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Washington Spam Law Upheld
An anonymous submitter sent in news that the Washington state Supreme Court upheld Washington's anti-spam law today. The law requires truthful information on all commercial emails sent from Washington state or to a Washington resident - commercial emailers may not disguise the origin of their messages (but aren't prohibited from sending UCE if they don't try to disguise themselves). It is a civil law, not a criminal one. Since this affects residents of other states who email into Washington, a spammer sued under the law by the state of Washington claimed that this was interfering with interstate commerce - regulating interstate commerce is a power reserved to the Federal government, not states. The trial court agreed. Washington appealed. The Washington Supreme Court held that requiring accurate identification information actually facilitates interstate commerce rather than burdening it. The decision is interesting, because several state internet censorship laws have been struck down due to their effects on residents of other states - it's worth reading for anyone interested in internet legal issues.
Your right to speak ends when you hold my property hostage, unduly burden my right to avoid you, or take things from me. Nothing in the constitution says I MUST provide you an audience, or offer any technological means of letting you hold my attention, my equipment/bandwidth hostage, or fund your speech in any way.
Spam, and telemarketing, can't be ignored. I have constitutional rights that say I can't have things that are mine taken from me without due process (like my time, CPU cycles, etc.) So spam mail and telemarketing IS NOT, HAS NOT, CANNOT EVER BE, a constitutional right IN ANY CONTEXT.
Feel free to offer flyers to passer by, but forcing them into their pockets will get you arrested.
So let's look closer at Spam...
I have to subsidize spam by paying for Internet bandwidth, in a proportion excess to those sending it. Not to mention outright theft of the last mile for which I pay directly. You've violated my constitutional right to due process.
I can't avoid it, you're stuffing it into my electronic pocket. You've violated my constitutional right to be secure in my person and possessions.
Spam is nothing more than an Electronic Mugging.
The law was just upheld by the state supreme court - the highest court in the state of Washington. The federal government can certainly interfere, but I don't think they have the authority to directly change or overturn the law.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Nope, sorry, this is a Washington state law. The US Supreme Court can't create a law that applies to the whole country - they can only uphold and strike down this one, which only applies to WA.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Just give a valid email address and a header that is true and you're good to go!
Not true. It doesn't allow anything. If you don't forge your headers, you're not affected by this law. Any other laws that used to apply, still do.
2. It creates an incredible burden on the spammers who were just sanctioned
According to the court in the ruling, the reason why the spammers addresses, which he gave, were not valid were because they were canceled.
I'm all for placing an incredible burdon on spammers, personally. If the reason your return e-mail address was cancelled is because you knowingly violated your e-mail provider's terms of service, well, too bad, you're an idiot.
The court argues that real info makes buisness easier, but if spammers give their real info out, their accounts are canceled.
If you can find an ISP that ALLOWS you to send spam, great! They won't cancel your account for it! If your ISP doesn't allow it, then you shouldn't be doing it. The law may not be perfect, but I have no complaints.
In effect, the Washington law reads as a ban on spam (You have to use your real info, and if your account goes away, your problem!).
This is NOT a ban on spam. This law explicitly states that it is still legal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail. You just can't hide behind forged headers. And again, if your ISP doesn't allow you to send spam, and that's what you want to do, choose a different ISP that will allow you to send spam and not cancel your account.
I would much rather see a better more thought-out law.
Just have the law say "spam is banned." It's bad that they have different more confusing words with the same effect.
You just contradicted yourself.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This is nice, but it seems like federal courts would have to be the last say on the matter. Basically the plaintiff was saying "Washington state is overstepping its authority by interfering with interstate commerce" and a Washington state court ruled "no we're not." What'd be more impressive is if the federal courts agree.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The courts have ruled time and time again that not all speech is protected. For example, I can't yell fire in a crowed movie theatre. Nor can I publicly say things that are not true and will cause you physical/emotional/financial damage.
Spam email/voice mail/IM/Whatever are not constitutionally protected. 'Hot XXX girls and boys" is not speech, it's advertising and solicitation, both of which it's perfectly legal to block at the mail level and at the phone level. I have unsolicited caller block on my phone, am I infringing on the Right of Speech? No I am not.
Gun ownership is one thing, but no where in the Constitution and Bill of Rights do I see anything about Congress not infringing on one's right to advertise.
Let's go after these idiots:
"Charging $39.95 for the booklet, Heckel made 30 to 50 sales per month."
Who is buying this crap?
From one of my messages in my spam folder:
This message is sent in compliance of the proposed bill
SECTION 301. per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S.
1618. This message is not intended for residents in the
State of Washington, screening of addresses has been done to
the best of our technical ability.
See...not only does it follow a proposed (and struck down if I recall) house bill, but gosh darnit - they've done the best they can to make sure they know who they are spamming.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to reply to this guy because I am interest in making easy $$$ at home that involves increasing my penis size with the help of hot willing 18 year old girls.
Of course the other spam I got, I will simply reply and I'll never need to worry about getting spam from them again.
See, spammers are nice friendly people.
When was the last time you could describe the process of pressing a lawsuit and collecting the proceeds as fast?
This is actually a bit of anti-spammer humor. The spelling 'free speach' is actually not uncommon among spammers, so anti-spammers tend to use it in mockery of the spammers.
(Ob. disclaimer: IANAL)
I don't buy this. The argument against spam is NOT content based, or speaker based. It's recipient based. To my mind, spamming incorporates a sense of personal trespass or invasion of privacy. It seems that an anti-spam law falls in the same category of laws which deal with harassment, stalking, etc. Moreover, we already permit some sensible limitations on free speech -- notably libel and slander laws. While it is important to avoid slippery slopes which would eliminate free speech, we must also sometimes hack the social contract to patch bugs. 8-)
I've suggested it before and I'm suggesting it again: BountyQuest for Spammers.
Sure as heck I'd toss a ten-spot into the kitty to have a spammer scrubbed off. Only have to remove a few of those scum, and the rest would suddenly find that there's less risky business to be done in this world.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Wrong. If you send a business offer through the mail to someone in another state, you can damn well be held accountable by that state or sued in that state.
Your problem #1 can't be gotten rid of without changing the Constitution. There are free speech rights. Lawmakers have the power to forbid fraud; they don't have the power to forbid someone from speaking, or writing, or e-mailing for the purpose of communicating some idea.
Your problem #2 is bogus -- the defendant made the claim that the email addresses were valid until cancelled, but he also used fake addresses and he definitely used fake subject lines.
Also, the reason the person's account went away was because he violated the contract with his ISP. The ISP forbade spam, and he spammed. When he lost the first address he'd get another, knowing full well he'd lose the second and third accounts. Fraud again.
No, not unless the Feds passed a similar law. Also, the Feds could pass a conflicting law and the Federal law would take precedence.
You might be OK in two cases: either your mail wasn't commercial in nature, or else if you labeled it as requested by the law. In practice your emails wouldn't really be anonymous political speech anyway, unless you used a chain of anonymizing remailers. And I imagine most of those have strict controls over the quantity of spam you can send specifically to ward off spammers.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The court ruling said:
... but it didn't really matter, because he wasn't paying for the spam. Not until he got nailed for bogus headers, anyway.
Heckel developed a 46-page on-line booklet entitled 'How to Profit from the Internet....' Heckel marketed the booklet by sending between 100,000 and 1,000,000 UCE messages per week.... Charging $39.95 for the booklet, Heckel made 30 to 50 sales per month.
So, for those of you who were curious, he made $1,200 to $2,000 per month, probably a little under $20,000 per year; not enough to "fire your boss," but not chicken feed. He also had a success rate of between 0.01% and 0.001%
OTOH, when the original court ruling went against Washington State:
On March 10, 2000, the trial court entered an order granting Heckel's motion and denying the State's cross motion. The court found that the Act violated the Commerce Clause (U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 3) and was 'unduly restrictive and burdensome....' The order permitted Heckel to 'present a cost bill for recovery of his costs and statutory attorneys fees....' Heckel then moved the court for a fee award of $49,897.50. Denying Heckel's request for fees under RCW 19.86.080 of the CPA, the court limited Heckel's award to statutory costs under RCW 4.84.030.
He tried to use the case against him to Make Money Fast from Washington State!-)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
But read what the appeals court complained about:
First, the State alleged that Heckel had violated RCW 19.190.020(1)(b) and, in turn, the CPA, by using false or misleading information in the subject line of his UCE messages. Heckel used one of two subject lines to introduce his solicitations: 'Did I get the right e-mail address?' and 'For your review--HANDS OFF!'
I think that misleading Subject: lines are rude, crude, socially unacceptable
As its second cause of action, the State alleged that Heckel had violated RCW 19.190.020(1)(a), and thus the CPA, by misrepresenting information defining the transmission paths of his UCE messages. Heckel routed his spam through at least a dozen different domain names without receiving permission to do so from the registered owners of those names. For example, of the 20 complaints the Attorney General's Office received concerning Heckel's spam, 9 of the messages showed '13.com' as the initial ISP to transmit his spam.... The 13.com domain name, however, was registered as early as November 1995 to another individual, from whom Heckel had not sought or received permission to use the registered name. In fact, because the owner of 13.com had not yet even activated that domain name, no messages could have been sent or received through 13.com.
There's two issues here:
I'm worried the court confused these two.
Finally:
Sounds good so far; but it immediately continues:
When Heckel created his spam
This may mean that the From: address, and/or the "to be removed please reply to" address, were real Juno addresses, at least when the messages were sent.
None of the Juno e-mail accounts was readily identifiable as belonging to Heckel; the user names that he registered generally consisted of a name or a name plus a number (e.g., 'marlin1374,' 'cindyt5667,' 'howardwesley13,' 'johnjacobson1374,' and 'sjtowns')....
This supports the concern that anonymity is forbidden. It's not quite that bad, but it's not good.
During August and September 1998, Heckel's Juno addresses were canceled within two days of his sending out a bulk e-mail message on the account. According to Heckel, when Juno canceled one e-mail account, he would simply open a new one and send out another bulk mailing. Because Heckel's accounts were canceled so rapidly, recipients who attempted to reply were unsuccessful. The State thus contended that Heckel's practice of cycling through e-mail addresses ensured that those addresses were useless to the recipients of his UCE messages. During the months that Heckel was sending out bulk e-mail solicitations on the Juno accounts, he maintained a personal e-mail account from which he sent no spam, but that e-mail address was not included in any of his spam messages. The State asserted that Heckel's use of such ephemeral e-mail addresses in his UCE amounted to a deceptive practice in violation of RCW 19.86.020.
Now I'm really nervous.
The state is arguing the Juno addresses were fraudulant because it was cancelled. Yes, in this case, the spammer probably expected them to be cancelled; but the law is an ass, and I worry about precedent. If I use a Hotmail account on eBay, and my Hotmail account gets cancelled, that's fraud? If I don't give out some other e-mail address, such as the one my employer provides, that's fraud?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
It's the law saying, if you are going to communicate with people, you must not do so fraudulently. Claiming your mail is from the wrong place, or otherwise disguising it is fraudulent, or at least dishonest.
This is about human action, no the internet. It's saying if you are going to send unsolicited electronic communications to people, they should not be misleading as to who they are from, or what they are about.
Dude, its cool. I was trying to ask about web based email in general, and since I use Hotmail and it is owned my M$, I immediately thought WA. I liked your first post by the way...
How does this affect email being sent to non-Washington residents who access their email from servers in Washington (IE Hotmail perhaps?) I for one would like it very much if this law applied to email recieved at Hotmail
Your blatantly sexist remark is annoying. Should that not be correctly rephrased as "Chicks, too timid to defend themselves"? Or, do you withdraw the blatant generalization?
:P
That study excludes the number of people injured in yet not killed. Most self-defense related shooting (in fact, nearly 95% of all hand-gun related shootings do not result in death) only injure the attacker.
I'm not arguing to protect any of my constitutional rights, I don't live in the US and don't own a gun. I'm replying to refute bad statistics and unfounded assumptions.
> Can you honestly claim that the US justice system is wrong on gun-related issues 98.2% of the time?
I don't know about those cases. But, in cases of self-defense claims, I do think the courts (in general) are often way too harsh on people defending themselves. I don't necessarily think you should keep shooting an attacker once they're down, but if they did attack you, I do believe you have the right to defend yourself, regardless of the life of the attacker. They, imho, give up their right to safety (and perhaps life) the minute they intend to harm or kill someone else.
> He actually goes so far as to refer to statistics about how a child is 4 times more likely to drown than be killed with a gun (gee, that makes a perfect case for having guns, doesn't it?
If the chance of someone drowning is very small, then yes, it does make a case for it. People have decided that swimming pools are acceptable, despite that risk. And swimming pools are only for recreation, never for anything as potentially useful as self-defense.
> Meanwhile, I suggest we give everyone nuclear weapons since your odds of dying of heart disease are better than your odds of dying of thermonuclear war
If those relative statistics were based on everyone already having nuclear weapons, it'd be different. You're arguing one way, then the other...
People already have guns, and the risk is low compared to X.
People don't have nukes, yet the risk (with nobody having them) is low.
The first says that guns are, comparatively, low-risk, the second doesn't indicate anything about the safety of nukes, merely the availability.
This is another example of misused statistics.
If I publish a webpage, you have to come look at it. I'd argue that it should be covered by my laws.
If I send you a copy, I force you to look at it, thus it should be covered under the most restrictive of my laws and your laws.
UCE is sent out to people who don't want it, and tricks them into viewing it. It makes sense to me that those people should be able to use the obscenity/spam laws of their community.
Not true. People can sue mail-order companies in either the person's state, or the company's state. By doing business across state lines, that company is liable to both sets of laws.
By spamming a washington resident you're sending your spam to washington where it is illegal.
This is different than making a webpage, which someone has to choose to view, because they commit the cross-border action.
If you're not a spammer, read that as a generic 'you'.
> First off, I commend you on doing your part to reinforce the stereotype of gun activists as being short-tempered hotheads in the first line of your post alone. That took skill :)
Wow, that must take skill. Because, as I said, I'm not a gun owner, nor an advocate of them. I feel, living outside of the US, that I have a fairly impartial view on guns. I've fired them, I understand their power, but am not afraid of them. I also have no desire to own one.
I think you need to go back over that, I *was* trying to be offensive, but only in response to your sexist remark, and I said as much.
To answer the last question next...
I see your mistakes with statistics to be how you use some of the statistics, without mentioning the rest. You say that 1.2% of shootings are found to be justified, but you base this only on the number of number of deaths, ignoring the number of non-fatalities.
While your FBI figures don't match with what I saw in a article on this, I'll accept yours, because as I say, it's not my country and I'm not big on collecting exact numbers about other people's murder rate.
Sure, I'll come back to your 98 out of 100 issue, if you wish. "Too harsh". That means that I feel they could have been right 97 times out of 100 or less, OR that I feel their punishments are too harsh for people they do convict.
If you go over it again, I said that I believe people have a fairly strong right to self-defense. I haven't seen the US courts (in my admittedly edited foreign view) be very willing to accept self-defense pleas.
I need no hard numbers to back that up, it's a feeling. I don't think all claims of self-defense are valid, the odds against that are astronomical, but ditto in the other direction.
The claim about the swimming pool goes to show people's illogical level of emotion in this area.
- Guns have a life-saving use, swimming pools don't.
- Children are more likely to die from drowning than gunshot.
Therefore, if "Save the children" is the reasoning used, people should be going after swimming pools. The fact that they aren't indicates that, like you, they are actively hostile toward guns and gun owners, not, as I see myself, neutral.
> Saying "something is worse than this, so it is ok to have this" isn't the slighest justification. Even the tiniest bit. That is a horrible way to base arguments.
Yes, but it's a reasonable way to judge people's priorities and motivations.
As for nukes, I'm not trying to say we should have them, I was pointing out that you were comparing dissimilar circumstances.
In the guns case people already have guns, so a current mortality rate from guns indicates how likely they are to kill someone, were they generally available.
Nukes are not generally available, so the current mortality rate is not indicative of the mortality rate if people were given nukes.
As such, it's likely that you uses nukes as a boogeyman, to stir up emotional knee-jerk support for your position.
> Please point out a real error that flips over the 50-fold murder/justifiable homicide distribution.
I don't need to, I'm not claiming nobody gets killed by guns. I'm claiming you used partial statistics in a misleading way.
As a side note, I mentioned my political views on self-defense, but I didn't make any claims.
> I know statistics quite well...
I don't doubt that. Doesn't change the fact that I think you're being misleading in your application. (In fact, you are quite strongly biased here...)
> Though, of course, humans also tend to kill each other, accidentally or on purpose, far more frequently and accurately than even our closest relatives (chimpanzees [snip]
I do agree with your later arguments that they aren't great fighters, lacking tools, but that doesn't change the predilection to violence. I'm sure a chimp could use a gun if it was demonstrated, and would thus become somewhat more efficient at it.
And, that murder rate comparison you mention must neglect killing of infants, because in the program I saw on homicidal animals (inter-species killing that wasn't over a mate.) they mentioned that a significant number of chimpanzie young are killed by rival tribes, other mothers, etc.
I'm not trying to debate your point about gun control in the US, and second (?) ammendment rights. I'm trying to point out how you're using statistics (and unreasonable comparisons) to mislead.
What I'd love to see is a law instituted that requires any SPAM to have a very specific header and footer, or some kind of wrapper that would allow me to filter out spam and/or bounce it back to the sender, with a 'no such recipient' mail. This, in addition to the law this story is about, would effectively allow me to never have to see spam again. Just an idea.
I don't understand your argument that Washington's law against falsified headers, etc. in Unsolicted Commercial Email is narrowing First Ammendment rights. Are you arguing that a business has a First Ammendment right to commit false advertising? This law has no effect on an individual passing non-commercial email to their hearts content, falsified headers or not. It only comes into play when dealing with commercial spam. Businesses do not have a right to falsely advertise their products. Plain and simple. And this law makes false advertising by spammers (in the form of falsified headers, etc.) illegal and subject to civil legal action. I'm sure that you don't mean to suggest that businesses have a constituonal right to lie about about their products, do you?
The dry fish swims alone.
They're just bitter at California for stealing their power, so they're putting the squeeze on California's most precious treasure: Spammers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HInternet Startups
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
The same is with spammers; they can send out adverts, but not to people who do not want them.
Actually, the spam law doesn't even go that far. You simply can't shoot into people's home's while wearing a mask-- to take your analogy to the next step...
>>If the reason your return e-mail address was cancelled is because you knowingly violated your e-mail provider's terms of service, well, too bad, you're an idiot.
>Being an idiot is not a criminal offense.
Yes, it is. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it. Ask your local police officer.
Uhh, witness protection program? Whistleblowing?
I would say the right to anonymity is necessary, but the right to say something while pretending to be someone else is not protected.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Too lazy to run your own traceroute? Hotmail is hosted at Exodus in Santa Clara, CA.
Just because M$ owns it doesn't mean it's based in Redmond!
Do you actually confirm these "opt in" entries or are you with one of those places that assumes that an email address given during an order counts as "subscribing" or adds people to your list based on a web form without confirmation?
Although I'm not one for censorship, the idea that someone has to IDENTIFY themselves when they say something is a fine concept in my eyes. Yes, there are certain cases where anonymity is a nice thing, but it's a priviledge, not a right in my eyes.
In this context, commercial entities must not send unsolicited mail without providing some sort of identification of origin... but how bad could that be? I mean, how shady must a company be to provide a service without providing accurate reply-to information? Perhaps I do approve of anonymity in private communications, but certainly not in commercial ones... I like to be able to opt-out of spam. And I do receive newsletters and e-mails from businesses intentionally, so I'm not against the concept of commercial mail; this ruling only helps us out.
As for the people who now have to reveal themselves to their victims: oh boo-hoo. You had the opportunity to use a novel marketing mechanism, and your industry blew it by abusing the priviledge, and now we want to take it away from you because of that. Or, not even take it away, but give ourselves some way to avoid the inconvenience caused by some of you porn/penis enlargement/make money/win a trip to Portugal freaks.
I look forward to commercial e-mail that doesn't abuse my attention span or my inbox in the future.
You go get yourself a ProntoMail address right now, and set up a few hotmail, and yahoo mail address (and any other free addresses), using that ProntoMail address as a mailback address (if the other services need it). Then, keep checking those new anon mail accounts every now and then to keep them active.
Right now, I have about six of these accounts, and when I feel like it, I create others. I don't do this because I need them today - I don't. I do this in case I need them tommorow...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Whoa, a court exhibits clue! Not lying to your customers is a Good Thing!
> The decision is interesting, because several state internet censorship laws have been struck down due to their effects on residents of other states - it's worth reading for anyone interested in internet legal issues.
Interesting reading, yes, but I don't see the interstate commerce clause implications here as having any bearing on censorship cases.
IANAL, and courts have made some pretty illogical decisions in the past, but I don't see how requiring someone not to forge headers (which has been ruled as something that facilitates interstate commerce) strengthens the (IMHO insane) argument that a patchwork of mutually-conflicting decency standards (whether in law books or in RSACi-style webpage ratings) also facilitates interstate commerce. It's a total non-sequitur.
This ruling does no such thing.
Quoth the court:
If the headers weren't forged (i.e., if the spammer had sent them through yahoo.com, even if he used a pseudonymous account at Yahoo), recipients could reply to him and effectively opt-out. (Not that this would be a smart thing to do, but I digress.)
This is a precedent against forgery with intent to deceive, not anonymity.
If I mail you through an anonymous remailer, the headers are stripped and re-inserted to facilitate anonymity, not to deceive you about my identity. Indeed, I'm quite capable of sending a PGP block through an anon-remailer that proves to you who I am, while making it impossible for any other reader of the message to know who I am or read its contents.
The talk about the "Pike balancing test" is important here:
WA spam law:
Your supposed "you must always use your real identity when mailing anyone, anonymous remailers will be illegal" law:
The balance here could go either way, depending on the judge. But it's a much closer call to make. The cost-shifting imposed by spam is well-established, and has no public benefit; prohibiting it is (by definition) a Good Thing. Pseudonymous (and anonymous) speech, while they can be abused (the Government will trot out the usual Three Horsemen: terrorists, druggies, and pedophiles), also has a rich history in our country - and protecting pseudonymous and anonymous speech has a public benefit. It's far from clear that a law prohibiting all anon/pseudon speech has sufficient public benefit to justify any impact on commerce whatsoever.
Basically, it's even farther from clear that the Pike test would apply to your proposed law, because the First Amendment issues might trump Commerce Clause issues altogether.
(And to the obligatory spammer who says "but my spam is frea speach", I point out that non-commercial speech has consistenly been afforded greater First Amendment protection than commercial speech. Deal.)
If you sue a Make Money Fast spammer, and win a big award, then the spam wasn't false in the first place.
Russell, meet Whitehead. Whitehead, Russell.
You could look at it that way, but you could just as easily look at it as an anti-fraud law.
Whereas some SPAM says "University Degrees!" a lot of it says "have you decided if you're going?" or "are you still mad at me?" or "information you requested". The first two are trying to make me thing the mail comes from a friend, the last is just a blatant lie. All are fraudulent.
Of course all hide their origin, except the ones that can't. I've never used dogdoo.com but I've felt like it, when I got one of those make.money.fast style SPAMs with addresses that were in the white pages.
"1b" seems to match, even "2a" and "2b" really if you consider an email address to be the 'person'.
What happens when someone who had a bad day and got one too many SPAM emails, finds out that the spammer is from his/her city, hunts them down and kills them? And, they leave a message that says they killed them because they sent spam. What will spammers think when someone else does it again, and again, and again? Could that mean the end of spam?
Disclaimer: I'm not going to do this, it's just a thought.
Get real for a second will you. Just because the government passed this law doesn't mean it will be upheld. If it is that's when you have to worry. I do agree gov should have little control over the Internet since it does not reside in one country, however lets face some facts.
Laws here don't apply around the world
As long as there is an anonymous proxy there'll be spam
This will be on DumbLaws in the future since no one entity can dictate what another country can or can't do.
Want Root?
The government is passing laws that you must give your real identity when sending email... This is going to set a president againt future legislation... Next anonymous emailers will go, then companies like yahoo mail will have to ask for identification.
This is scary stuff.
What will happen next:
1-Legislation againt anonymous emailers because they can be used for a crime.
2-companies like yahoo mail, and mail.com will have to get proof of identification so that there not helping break a law.
This is scary stuff. This only makes a quicker path for the government to track you.
Start forwarding complaints to their postmasters, registrars, and fun folks like, say, the US Postal Inspector Service (Certain of those subject lines are *strongly* suggestive of pyramid schemes and other forms of fraud...) at fraud@uspis.gov.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Business transactions, including advertising, can be regulated by the state in which they're conducted. For instance, it's perfectly legal for a state to demand that telemarketers register and abide by their own regulations...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Presumably never -- greed and stupidity are not that unusual. People will fall for pyramid schemes, get-jailed-quick foo, bank fraud, eternal-life devices and other quackery...
*shrug*
I forward an awful lot of my spam to either the USPS (for mail fraud), the SEC (securities fraud), and SPA (piracy). Hopefully every once in a while one of the spammers becomes a girlfriend to a sadistic 240# lifer and his buddies.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Of course, 84% of those gun deaths were suicides ... and the study excluded all uses of guns that didn't result in a death, which ruled out >98% of defensive uses of guns.
If they are going to lose their account for spamming, then they were in violation of their agreement with their ISP, which is THEIR FUCKING PROBLEM.
Now, if they weren't in violation of their agreement with their ISP, then it's THEIR responsibility to sue their ISP for the damage caused to them.
Just because there are possible cases where the ISP could be at fault for the spammer not having a valid email address, does not free the spammer of the responsibility to have a valid email address.
THIS IS HOW ALL BUSINESS IS CONDUCTED IRL.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
..if the spammer appealed to the US Supreme Court, and they upheld Washington's decision? Would that make spam illegal all over the country?
Imagine the possibilities... ahh..
Here's just a sample of the spam I got today...
Really, guy, switch to a decaf brew. Set up filters to delete the stuff that you do get. I can see ISPs grumbling about bandwidth costs, but your reaction is a wee bit overdone.
[
Too bad the statistics don't include what portion were selfe defense but determined not justified. In some areas, most or all self-defense killings are determined unjustified, either because of ideas like "duty to flee" or just general feeling that people should not be doing the job of police.
Sure, it's illegal, but to find and prosecute spammers requires: 1. Some technical knowledge, 2. a warrant to get info from their ISP. Even technical internet users will find that it's really hard to get #2.
Not necessarlly... Spam is usually trying to sell something and to sell something, the business needs to have some sort of identification, such as a phone number or address, for would-be suckers, er customers, to contact. Alls yous gottsa do is call 'em up and say "Hey, I want to buy this... where to I send the moola?" and BAM! You got 'em. They receive a court summons instead of a check. Now, getting them to pay up is another problem...
Hmmm... smells like TROLL. Ok, I'll bite.
Today it's commercial free speech, tomorrow political speech, and eventually, all free speech.
Email does not equal handing out fliers on the sidewalk. If I pass someone on the street protesting something, I can just continue walking by and ignore him/her. When I read my email, I am paying for the electricity to power my computer, the phone line to call my ISP, my ISP to provide my email service, etc, etc. The difference is that if I don't want to pay for unwanted spam, I should not have to. Spammers force their garbage onto me which I pay for and they purposely try to hide their identity so that I don't know who they are. Spam is not speech and you are doing a great disservice to everyone by trying to equate spam with some form of protected expression.
Why should your recipients be subsidizing you to get your message accross? If you phone people, you're paying 100% of the cost to get your message to people. If you send out letters, again you're paying 100%. But when you send an email, the recipient is paying to receive your message.
After seeing the post a few days ago about an Australian man suing the Dow Jones and seeking the trial to be held in Australia, I'm starting to get very scared about juriddiction of different political entities and the internet. I think there needs to be a world-wide meeting and agreement on how exactly things like this are handled over the internet. Never before has it been easier to break a law you didn't even know existed, or yet, didn't know applied to you.
Another thing to consider: I've seen in a number of the click-through licence agreements that you agree that all disputes will be tried in the state/town of the company who is selling the software. Now imagine if that happened somewhere where the company selling/publishing the software was in Virgina, or another state covered by the UCITA. Does this mean that you would be covered by the UCITA too?
I dunno about you guys, but I'm scared.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Notice how all the good news is against spammers though? Nobody actually likes the guys, so that's why everyone is united against them. I bet spammers even hate themselves. They probably even have shower stalls built into their offices to wash off the dirty feeling a few times a day. :-)
-----
"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"Really, guy,... do get. I can see ISPs grumbling about bandwidth costs, but your reaction is a wee bit overdone."
~flame~
Why's that, because by volume the bandwidth these bastards steal from me isn't sufficient for your tastes?
~flameoff~
I may not exactly agree that spammers are monsters, but they certainly aren't engendering themselves to me by lieing as part of their sales pitch (which are most often also misleading!). I'm a reasonable guy normally and am willing to give commercial enterprise the right to send one single original email to me unsolicited - with few restrictions.
That Washington law sounds just about right; with the addition (or was it already there?) of the absolute requirement that upon request all my info (complete!) would be removed/deleted and made unavailable for any purpose..
-Legion
-Legion
Well, they did say "to the best of our technical ability." No one ever accused spammers of being nuclear physicists. Or of having a recognizable central nervous system, for that matter.
-Legion
-Legion
We're talking about email here. If I'm on a business trip an read my mail in Washington, am I suddenly covered? The Internet really destroys such notions of geography, no?
Hi again!
All together now: "Please do not, repeat NOT, use the SPAM food can to designate spam."
Or, as suggested before, modify the icon to write 'spam' in lowercase. No time? Too lazy? I'll gladly do it for you - whom do I send the endresult to?
I keep being irritated by slashdots rants about unfair corporations. And yet we're unfair to a corporation who has treated us fairly. Not nice.
Ciao,
Klaus
ObSpeelingRant: For heavens sake, it's spelled "free speech", not "free speach". Sheesh.
---
"What, I need a *reason* for everything?" -- Calvin
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
By passing a law that prevents the sending of some kinds of email, the government is limiting the free speech of both individuals and companies. Whether you agree with SPAM or not, it's a constitutionally protected right of the sender, just like gun ownership.
Well, no. The courts have recognized that different types of speech exist, and they are given different levels of protection. Most spam would be classified as commercial speech, similar to print/broadcast advertisements and product labeling, which does not have the fullest protection under the law. GM can't say that it's trucks get 80 miles/gallon if they don't, and the Cheerios people can't claim to make your acne go away if they can't.
The actual act of sendingspam might be a constitutional right (this is a different issue for a different discussion), but as commercial speech, the government gets some control over what you say.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
See if you are correct I could move to WA set up an email account that forwards all my mail to a thousand other emails I set up and wait to get spammed, I could then sue and clean up becuase I've just been spammed thousands of times.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
This law basicly bans spam, but it still allows bulk email. Spammers, who use non-optin mail lists, will generate a butt-load of complaints to what ever ISP he/she used. Spam is against the AUP of most, if not all, ISPs; this gets their accounts canceled. If the person uses an optin mail list, there are few, if any, complaints. the sender will have complied with the law and will have records of the recipient asking for the emails.
No replies made to AC posts. Please log in.
The spammers can still email people; they just can't forge their headers. The spammers can also advertise via other mediums as well.
By passing a law that prevents the sending of some kinds of email, the government is limiting the free speech of both individuals and companies. Whether you agree with SPAM or not, it's a constitutionally protected right of the sender, just like gun ownership.
the Supreme Cout has found that companies don't have the same free speach rights as people. While you are right in the fact that people have the right to bear arms; they do not have the right to randomly fire those guns into people's homes. The same is with spammers; they can send out adverts, but not to people who do not want them.
The only thing that will truely solve the SPAM problem are market forces. When people decide that having to relay spam is costing them more money than it would to fight said abuse of their systems, we will see unsolicted commercial email disappear pretty darn quick. In the meantime, the government just gets in the way and trys to speed a process that really can't be controlled by any one entity.
Due to the spammers low start up costs, market forces are not going to do much to them. Spammers do what they do cause it is cheap and after a few sales, you have covered your costs. If there is a couple of $500 fines levied against you every spam run, you are not going to spam people for very long. That is the only thing that will stop a spammer (outside of death or prison) is when it costs more to spam that what they make of the spamming.
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Just my $0.02 US.
.sig: file not found
Actually (and IANAL - TG) I think you are now guilty of a crime. You have solicited someone to preform an illigal action.
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
the Congress is currently concidering simular legislation in the form of H.R. 1017 and S.630
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
More than you'd think. Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Cos. is the premier case concerning "moral rights" in U.S. copyright law.
Now someone needs to re-litigate the California law in light of this.
Yes, in the same way that very few policemen ever have to fire their gun. Normally the threat is enough to dissuade an attacker/intruder. Most people who own guns and know the proper saftey procedures know this. The fact that the set of criminals who were killed in self defense was smaller than that of gun accidents is reasonably irrelevant, since most criminals will flee at the sight of a homeowner with a gun, while people who mishandle weapons will probably continue to do so until they get hurt/killed. It's just common sense that people are stupider when they belive their lives aren't in danger than when they belive they are.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
I sent 840,000 emails this morning.
I feel great!
Of course I don't mangle the header and hide the origin, and these folks are opted in to these mailings, go figure.
Grimster
--- www.f-theocean.com
So what you send is not Unsolicited Commercial Email. Congratulations on a pointless post.
Tell that to some of the people who email me with descriptions of how they're going to sue the place I work for, etc etc citing some law or another. It's quite amusing actually to see how many claim it is unsolicited (probably a dozen or more a week).
Hiding behind the AC shield is so cowardly, that's why I have my threshold set accordingly.
Grimster
--- www.f-theocean.com
Just some gun statistics.
"... research has shown that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household, or friend, than an intruder.(Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60.) The use of a firearm to resist a violent assault actually increases the victim's risk of injury and death(FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48)."
"A study of 743 gunshot deaths by Dr. Arthur Kellermann and Dr. Donald Reay published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that 84% of these homicides occurred during altercations in the home. Only 2 of the 743 gunshot deaths occurring in the home involved an intruder killed during an attempted entry, and only 9 of the deaths were determined by police/courts to be justified (FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48). The evidence revealed in the Kellermann study is consistent with data reported by the FBI. In 1993, there were 24,526 people murdered, 13,980 with handguns, yet only 251 justifiable homicides by civilians using handguns. (FBI, Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports 1994, 1995)."
- Rei
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
First off, I'm not advocating gun control. I'm just continually amused in how much people defend their rights to have something so stupid. Ahh, men :)
;) He actually goes so far as to refer to statistics about how a child is 4 times more likely to drown than be killed with a gun (gee, that makes a perfect case for having guns, doesn't it? Meanwhile, I suggest we give everyone nuclear weapons since your odds of dying of heart disease are better than your odds of dying of thermonuclear war :P That's one of the worst arguments I have *ever* heard... I started out only mildly anti-gun, but reading this person's articles notably changed that ;) ) He does other things like adding up suicide and homicide rates, and treating it as a murder rate for determining rates of "violent crime" to show that gun control is bad. I couldn't even find a spot where the issue of the many-times-higher rate of death of a friend or family member is addressed; he'd probably just get foot-in-mouth disease again ;)
;) ). In short, unless you believe in a horribly appaling number of people unjustly being sent to extreme sentances in prison (almost conspiracy-levels), no, this is not due to self-defense that was justifiable homicide.
Never once does he actually take a look at overall statistics. "[In the United States in 1993] there were 24,526 people murdered, 13,980 with handguns, yet only 251 justifiable homicides by civilians using handguns." These are the FBI crime statistics - the "whole picture" for the United States. The "251 justifiable homicides" is the number of people who were charged and either had no sentence or a reduced sentence - it is not a matter of opinion. All of the rest were either never found or convicted. So, yes, if a hangun is used lethally, it isn't really an arguable point - odds are extremely high that the person who fires it is going to jail. Extremely high.
In addition to not looking at the basic statistics that shape the nation, I found his "statistics" to be incredibly misleading. For example, he tried to make the case that handguns are good because the rates of gun-related injuries are low. Handguns have the highest mortality rate of any weapon used commonly in violent crimes (14%) (knives are second), so of course this will be the case. And a claim that most of those injuries were non-justifiable (which is never directly made, though implied (falsely)), is not supported by statistics. In fact, he actually suggests - get this - that if hanguns were completely banned, people would turn to shotguns or rifles instead of knives. Yeah, that's going to happen. : P And I've got some swampland to sell you
As to the person who said "84% of those gun deaths were suicide", that is incorrect. These are the rates of gun-related murders - suicides are excluded from these figures.
Also, to the person who claimed that most cases where it was self defense were actually classed as non-justifiable homicide:
a) I challenge you to present any kind of valid evidence whatsoever that even suggests this is the case.
a) we're looking at 1.8% of handgun deaths determined by a court of law to, beyond a reasonable doubt, not be justifiable homicide to the extent of even *reducing* a person's sentance. Can you honestly claim that the US justice system is wrong on gun-related issues 98.2% of the time? And, for this to be the case, it would be suggestive that that percentage of people in the US are extremely anti-gun, to the extent that when shown that it was in self defense - with the testimony of the person on trial, witnesses, etc - to convict a person beyond a shadow of a doubt (a quick look at the NRA or the state of Texas will show you that people aren't balanced that way
- Karen
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
First off, I commend you on doing your part to reinforce the stereotype of gun activists as being short-tempered hotheads in the first line of your post alone. That took skill :)
:)
:) Saying "something is worse than this, so it is ok to have this" isn't the slighest justification. Even the tiniest bit. That is a horrible way to base arguments. Most alcoholics keep themselves in denial about their alcoholism by keeping in touch with someone who drinks more than them, and use that as an excuse to show that they themselves are not really alcoholics, for example (perhaps that is an example which you can actually see the point, instead of nitpicking about the current distribution of nuclear weapons - a completely worthless endeavor).
Secondly, your statistics on the fatality rate of handguns disagree with the FBI crime statistics from 1993 that I saw. Please, if there is a more recent statistical compilation that you have accesss to that shows only 5% instead of 12%, please, do share
As to "I think they're too harsh", lets not let you skip over this issue so lightly. 98.2%. Do you think the american justice system is wrong 98 times out of 100? Because, that is what it would take just to bring the number of self-defense shootings merely equal to the number of homicidal shootings. And that is only if they were never wrong in letting someone go when they actually weren't doing things in self defense.
Your next sentence about swimming pools is completely logically invalid (and, yet, it was you who claimed that I was misusing statistics?). First off, not only swimming pools kill people, but that isn't the point. The entire argument was based on whether it was more beneficial or detrimental to own a gun. There are obvious benefits to swimming pools. And, yet, so far we've only seen evidence that proves guns are detrimental most of the time. An analysis on swimming pool safety vs. gun safety is completely irrelevant without showing actual benefits for having guns (you could compare the toaster with a baby-mulching machine for safety concerns and show more children are electricuted than mulched, but without evidence for the usefulness of a baby mulching machine, that not only worthless information, but is pointless, if not insulting, to the reader).
As to the example with nuclear weapons, you completely missed the point
And, please. Show me one single location where I did an invalid statisical comparison. I have a complete sample size with a negligable amount of omissions (the only kind of omissions in FBI statistics that could make a better case for you would be if tens of thousands of people committed justifiable homicide and went into hiding, and noone committed unjustifiable homicide and went into hiding (or a similar situation). Such cases are quite unlikely). I merely compared the amount of handgun deaths to the amount of ones determined to be justifiable homicide - a completely valid statistical comparison. Please point out a real error that flips over the 50-fold murder/justifiable homicide distribution.
If you don't know what you're doing statistically, don't say someone else doesn't, to make yourself feel better. I know statistics quite well... I've worked on statistical problems since I was a child, and taken several courses on statistics. I solved the Monty Hall problem on my own, a problem which many math professors strongly resisted the solution for when it was currently posed. Humans tend to have a bad understanding of statistics (it wasn't until the 17th century that it was first documented that a roll of two dice is most likely to give a 7, and why). Though, of course, humans also tend to kill each other, accidentally or on purpose, far more frequently and accurately than even our closest relatives (chimpanzees - despite them having much higher rate of "violence" between groups. They're very inefficient killers, even using tools and simple weapons, and their bodies resist damage too well. We've made an art out of the act of killing each other, and are quite good at it (as a 14% death rate from something so common as handguns will show you)).
You're just being too human.
- Rei (Karen)
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
Suppose, for the nonce, that I chose to protest this law by attempting to notify my neighbors that it does not appear to have a loophole for anonymous political speech. Suppose, further, that I attempted to reach as many of the relevant people as possible by sending out bulk electronic mail. And finally suppose that I decided not to use my own private account, which is easily associated with my employer, say because I work for a large Redmond, Washington-based company which would probably not wish to be associated with my activities. In fact, in order to protect my job, let's just say that I hid behind a pseudonym. (Not, of course, that any of the above could possibly apply to me in my real person; this is a purely hypothetical example.)
Guess what? I'd be in violation of the state anti-spam law. Given the hypothetical base of my employer, I'd almost certainly be a Washington resident, with a legitimate reason to not use my own name, engaging in overtly protected political speech. There is extensive precedent concerning the absolute protection accorded to anonymous political pamphleting in the US, whether on the street or through the mails. The law would expose me to financial risk on the basis of the mode I'd used to publicize my views.
That's censorship, pure and simple, and it is censorship of the worst kind: a direct attack on political speech. Obviously, that isn't the intent of the law, but as written, I'd say it was wildly overbroad.
Yeah, you can have my SPAM when you pry it out of my cold, dead hand!
This afternoon,I found a link to the SpamCon Foundation, whose mission is "to protect email as a viable communication medium by reducing the amount of unwanted and unsolicited email, or "spam", that crosses private networks, while ensuring that wanted and requested email reaches its recipients."
If you hate SPAM, and if you're reading this thread, you probably do, you may want to check it out.
Only if those innocent bystanders have broken auto-responders, which is unlikely.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Obviously you don't understand the situation. The market is perfect and will solve all problems as soon as they appear. Therefore anything that still exists must not be a problem, or the market would have solved it already. Since there are no problems, we know that the market is perfect at solving problems. Just keep repeating that mantra an you too can become a Randian Libertarian mush brain.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
But you have the situation wrong. The law does not ban spam; the right of people to send spam is preserved. It makes it illegal to send spam if you:
IOW, it makes it illegal to send fraudulent spam. There is no constitutionally protected right to engage in fraud, so this is not an attack on free speech.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Now all I need is a TV. Too bad spammers don't hawk those!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
... I'll really be able to make money fast, work from home with little or no experience, super-charge my sex drive with over-the-counter herbs, lose weight without diets or excersize, get super-low mortgage rates, and so on ...
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
This is actually a very _bad_ idea. Aside from the notion that it's inappropriate to fight abuse with abuse, some spammers forge return paths so that they point to real people.
Thus, your approach hits not only the spammers, but innocent bystanders as well.
Wrong. First, this deals with commerce, ie unsolicited ads. There have been laws for years both on use of the mail (US Postal Service) and unsolicited fax mail. That's stood the tests of time and courts. (such things as identification, etc, on mail) That has not been deemed to have been any violation of your 'free speech'. As long as I use ISDN at times, as well as have to PAY for service to the internet to receive such notices, then it's also not free speech. 1st amendment does not protect 'recipient paid speech'. Using your 'free speech' argument, is like saying the post office must send all of your advertisements for free, because it's your free speech. I agree... You DO have the right of free speech. You do NOT have the right of free conveyance of that speech at others cost and nowhere does the constitution make any such statement or implication.
Your right to free speech ends at my door. SPAM is forced down our throats by random people who disguise themselves as friends, pick the lock on the door, barge into my living room, and start yelling their ads at me, then steal money out of my wallet before leaving. Where the hell are MY rights????
Advertisers have all the rights they need to advertise on websites, billboards, magazines, radio, TV, etc. They DON'T have a right to steal others resources & my resources, lie about who they are, circumvent my filters, etc.
Spam is NOT about free speach - it's about theft and fraud.
Sending of spam would NOT be protected: you are forcnig others to pay for your advertising. Kinda like if bulk snail mail came postage due and I HAD to pay for that bulk mail to get any mail at all.
Hotmail is in california, sitting about 20 feet from my server.
Bastards. People that break into my house and start screaming profanities at me and my kids should be taken out back and shot. Defending myself and family against these insane maniacs may not be perfect, but it's a start.
Really dude, If you are going to make an analogy, you could at least get close...
The quote you mangled and mistakenly attributed is:
"Those who desire to give up Feredom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
-- Ludwig Thoma
woof.
If I could implement filters, I would. As it happens, the list I provided was from my hotmail account. They have a thing called Spam Blocker (or something close to that) that actually worked pretty good for a while. Unfortunately, over the last several months, it no longer does an effective job. Over half the spam ends up in my normal inbox.
Your counter-example is flawed. You can ignore passing cars. You don't even notice them after a while. Spam, OTOH, you can't ignore. It sucks time from my activites. It's intrusive and unwelcome. I don't care who drives by my house on the street.
Actually, that was from my hotmail account. I do NOT give out my "real" email account addys, but even those accounts get spammed almost daily. I keep them cleared of garbage so I went to my hotmail account, which I use infrequently, to reap the latest crop of spam for the purpose of providing an example.
You are clearly in favor of spam. You know the rest...
- Hillary5tf4ed2 FREE PORN FOR LIFE!! (phaiboand1)
- Natash2wsdrf5 FREE FREE FREE (auxivakev1)
- pvpacman@wildemail.c... Refinancing? Save big! Find great low rates n...
- jw@accessone.com Grant Information
- gina_craving@yahoo.c... Diane Thought You Might Have Erectile Dysfunc...
- no_more_bills@yahoo.... WIPE OUT DEBT IN 3 MINUTES! *FREE DETAILS*
- FREE900nos@900.com Earn Big Money With Your Own FREE 900# !
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- edwards@aol.com Forbidden Internet Secrets Exposed 3gj3r
- online.approval@eart... YOUR DREAM HOME COME TRUE! *FREE DETAILS*
- toonaphish@fuse.net Fire The Creep You Call Your Boss!! 21423
- M15760@ballsy.net Make Money Working At Home
- ybhot@iol.it Missing You
- host@nyc.com This Program makes you an Web Detective!
- sarahmichelle@guzeli... Britney on Tour
- vegasjackpot@excite.... Congratulations You've Won
- hnwholesaler@371.net Best computer deals ever: 800MHz system 379$,...
- brokerage@4931.com MAKE $1 MILLION ANNUALLY AS A LOAN BROKER!
- no_more_bills@yahoo.... WIPE OUT DEBT IN 3 MINUTES! *FREE DETAILS*
- whteri74543@earthlin... Increase Business 30% To 100% Just By...
- FreeLapTop8@excite.c... MCSE 2000 & CCNA Laptop Included *$10.00 Mont...
- cabrahammassuttier@c... Make More Money! 25496
This is probably familiar to most of us. This is just a small sample of what I routinely get each week. Bastards. Spammers should be taken out back and shot. Washington's law might not be perfect but it's a good start.How long will it be before clueless folks stop purchasing crap that's advertised to them from "jb234ksxz@yahoo.com"? Obviously, since things like spamcop.net, ORBS, etc., are not working as well as they should be, nor are any rediculous laws that are being imposed in the U.S., it's time we find ways to obtain customer lists of the spamming companies, and inform those customers of their stoopid ways. ;-)
You from British Columbia? Come see discuss-bc.ca!
Are states allowed to make requirements on other states' residents in order to improve commerce?
Unless this is going on some precedent, not so far as I know.
... judges get spammed isn't it? ;-)
I mean the easiest way to get a clue is to understand the issues by seeing them first hand. It would not surprise me if this is the start of a flood of laws to ban inappropriate email in various different jurisdictions. It doesn't take many court judgements to destroy the profitability of this and substantially moderate the frequency of junk emails. But there are always going to be some I suspect.
This is NOT a major money spinner on the internet; but there is money to be made right now. Regretably.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"... but say they are? ;-)
Or servers that say they aren't in Washington; but are? Make money fast that way!
(FYI there is a standard for identifying physical location for servers, but it isn't well implemented.)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Even if all that is true (and the pro-gun people have lengthy documents shooting holes in those two studies), it is currently my right to make a "bad" decision and keep a gun around.
Scared of guns? Good. Don't get one.
If you'd like to read a scholarly bit from the other camp, check out what Gary Kleck has to say.
Er...Washington's law states that email SENT from or RECEIVED BY someone within the state boundries is covered by this law. If you send forged spam and one of the addresses is to Bill Gates, you have violated the law and are subject to being suponeaed (sp?) by Washington State Courts. It's similar to the EULA statements that any legal action regarding said software is assigned to the jurisdiction of a particular court, no matter where you are located. (I'm not going to argue the [in]validity of EULAs right now....)
... that the Washington State Supreme Court has no legal jurisiction to rule on whether or not they have jurisdiction in other states.
But if you use ADV: in the subject and don't forge and honor remove, you are going to be in compliance with most, if not all of the states. So what's the problem?
If they follow this, filters are trivial. Still doesn't solve the problem, but it's a step.
This message is sent in compliance of the proposed bill SECTION 301. per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618. This message is not intended for residents in the State of Washington, screening of addresses has been done to the best of our technical ability.
:)
I've gotten a couple of emails with this in it at my university account. How mind bendingly dumb would the filterer have to be to miss @u.WASHINGTON.edu addresses
Go Dawgs
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
I wonder when someone will get a ruling against that.
Having seen some late night infomercials, I suspect that an awful lot of the money made in spam is made by the people who promote systems to advertise using spam, and that most small time operators do not get much out of it anyhow.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Shouldn't a federal court be trying determine if Interstate commerce was affected?
So what we are left with is no ORBS and this law. Hmmm. Expensive and lengthy litigation...instant and automated blocking, litigation or blocking, litigation or blocking. Tough choice, but I think I'd rather have the automated form of protection. Thank goodness we still have MAPS. The arm of the law can no longer keep up with the fast daily pace of the Internet. Does any of this still constitute speedy trial anymore?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
The only thing that will truely solve the SPAM problem are market forces. When people decide that having to relay spam is costing them more money than it would to fight said abuse of their systems, we will see unsolicted commercial email disappear pretty darn quick.
So long as the pipes are fat enough and getting fatter by the day, spam will never consume enough resources for the ISPs to tell them to bug off. After all, they're paying customers, too, and to them they're just another higher than average bandwidth consuming user. The only really good thing to do is voluntary blocking of SPAM, but this means having experts at places like MAPS and the now defunct ORBS do the checking for the multitude of users. While I certainly like using MAPS at my mail servers, I recall hearing many voices in /. say they didn't like the idea. And as those experts become bigger, they get more and more corporate looking and thus they would one day look too Orwellian for the /.ers.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Back when Eudora 3.0 had just come out, I had a filter that would take all mail not actually addressed to me and not to any lists I was on and would put it into a separate folder. Then, I would do a resend of all the spam to each address in the folder so that the autoresponders would all reply to each other. There were quite a few of these sites that seemed to shut down for a couple of days and quite a few nasty messages I got back.
I'm guessing that since I was sending mail pretending to be those senders I could have been considered to be illegally spamming under this law, even if I was targetting spammers. Who spams the spammers?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Sure, it's illegal, but to find and prosecute spammers requires: 1. Some technical knowledge, 2. a warrant to get info from their ISP. Even technical internet users will find that it's really hard to get #2.
Then after you're done suing them, you have to try to collect. Good luck. 100% of internet users, Washington residents or otherwise, are still going to get a boatload of spam.
There needs to be a website where you can post the names, addresses, and phone numbers of spammers, and let whatever happens to them happen. Oh, I know some people are going to post about how that's too much punishment for the crime, but I really don't care.
I get 30-40 pieces of spam daily that makes my mail account mostly useless. That's harrassment. And I HAVE to read it, because that's where my ISP sends administrative and billing stuff. I'm tired of having my time wasted - maybe after a few spammers have their car tires slashed or windows broken, others will hesitate before they spam.
If you want to exercise your "free speech rights", feel free to do so - buy your own printing press, radio station, or write letters to the editor.
Besides, the Washington law in question ALLOWS UCE, as long as it is properly identified as such, with non-forged headers. Only unidentified spam, with faked headers is illegal.
Elegant law, it doesn't abridge speech in anyway, just requires the speech contain accurate information. I love the interstate commerce angle -- yep, this would actually improve interstate commerce in theory since you could contact the company trying to sell you something (if the spammer were an honest company trying to sell you a real product). And this law isn't directed at political speech, just commercial, so it enjoys lots of precedent behind it.
"The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither." -- Thomas Jefferson
More closely, it's "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" and it's Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson, you nimwit.
[RANT]So many people say shit about U.S. government without knowing the fucking constitution and make bad misquotes from the Founding Fathers (including the media and our elected idiots), it's starting to really piss me off!
Especially that fucking Paul Weyrich over at www.aim.org saying Jeffords should be subject to a special election for jumping party ship. Where in the Constitution does it say anything about party concerning the election of senators? Nowhere! A correct quote from George Washington's farewell address: "Let me ... warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally."
Or those assholes during the Clinton witchhunt complaining about why can't we just try him in court like any other person? Because he's the fucking President you idiot![/RANT]
Sorry, little sleep and no coffee yet. There goes my karma.
I don't remember any attempts to try Clinton in court. Are you thinking of impeachment? That wasn't a court, that was the Senate.
Many privately and in the press were wondering why we even have to go through impeachment, why not just indict him like any other citizen and put him in front of a jury. Why these special rights?
And this brilliant insight comes from which part of the Constitution, exactly?
See Article I, Section 3 and Article II, Section 4. If he's impeached, then you can try him. This is to stop political persecutions from using the courts as a tool. And as you can see, the Constitution worked as it should and stopped this one.
I must continue to insist that the "f*cking" U.S. President is most certainly not above the law
Clinton was slime and I'm glad he's gone, but where are your cries to indict Bush for past crimes, such as perjury in a civil suit (hmmm, sounds familiar)? It seems we should apply the law fairly if at all.
Soliciting a Washington resident via email is attempting to conduct business. Doesn't matter if the email originates from Walla Walla, New York or New Delhi. Once you attempt to solicit business in this state, you are subject to the jurisdiction of Washington courts. Case law is crystal clear on this and has been for decades. Read the International Shoe case from the 40s. It explains the concept pretty well. Interestingly enough, it was a US Supreme Court case that dealt with solicitation/conducting business in Washington state by an out of state company. It's one of the foremost cases on jurisdiction of state courts over non-resident defendants. Keep in mind this only applies to email sent to Washington residents - and then only if it's fraudulent. On the more pragmatic side of it: If you don't like Washington's law on this you have two choices. 1. Don't send emails with false headers - emails with authentic headers are not covered by this law. 2. Don't send commercial email to Washington residents. Then you don't have to worry about. Can't figure out if someone is a Washington resident or not? Too bad.
What I really dislike about law is that it all gets down to whether something is really breaking the rules or not. I don't agree with all the laws, but the spirit of the laws is to protect people. Protecting people is generally good (although making moral judgements for them is bad).
It would be a whole lot simpler and less tedious if judges and lawyers followed the spirit of the law more than the words of the law. Even with exacting legal parlance, words and sentances are slippery and can be manipulated. I wish people would use their brains more, but that too often seems too much to ask.
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
Not really, you're missing the whole point of the law. Unsolicited e-mail ISN'T illegal under Washington State law (I live in Washington, have almost my entire life). What's illegal is to misrepresent yourself as someone else, and to make it impossible to "opt-out" of mailings the same way you can "opt-out" of telemarketing crap.
Free speech is still free, you just have to respect people's privacy and right to a peacful existance (this is really no different than city ordinances on noise at night or after certain hours-- you can cry free speech, but these laws are still in effect and upheld time and again).
I hope though, for the sake of laws like this passed in other states, that the Federal government takes a stab at a REAL anti-spam law like this Washington one.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Nice, good to see someone doesn't know how to moderate.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Merriam-Webster defines fraud as this--
Main Entry: fraud
Pronunciation: 'frod
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English fraude, from Middle French, from Latin fraud-, fraus Date: 14th century
1 a : DECEIT, TRICKERY; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : TRICK
2 a : a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : IMPOSTOR; also : one who defrauds : CHEAT b : one that is not what it seems or is represented to be
synonym see DECEPTION, IMPOSTURE
Now, reading the link in the story (the ruling), it appears this guy was putting false return addresses (this falls under the definition of "fraud"), listing false subject lines in his messages (also "fraud"), and when he DID list valid e-mail addresses, they were usually shut down within 1-2 days because the hoster realized it was a spam account.. he knew this happened, and he never checked the accounts or removed people from his listing (since I'm assuming he made some offer to remove people, that would be "fraud" too).
Maybe your version of "fraud" is different from mine, but I wouldn't say it's an awfully strong word for the situation.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
HUH? 25%? I don't know about everyone else, but spam accounts for at least 85% of my email.
I for one will be glad to stop receiving this crap.
Or is sending it an exercise of a First Amendment right? That's debatable...unless you view it as humor, the typical "Make $$$ fast while growing your dick six inches and seeing Britney Spears naked, and also lose fifty pounds in a week" email isn't an act of profound creative expression...and while you have a right to say what you like, do you have a right to force me to listen to it? Do I get a choice as to whether my server accepts the message and shows it to me? In most situations I don't - I'm even paying to have your "speech" inflicted on myself. Does your (and note here I'm using "you" as a generic pronoun, not referring to you the author of the above post personally) right to free speech include forcing your email on me, if only for the time it takes the server to apply my filters and send it to my Trash folder? Or is SPAM really just commercial junk, and thus subject to regulation like any other sort of commercial junk?
That said, you raise an interesting point about it being censorship (though I'm not sure I buy it), one not often considered, and I hope you get modded up for it...this needs to generate some discussion.
But...If I were, I would in turn sue the state of WA for violating the constitution of the United States of a America for trying to exercise juris-prudence in what is clearly federal territory. This will shoot down or limit the WA law quite quickly. I repeat, you can NOT sue me in a STATE court for something that happens across a border, you can ONLY do it in a federal court.
Burn Hollywood Burn
This is not even mentioning that since right now it is LEGAL for me to send spam to everyone on the planet while spoofing every piece of header info possible, Washington can do nothing about it even if I travel there.
Burn Hollywood Burn
This doesn't affect me.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Yes! I'm going to send this information to everyone I know!!
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
It really is great news. I disagree that all the news on /. has been bad though. here are a couple of recent good-news articles from /. relating to spam:
I Won A Lawsuit Against A Spammer
California Passes anti-spam Legislation
California ISP Sues Spammer and Wins
I enjoyed reading these back when they were posted and I'm sure you'll enjoy them now if you missed them then. There does seem to be a pattern emerging here... I might have to move to California
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
But I have read the US Constituion. (Most of you would benefit from doing the same thing.)
This just means that the next appeal is to the US supreme court where it can still be overturned. No state supreme court has federal jurisdiction. Only s federal court can decide a federal issue.
StoneWolf
IANAL either. No, I just was praying for lots of "Make Money Fast" spam so I could take those spamsters to court and build that hottub on my roof deck.
...
I didn't specifically ask a specific person to do it. I just asked to be included on their lists so I could get their money and their house and let them live in the poverty that spamsters so richly (poorly?) deserve
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Actually, I repeat, I'm not a spammer.
...
But...If I were, I would in turn sue the state of WA for violating the constitution of the United States of a America for trying to exercise juris-prudence in what is clearly federal territory. This will shoot down or limit the WA law quite quickly. I repeat, you can NOT sue me in a STATE court for something that happens across a border, you can ONLY do it in a federal court.
Still wrong. We can sue you, just as anyone with a small software firm registered in one state can sue a licensee who qualifies under civil statute for breaking the license condition. And just like most corporate suits are handled in state courts, for actions which cross state boundaries.
You can run, but you can't hide. We can't hinder legal commerce, but we can regulate how you conduct commerce on an equal basis with all our residents. Like if you are in Portland, Oregon and advertise for a Spiffy Gas Enhancer for cars and someone in Vancouver, Washington buys it by mail or email - they can go to small claims court in Washington state, since they live there.
And in the above case, you get sued for violating Washington State consumer protections. We don't care what your state has for regs, we just care what our state has to protect consumers.
I'm not saying CAUSE regulations are the coolest thing since sliced bread, just that they exist.
And, no matter how you slice it, we Washingtonians can sue your butt for spam, unless you use true headers with non-misleading subject lines. Just truth in advertising, my friend
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
And you are liable when sending any email to me, since all my accounts are registered with the State of Washington email database as belonging to a resident citizen of the State of Washington.
Which means I can sue your butt off in court if you spam me. It is illegal, as the ruling shows, for you to send me email with false or misleading subject or other header lines.
This does not stop you from sending me an email with your true From: line and a valid Subject: line (e.g. Subject: Buy my book of spam tips!) and full correct routing info and valid reply emails. You are also required to drop me from your list of email addresses when I reply to you saying do so, and never ever ever send me spam again or sell or give my email address to another enterprise.
It's called opt-out, deal with it.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Sorry, Charlie, this means that if you send spam with forged headers or inactive Reply-to: or From: or implicit take me off this list reply lines or invalid subject header line to any self-identified ISP which has announced that all its subscribers are residents of Washington by reason of commercial location (e.g. eskimo.com resides in Ballard, part of Seattle, Washington, and specifically disallows spam) THEN
you are subject to civil prosecution and all court costs and reasonable fees as detailed in the law.
The charge is per spam email sent. So, when someone spams my email lists, I can collect $400 from them for each spam. And eskimo.com can collect tens of thousands of dollars.
Plus court and collection costs.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I have to make my mortgage payment. C'mon, you don't need all that money, I do! I've already registered all my email accounts and domain names with Washington State, now just do your UCE duty and send me spam so I can take you to the cleaners!
Operators are standing by!
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I'm not a spammer, but WA laws don't apply in the state of FL. Since also its Civil laws, I highly doubt extradiction laws apply and even if they did, the constition clearly says your laws don't apply to me.
Wrong. Just as a corporation based in Maryland can sue your butt off for pirating their software when you live in Florida, even if you bought it in Georgia and then moved to Florida, I can take you to small claims court and win a legal enforceable judgement against you and then attach your assets under common law.
It's illegal to send spam to Washington residents. Or Washington ISPs.
Deal with it.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
The first story is here, from the Seattle Times.
The second story is here, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Suppose, for the nonce, that I chose to protest this law by attempting to notify my neighbors that it does not appear to have a loophole for anonymous political speech. Suppose, further, that I attempted to reach as many of the relevant people as possible by sending out bulk electronic mail. And finally suppose that I decided not to use my own private account, which is easily associated with my employer, say because I work for a large Redmond, Washington-based company which would probably not wish to be associated with my activities. In fact, in order to protect my job, let's just say that I hid behind a pseudonym.
None of these are problems, in that you're not trying to use it for commercial purposes. But you're still a lying cheat and should just photocopy it and post it on all the telephone polls - oh, wait, that's illegal in Seattle.
Anyway, you're exempted. But if you try to fundraise in the spam, you're guilty.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
This law does not outlaw UCE, but just requires the use of a valid email address and a proper subject line. This is proper regulation of commerce and should hold up in all courts.
Will the last company to abandon Linux please turn off the lights??!
I can definitely see why the spammer would panic and rebel against this law -- even if its just Washington state. Since spammers are so indiscrimanate, they have absolutely no idea WHERE they are sending their spam mails to... And they have no idea on trying to figure out the WHERE (easily) without having to dramatically reduce the size of the spam mailing list. I'd be frightened to if my data revolves around no really knowing what it is...
EMAIL IS NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED SPEECH.
Just as we are legally allowed to prevent callers without proper caller-id from calling our phones and legally protected against commercial solicitation over my phone [a service I pay for], I am not obliged to tollerate email with false delivery information!!
This is not a free speech issue and it never has been. This is about protecting people against all manner of annoyances INCLUDING FRAUD.
There is no "speech" in sending email without a proper return address.
It's not that hard to find a co-located server somewhere at reasonable cost specificaly to handle both your smtp and pop3 accounts and maybe a couple simple web pages, where the owners will not care what traffic you send and recieve because your space, bandwidth, and processing cycles are paid for. This way you don't have to worry about invalid addresses and bogus routes.
Perhaps domain name holders need to procescute spammers for identify theft and dammages for defamation. The above would do several things:
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It all boils down to this: Harrassment is against the law.
If you can frame spam in that light, you can make it illegal too.
Dancin Santa
Harrassment is against the law
:-)
Generally speaking, of course.
How did that one get through?...
Dancin Santa
This ruling is nothing of the sort, and I think you'd agree with some more thought on the subject. It applies to misrepresentation, and I've seen all sorts of hoopla about how it's forced speech, but it should fall under the category of illegalizing deceptive advertising, cause that's what it is. And if anyone wants to tell me that laws against advertising that outright lies is unconstitutional, well, I could use a good laugh.
PErsonally I don't believe that there's an ounce of logic in giving a business comprised of people with rights rights of it's own. It's an it, and a marketing business doesn't have 1st amendment rights as far as I'm concerned.
My first instinct was to respond that that is not what the law is saying. But if politicians have proven anything it's the ability to turn a legitimate problem into an excue to over-reach.
The fine line to tread will IMO hinge on the idea that individuals should have a right to privacy, but corporations shouldn't. Just as commercial speech is secondary to individual speech, commercial privacy -- in the form of anonymous solicitation -- should be secondary to individual privacy.
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in our current system recognizing so fine a distinction.
Nope, no sig
Really? It's already illegal to send certain kinds of regular mail. "Mail fraud" is in fact a serious crime. Threats may not be sent by mail, either. Nor can you use it to harass someone.
Note that SPAM itself was not outlawed; it must simply identify its source correctly. In this case, the sender deliberately falsified the source and the routing information. In my book, that's somewhere between fraud and harassment. Why should it be protected on the Internet when it wouldn't be elsewhere?
You couldn't be more wrong. This decision UPHOLDS the ability of the states (in this case - Washington) to regulate in this area. The constitutional issue deals with the Dormant Commerce Clause - (over)simply said, it means that the US Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce and the states' power to regulate is limited when such regulations affect interstate commerce. This case says that Washington's anti-spam law falls in an area where it doesn't conflict with federal law because Congress has been silent. It DOESN'T say Congress cannot regulate this activity. State courts cannot issue rulings that limit the federal government - federal law trumps state law. Congress could easily pass an anti-spam law that would blanket the entire country and make spamming a federal (civil or criminal) offense - they just haven't. Because they haven't, Washington (and other states) can step in with their own laws. This is IMHLO (in my humble legal opinion), but I am entitled to a legal opinion because IAAL (I am a lawyer).
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Everyone always yells "First Amendment!" without knowing what they are talking about. I have news for you - different speakers have different 1st A. rights. Different topics have different 1st A. rights. Private citizens and the media get the highest level of protection for classes of speakers. Political speech gets the highest level of protection for content. Corporations/businesses and commercial speech get the lowest level of protection.
This law is the equivalent of many other laws that are pro-consumer and make the marketplace fairer - Truth in Lending laws, laws against false advertising, laws against unsolicited commercial faxes (Yes - there is a federal law against sending unsolicited ads via fax - see 47 USC sec. 227 and the regs).
All a spammer has to do is make sure the subject line is not misleading and that the header information is accurate and they have nothing to worry about. If you still think that this law goes too far, think about this: How about instead of a false/cancelled return email address for complaints, someone said to call YOUR HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER. ??? How would you like that? It's the same thing when the return email is false.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
As to the extent that your examples are appropriate, you gave examples of FEDERAL law TRUMPING local/state laws - exactly what I said happens.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
This opinion WILL last - it is an en banc (meaning: the entire Court heard/participated)decision. Because it is a state Supreme Court interpreting the federal Conbstitution, it does have the possibility of reaching the US Supreme Court and being overturned there. However, given the number of cases the USSC hears, this scenario is highly unlikely - especially if the justices at the USSC think the decision is right. The spammer would have to argue that falsifying headers/misleading suject lines promote interstate commerce - a ridiculous proposition. IMHLO (I am a lawyer, so I can give a legal opinion) this decision will last and Washington's statute will serve as a model for other states because it has withstood this constitutional challenge.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
I disagree. I don't find this to be so much a ruling against free speech as it is against misrepresentation. After reading the verdict, the crux of it seems to lie in the fact that the email did not represent where it came from. Rather it seems that the fault of the spammer was that the email was disguised to prevent any resident from demanding to be taken off the mailing list or "opt-out".
IMHO this is completely fair....
But what if you spam with true information, and then have your email account canceled? That appears to be against the law as expressed by the court, and it makes it impossible to spam safely. Again, not that I think spam should be allowed, but I also think laws should be clearly stated with intention.
I'm all for placing an incredible burdon on spammers, personally. If the reason your return e-mail address was cancelled is because you knowingly violated your e-mail provider's terms of service, well, too bad, you're an idiot.
Being an idiot is not a criminal offense.
If you can find an ISP that ALLOWS you to send spam, great! They won't cancel your account for it! If your ISP doesn't allow it, then you shouldn't be doing it. The law may not be perfect, but I have no complaints.
But should a civil action cause criminal penalties? This essentially allows private ISP's to cause me to violate Washington law - I send mail to a washington resident for a valid opt-in commercial purpose (say, a competing service to their DSL lines to my subscriber list). They cancel my account. That shouldn't be a violation of the law, but with this account was canceled clause, it is.
This is NOT a ban on spam. This law explicitly states that it is still legal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail. You just can't hide behind forged headers. And again, if your ISP doesn't allow you to send spam, and that's what you want to do, choose a different ISP that will allow you to send spam and not cancel your account.
It is not the responsibility of the State AG to enforce my private contracts.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
It is not against the law to violate your email providers terms of service. It is apprently agaist the law to send an email with a valid return address and then to have that address become invalid because of a third parties actions.
I am apparently liable for the actions my service provider takes. That is, untill this ruling is overturned.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
I've disliked the Washington law since they first passed it, for two main reasons.
1. It justifies and allows spams.
Just give a valid email address and a header that is true and you're good to go!
2. It creates an incredible burden on the spammers who were just sanctioned
According to the court in the ruling, the reason why the spammers addresses, which he gave, were not valid were because they were canceled.
Sorry, but that's just stepping on both sides of the fence. The court argues that real info makes buisness easier, but if spammers give their real info out, their accounts are canceled. Now, I'm not saying that spammers should be allowed to spam, but it's wrong for the government to have laws and rulings that say one thing and do another.
In effect, the Washington law reads as a ban on spam (You have to use your real info, and if your account goes away, your problem!). But, that's not what the court argues, and it's not the intention of the lawmaker.
I would much rather see a better more thought-out law. Additionally, it makes it impossible for the spammers (however bad they are) to comply - if you spam, you lose your account, and if you spam without account you violate the law. It's great from a logical way to ban spammers, which I love, but it's wrong from the premise that our legal system should be honest.
Just have the law say "spam is banned." It's bad that they have different more confusing words with the same effect. Boo.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
The Act provides that anyone sending a commercial e- mail message from a computer located in Washington or to an e-mail address held by a Washington resident may not use a third-party's domain name without permission,5 misrepresent or disguise in any other way the message's point of origin or transmission path, or use a misleading subject line.6 RCW 19.190.030 makes a violation of the Act a per se violation of the Consumer Protection Act, chapter 19.86 RCW (CPA).
Does this mean that Washington residents that get those FREE PORN!!!!!!!! emails that always cost can now sue?
DocWatson
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
The federal government can certainly interfere, but I don't think they have the authority to directly change or overturn the law. --above post
Actually, that's exactly what they can do. It is the supreme court that will ultimately decide this case, and the fate of this law. If they decide that this law unduly tramples the power of the federal law, it will be stuck down. They can, and do, do this sort of thing all the time. Though from reading the ruling(interesting if a bit difficult.) it looks like the state supreme court put forth good reasoning behind remanding this one for trial. Though I am not a lawyer, and may have missed something.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
A question to the above poster: Do you belive that there should be no regulation, what so ever, of the market? If so, that would imply that you are firmly against the protection that is offered to unions by the laws of the govenment, a form of regulation. I would then further assume that you would have all of us working under slave-like conditions for large corporations that need answer to no one. The simple fact is, governmental regulation helped put a stop to such practices, and further, keeps monopolies from causing huge market depressions. While enough training and knowledge can keep you above the average laborer, it is government regulation that keeps things like safe buildings, worker's compesation, and the like from become dreams. Do you really think compaines would shell out for it if they didn't need to? Further, anyone who creates noise about it would find themself unemployed, and stuck that way, because of current government regulation, your previous employer cannot say anything about you to a prospective employer, its not much, but it helps. America tried the concept of little or no regulation of the market, it failed, going back would be a big mistake. End Rant.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
In contrast to the New York statute, which could reach all
content posted on the Internet and therefore subject individuals to
liability based on unintended access, the Act reaches only those deceptive
UCE messages directed to a Washington resident or initiated from a computer
located in Washington; in other words, the Act does not impose liability
for messages that are merely routed through Washington or that are read by
a Washington resident who was not the actual addressee. ---from the ruling
Would you want to go to prison because you downloaded porn from a server in a state where it's legal, to a state where it's legal, but went through a state where it's not? That is what's at stake here, and there are states that will try it.
---Above post
Could you at least read the article before you go and make such a blatanly dumb assertion about it?
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Actully, I didn't intend to say that it would be stricken down, quite the opposite, I expect this one to survive review, once it gets to the supreme court. Which I expect to be a while. In the ruling, the motion to dismis the claim, against the Spammer was overturned, which starts a trial at the lower level, which then has to be run through the whole appeals process on its own. And at each level, I imagine that the question of consitutionality of this law will come up, until it hits the SC, where it will be decided. Sorry about the confusion. And of course, I am not a lawyer, but I play one in RPGs.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
SLASHDOT (New Jersey): Recently, the website "Slashdot.org", dedicated to serving "News for nerds, stuff that matters", reported that a law was upheld earlier in the week.
"What could be more newsworthy than the law being enforced and protected?" said slashdot writer Rob Malda. "I mean, this sort of stuff is in the same league as proving evolution and releasing a new Kernel. The protection of the law doesn't happen every day, and that's why I put it on Slashdot.
When questioned about the court system and other legislative jurisdiction, Malda muttered some words under his breath and scurried away to a nearby terminal.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
You have the right to say whatever you want but it doesn't mean that you cannot be held liable ie. sexual harassment, defamation, or talking shit about the damn 5{i3nt0l0gi5t5.
As far as I am concerned if I can't ask them to stop, what can I say to a cold caller?
I'll battle you on the net, I'll battle you in the flesh, I'll battle you over the phone, You can call me collect. I'll battle you for the respect, I'll battle you over a blank check, I'll battle you with a gun to my neck.
I have a Hotmail account. Hotmail is in Washington state. I get TONS of spam in that account (like 100+ every 24 hours or so). Just a matter of time till someone tries this out in court.
What would really be nice is if this was a federal law.
Americans could not be more self absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel. -Dennis Miller
I hate to sound cynical, but I don't give this ruling a long time until it gets overturned or ruled against by another court. Which is a shame.
Whether you agree with SPAM or not, it's a constitutionally protected right of the sender, just like gun ownership.
Yes, but much like guns, Spam need to be controlled. Spam accounts for roughly 25% of all e-mail sent, producing unnecessary load on networks.
...because IAAL (I am a lawyer).
/. - you see sooo many IANAL disclaimers, it's nice to see the occasional person who *is* a lawyer. Thanks!
Hey, I've overcome my irritation at having my pet theory squashed in front of my face through actually seeing a lawyer on
43rd Law of Computing:
It seems that all we get on /. about censorship/M$/whatever these days is bad news. I'm glad there's something to celebrate!
That said, this does bode very badly for individual states doing anti-social things within themselves and the Feds being powerless to stop it...aren't I just the optimist!
43rd Law of Computing:
I don't really understand your langauge. Could you repeat this in a human readable form? Thank you.
I think it is here where you might be wrong. Guns should expressly not be controlled. Who would do the controlling, anyway? The government, of course. And why did they provide the 2nd Amendment again? Specifically, to resist tyrannical government. So, really, having the govenment control arms sales is self defeating in respect to our constitutional rights.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
I would say that fraud is an awfully strong word. Also, if it becomes a bad enough problem and actually starts causing people to lose significant amounts of money, the market will regulate itself. It is really none of the governments business as to whether people are doing this or not. The way I see it is, this will disappear as soon as it becomes a problem. And right now, it doesn't seem to be a problem.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
And what kind of crackpot science study do you draw these conclusions from? The fact of the matter is, the ready availability of violent personalities is the cause of the USA's high proportion of gun-related deaths. Perhaps if mothers didn't have full time jobs and actually spent time explaining to their kids the difference between right and wrong, we wouldn't have this moral problem that our nation is currently facing.
Secondly, gun deaths are, logically, caused by criminals, and the large majority of them have past records. Regardless of whether guns are legal, criminals will always have guns. The only thing that gun laws will end up doing is taking protection out of the hands of law abiding citizens.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
What's even more interesting is that this is, in some respects, an internet censorship law. I don't believe that the government should have a hand in regulating what passes over the internet, and this is just the beginning, folks. This law sets a precedent.
By passing a law that prevents the sending of some kinds of email, the government is limiting the free speech of both individuals and companies. Whether you agree with SPAM or not, it's a constitutionally protected right of the sender, just like gun ownership.
The only thing that will truely solve the SPAM problem are market forces. When people decide that having to relay spam is costing them more money than it would to fight said abuse of their systems, we will see unsolicted commercial email disappear pretty darn quick. In the meantime, the government just gets in the way and trys to speed a process that really can't be controlled by any one entity.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
Linux -- the Ultimate Windows Service Pack
Why can't we go after those that sell our email addresses? Seems to me that would be one way to cut down on the distribution of email addresses.
Coming at you from