users everywhere. Why do the bad guys always win?
No, it doesn't. The problem of cost-shifting is not related so much to the user as it is to the provider.
Do you think it costs them nothing to devote hardware cycles to processing every piece of mail that crosses their servers? Do you think it costs regional and backbone providers nothing to commit large amounts of bandwidth to delivering billions and billions of junk emails?
Do you suppose that these costs will eventually trickle down to the user's bill? You better bet they will!
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Email spammers are paying much less to send millions of messages than are their snail-mail counterparts. Rather than litigate them into oblivion, they should be forced to register a bulk spam permit, and pay to maintain it...at a high enough rate to reduce the "noise" cluttering our bandwidth. I have no idea who the payment would go to, or how to regulate it...it's just an idea...
Perhaps a good use for Carnivore?
END
One thing that seems to be overlooked is: how is a spammer supposed to know that the email is going to someone in Colorado? If I were an attorney, I'd be arguing that my client couldn't be held responsible if it turns out that BartSimpson@eat-my-shorts.com happens to reside in a state that has passed one of these laws. And what about people who have, say, a Yahoo email account that they use POP to download their mail from? How can one possibly know where that goes? What if the Yahoo user lives in a state in which it's legal to send commercial email and then moves to Colorado? This law is going to cause more trouble than it solves, even assuming that it isn't declared unconstitutional. I despise spammers as much as anyone, but passing legislation that won't fix the problem, or worse, bogs down the courts, isn't the answer.
And do the customers to whom the email was addressed get the money if the ISP wins? I bet I know the answer to that one.
Dear Sir or Madam: Do you hate someone? I mean deep-down, gut-churning, all-consuming, roast-in-the-fires-of-hell hatred? Then the all-new Revengenator® is for you! Now, with just the push of a button, you can spew tens of thousands of forged email messages to Colorado residents, all in your target's name! Imagine their surprise when they're hit with thousands of lawsuits for millions of dollars! Your dreams of that all-consuming, sword-of-justice, scorched-earth payback is here, for the low-low price of just $49.95! The Revengenator® : now, it's personal.
Basically, as long as your spam has a valid From: address, "ADV" in the subject line, an opt-out mechanism, and doesn't forge header information or domain names, you can spam all you want. And that really doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of good IMHO.
Doesn't do a lot of good? Are you mad??
:0:
* ^Subject:.*ADV.*
/dev/null
...to never get spam in my inbox again. That would sure make ME a happy camper!
--
Couldn't they just require that everyone USE the "X-priority: bulk" header? That would really solve a lot, if you have decent mail client...
D'oh! Good point... Guess I should skim less and read more :)
Not if they have to pay court costs. Filing in small claims will probably cost at least 30 or 40 dollars, and add to that the 10, and they'd be paying potentionally $50 or so per piece of spam that they send off to an aware and pissed resident. I like it!
Don't forget attorney's fees! I often think they charge to much, but if it's coming out of the spammer's pocket...
So how do most of you guys deal with unwanted spam (aside from the delete key)? Any particularly useful techniques for dealing with it?
.cn hostname, the email address on ARIN returned a "User Unknown" error.
For example, I just got an email that supposedly originated from a free web mail account (yes.zzn.com) that was routed through an open relay smtp server in China (kmsti.net.cn) that wanted me to buy something off of their Tripod web page (gray875.tripod.com).
I reported it to abuse@tripod.com, quoting the parts of their TOS it violates. I then did an nslookup on the other hostnames, and looked up the IP's I got at ARIN.net and emailed the contact listed for each, informing them. In the case of the
Is that my only option? Are there better techniques for dealing with it? What reasons can I give the people I email to take action if they don't have specific policies like Tripod does?
Any suggestions?
Generally in the EU they went for opt-in when it comes to advertise-emails..
But for some #/%*! reason Sweden went for opt-out.
But what can I do about companies who don't respect opt-out?
English is not my first language, so cut me some slack -: Om du kan lasa det har sa kan du Svenska
If I were a smart lawyer I would try to take on as many individual cases as possible, charge my clients no fee if they lose, and then try to litigate for years. Then I would split the award 20/80 with my client. So in the end when the spammer loses, I win $10, plus the hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation fees. Subtract 20% for my client, and I can buy myself a new car! and then give the $10 dollars to charity, someone who really needs it. I love America!
Well hey, this is kinda like the law against telemarketers calling you after tell them exactly to "take me off your list." I read somewhere that if they call again you can sue them. (more info on this pertaining to telemarketing/junk email here. . .interesting read if you havent seen it already)
The hairy line between advertising and harrassment keeps getting tugged from one side to the other by the courts, regardless of the tangled mess of precedent. Meanwhile, we still get spam and probably always will, 'specially with more people checking their email and letting the voice mail be.
-S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
God must have loved calories, she made so many of them.
Wait a sec, I guess I *can* now. :-)
- Joe
-Joe
But the bill also allows that customer's Internet service provider to collect hundreds or thousands of bad messages sent through its main computers and sue the mailer for $10 on each one, providing the incentive of millions of dollars in potential damages.
Now this could be very damaging to a company. It's good to see that ISPs are not being left out of this bill. Good work, Colorado!
-Frijoles-
Actually, given that the people paying for the bandwidth (you or the ISP) don't know that the incoming data is spam until they've actually received it, a better analogy might be: junk mail that has arrived "postage due." But the payment is automatically added to your bill the moment you see the envelope.
-RickHunter
A simple answer to prevent the judicial system overloading is to create or appoint an agency, which sues a spammer in bulk (just like they offend in bulk).
Incedents are pooled, and complainants get $9 out of their $10 gains, and the agency keeps the remaining $1; Amounts may of course vary, but given a large enough audience, someone can make a small profit while stamping out the spam.
(Hopefully this makes sense, it's been that kind of day..)
Bad links and bad site. Check out mine / mirror http://www.johncglass.com/law.htm
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
I am a laweyr, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction.
I haven't read the law (and don't have a Colorado license anyway). However, what makes or break this as a viable solution is the issue of joinder: the way in which these can be combined in a single suit. If each person has to file each complaint as a separate action, it's close to useless; most of us won't front the filing fee, plus another $20 or so to serve it, etc., over ten bucks.
On the other hand, if the ISP can file these in bulk, perhaps making part of the terms of service an option for the ISP to file and keep a share in return for hirin an attorney, it's a whole new ball game (actually, this is my preferred solution: a standard statutory liquid damages of $10 or so, and joinder rules which permit ISP's to step in on behalf of all subscribers).
hawk, esq.
> as a practicing lawyer,
.. . .
:) ]
Yikes, we're coming out of the woodwork on this one
hawk, no longer a practicing lawyer, but instead a recovering lawyer, not having sued anyone in over six years [*applause*]
[hey, where do I get my five year pin?
I was thinking about this a bit more. The problem is that there are constitutionality issues with this law. Some others have already raised issues of free speech (and press?) that might end up getting this taken to a bunch of appelate courts.
The problem that I see, is that the plantiff has to make an investment to sue: $30 and his own time if in small claims, or some other amount if as part of a class-action suit.
But if there are enough lawsuits, then the company would simply appeal, and possible get the law overturned. In that case, a bunch of people meaning to use the law against said spammer would end up with legal bills, while the spammer stood aside and sniggered.
So it comes down to a risk for the plantiff. If they made the amount a good $120 instead of $10, (or something at least equal to a day's wages for some middle-class Americans), then it might be worth the person's time to take a day off and go into small claims, pay $30 or whatever for filing fees, and then stand there arguing about the stupid "XXX naked sluts gone wild" that he got a month ago, and how he's going to prove that it really came from that spammer.
Otherwise, except for those with copiously large amounts of free time, and a true vendetta against the company, not many people are actually going to take the time to sue...
It occurs to me that spamcop.net is in a perfect position to take on this role, so I would expect things to happen very quickly if the law is passed and holds up.
Keeping the law in force is the problem. If a company can claim legitimately that they cannot distinguish a Colorado user from a non-Colorado user by the e-mail address (mostly they can't), and that this would interfere with interstate commerce (it would - loosely defined), it'll be struck down by the courts. On the other hand, it'll be another good lever to get Congress to pass decent anti-spam legislation with a right of individual action and statutory damages. That's all we really need to stomp spammers flatter than a pancake.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
A lot of mailing list traffic comes marked "X-priority: bulk" too. The distinction has to be drawn between solicited and unsolicited instead.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Do you need more money? Sure, we all do! Well, this money making scheme *really works*! How? If you live in the state of Colorado, sue the sender of thie e-mail (that's me) for $10! If you have received multiple copies of this message, you can collect multiple times! Soon, the money will just pile up!
(By the way, this message is in accordance with U.S. Postal Laws and Free Speach and that Pro-Spam bill they passed awhile back).
[-1, Offtopic] Hemos posted an article about the law before it was signed; that article is unfortunately no longer available, but the comments are.
/. -- lack of durability.
this is an isolated example of what i dislike most strongly in
a story hits the homepage, everyone gets very worked up, 680 messages are posted, and then in eight hours the discussion is dead as everyone rushes to be outraged by the latest violation of our online rights or stupid implementation by a software company.
i do think these are very important issues we're dealing with, but the reason the corporate-govt marriage so often steamrolls over us is that they know how to work their power by focusing on an issue and lobbying relentlessly until passage of legislation -- often saturating the big-market print and visual media outlets with their rhetoric until the public begs them to PLEASE DO SOMETHING. And of course, a la "Trouble in River City", they happen to have a solution to all our [newly created ex-nihilo] problems waiting right there.
conversely, it seems that the majority of slashdotters are politically ADHD, which may be great for slamming out late night code but is not necessarily the best way to fight for a cause (except perhaps programs that make "civil disobedience" statements, which still should be backed up by other action in order to be effective).
This is, in fact, why SPAM and other advertisements are so pervasive -- when your general population doesn't have any social/cultural memory, the only way to persuade them to buy into your product (tangible or philosophical) is to constantly bombard them with high-intensity ads designed to push you to the front of their mind, ahead of the hundreds of other special interests all doing the same.
the next time i hear someone shriek, "please, won't someone think of the children's online rights!!!" i believe i will calmly add, "yes, and please think about them for longer than eight hours."
---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Now the term "electronic message" is so broad that it could mean any message sent electronically, regardless of the protocol. So under this law if someone from Colorado visits my commercial website unsolicited and my webserver sends them an electronic message (the HTML file is transmitted between the two computers), I am in violation of this law.
This isn't as trivial as it sounds, since someone could frame or redirect to a site resulting in an unsolicited visit...Ah, now I finally can do that ;)
> Spam wont stop, its too easy and cheap. Even if it was legislated outta existence in the u.s. and other countries it can still come in from other countries
Will the USA end up sending troops to Columbia to stop spam smugglers?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> As soon as the law comes into effect, you will see an enormous increase the in the e-mail filters being set worldwide (whereever the knowledge goes) to "Move into Trash whatever says ADV".
Those of us with dialup links will greatly resent having to spend several hours downloading several megabytes of spam, just so we can get the handful of useful messages from our friends.
I think one of the restraints on spam right now is the fact that is is almost universally recognized as bad manners. Only assholes send spam. But if governments start saying "it's OK, so long as you label it", then the odium will be lessened, and the internet will drown in a big vat of pink pseudo-meat.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If I put a note saying that I charge say $5 + court costs for reading junk mail, would it hold as legal?
In the real world, I could stick such a note on my mailbox and anyone that puts something in is bound to see it. But in email, where would I have to put such a note such that the mailer could reasonably know that I have such a charge?
---
It is about the court costs. It can cost quite a bit for court costs, and that provides a means that people aren't going to be making money off of getting spam (such as if it were a $500 fine), but they still get dinged pretty badly, when 50 people suddenly sue, and they have to pay their court costs and the 50 people's... that could effectively stop all SPAM.
However, lawyers will be on this like flies on honey. The best profit margin that a lawyer can have is on a class action suit, and this has to be one of the easiest ones for them to find claimants. Lawyers will make a bit of money, and if we're really lucky they'll litigate the spammers into non-existence.
Man, I can't wait to see the first spammers who's gonna get hammered by Judge Judy... ;-)
Hey I know that's off topic, but woudn't the world be better if everyone could have a slashdot.org email?
It may well be that only federal legislation can resolve this problem. Washington State's anti-spam legislation was recently held unconstitutional on the ground that states may not regulate the flow of spam, in that doing so is unduly restrictive of interstate commerce in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
While another court may have a different view, there is precedent that seems indistinguishable in the present case.
And even if federal legislation is passed, there remains the outstanding First Amendment questions. Soon to be seen at an appellate court near you . . .
The only thing this bill would "do" if it is upheld is shield spammers. It's not going to affect the fly-by-net scum that make up the majority of spammers, as they will simply ignore it. What it WILL do is provide a shield of respectability for more established groups that want to spam you but are afraid of the repercussions.
$10 civil remedy per spam? Under national law in the US there is already a $500 civil remedy (under US Code 47.5.II, a better law than any that have been proposed since) - guess what? It doesn't mean squat unless you can prove who sent the crap. If you get spammed by someone foolish enough to include his real identity, by all means, file suit in small claims court and screw them hard. But the vast majority don't do that, and won't do that.
All this law means is that folks that aren't totally fly by night, that you can track down, will now have a shield that might or might not stand up in court or even be interpreted by an ISP to shield them from the booting they deserve - if they comply with it. "But your honor, this promotion (they never call it SPAM but that's what it is) was conducted in full compliance with HR00-1309, we move for immediate dismissal." "But, abuse@myprovider.com, this was not SPAM, it was mass marketing conducted in full compliance with HR00-1309."
The legislature of the state of colorado has no right to determine that my private mailbox can be abused by anyone as an advertising medium as long as they do it nicely. My mailbox is mine and is not for the purpose of unsolicited advertising, period.
Opt out is wrong for several reasons. First off it isn't honoured, and it never will be. Send your address to an opt out service and, if they don't spam you themselves, they will certainly add your list to the confirmed list they sell to all the other spammers. Don't believe me? Make a free email account, any of the dozens of places available, don't use it, don't give it to anyone, except for the "removal" addresses the spammers send you. Give it a few months, and you'll have tons of mail. I've done this, others have done this, it works.
Secondly, even if they honoured it, it's still an unnacceptable shift of responsibilities. If someone wants to use my address for advertising, they need to get my permission first. They have no right to demand that I mail them and "opt out" unless I opted in to begin with. If you disagree, think about this for a moment - how about I go around and find all the mailing lists I can that don't confirm joining (a practice that is fortunately rarer than it once was, but there are some) and burden you with removing yourself. How many mailing lists can I sign you up for in a day, before you say enough!? Their failure to confirm your subscription properly does NOT create any obligation to jump through their removal hoops. When someone spams you, you have no obligation to ASK them to quit - anymore than you have to ASK someone to stop stealing your car.
If I want to know about your product/service/chain letter I'll use one of the many fine search engines and find you. If you send me ads anyway, I WILL make sure that your provider knows about it, and if they don't care I'll be talking to their provider. No law is needed.
SPAM is network abuse, period, and IMOP all attempts to fight it through the legislature are fatally flawed. The legislature is the pawn of business, and a great many businesses want a license to spam. They have enough influence to ensure ALL legislation will have such a license embedded in it. The net is much better equipped to deal with spam. Organisations like maps and orbs do more good than any government will ever do. If certain networks want to be spam friendly, that is their right - but the rest of us have no obligation to carry their traffic. Let them have their own internet, and spam each other to their hearts content.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I'm afraid that if I "opt-out" all I will do is tell the company that I exist and that this is a valid e-mail. Yeah, they are supposed to delete my 411, but whats to stop them from copying it to another db of people who opt-out and then selling that. And don't tell me that they don't keep records of who opts out.
;-)
There should be a central, government or open, area where ALL UCE must pass through. That way you can opt-out of EVERYTHING in one go and not be bothered with the rest. Conversly, if I am interested in UCE (heh... its possible I guess) I can sign-up in once place for the things that interest me. Anyway, it could be illegal to send UCE from any e-mail outside this special domain.
Besides, how do these laws affect buisness outside states with them and, more importantly, in other countries without similar laws?
bah.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Funny, I could have sworn that a lot of you guys were libertarians.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
Can't / Don't = Should not
Illegal = please don't do that
They should save themselves some money and make all lawsuits against spam companies class-action. That way it is easier for 'joe schmoe' to actually win in court against mega-million-dollar company. It would also save the court system from billions of dollars in wated court time.
You'll get Aunt Mary suing little Billy because he sent her an e-mail she didn't want. You'll get Uncle Joe suing Timmy for sending him that MLM scam with the $5 thing, you know.. make cash by sen... yeah you got it.
Not all spam comes from companies looking to advertise stuff. Some spam comes from individuals looking to sell something or to just annoy people. Recently someone used a mailing list from a college I attend to advertise their music related website ("you'll enjoy these MP3's"). Unfortunatly for him, the content of the site is illegal (heh, no RIAA or DMCA debates for now please) and he harvisted mail from somewhere he really shouldn't have. I guess it's the school's fault for not bcc:'ing when they have large numbers of people to reach. I'm just pissed that someone spammed my school e-mail.. sigh.. thats what my @home e-mail is for.
Look at the bottom of spam and you'll notice a new trend.. yup.. they'll say something along the lines of "this is not unsolicited, this e-mail was entered at our website.. blah.. blah.. blah". Does this let them get away scot-free? And is scot-free spelt scot-free or scott free? and who is scott in this case? is he scottish? erm... back on topic. Is it valid to claim that the person requested it (or that *someone* put your e-mail into the box at their webpage) therefore avoiding all spam laws altogether? eep!
Heh.. have fun, and remember... this ain't spam!
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Uhm, no. (Ob. IANAL)
I read section 6-2.5-105 to mean that the legislation applies only when one or both of the sender's or recipient's email devices physically exists within the state of Colorado. Good luck enforcing this when the sender is in Pottsolvania or when the Colorado resident uses Hotmail.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
This whole thing will get thrown out the first time some slimy spammer convinces a judge that there's no possible way they can determine whether mail sent to the email addresses they have on their list are going to Colorado or not.
Personally, I'd prefer a simple ammendment to the junk fax law that includes spam in the same category as junk faxes. (The junk fax law is vague when it comes to definitions... spam could actually be considered a junk fax by the definitions they used... but I believe this was tested in court and failed)
-S (receiver of over 3000 spams since '97)
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Use the address above.
Even the Federal Trade Commish claims that uce "is a threat to consumer confidence in online commerce."
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I can see it now, the mailboxes of Colorado residents will be filled with "ADV: Getting spammed lately?" email.
-Frijoles-