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CA Appeals Court Upholds Spam Law

Posted by timothy on from the little-piggies-need-some-discipline dept.

Joe Wagner writes: "Criminal penalties for spam, yeah baby! It has just been announced that California State's spam law has been ruled constitutional and valid by California Court of Appeal for the First District: '...we hold that section 17538.4 does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause [of the United States Constitution].' The actual ruling is here. Congratulations to Mark Ferguson and his lawyers (1, 2) for fighting it out for the rest of us..."

3 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Brilliant, now... by syrupMatt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Lovely. Now that California has lead the way, when do you think other states will follow suit?

    Is there actually a "spam lobby" anywhere that could prevent (read give money to) politicans from supporting or passing such bills in other states?

    --
    "Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
  2. I love this definition of SPAM: by Tri0de · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The statute defines "unsolicited e-mail documents" as "any e-mailed document or documents consisting of advertising material for the lease, sale, rental, gift offer, or other disposition of any realty, goods, services, or extension of credit" when the documents (a) are addressed to recipients who do not have existing business or personal relationships with the initiator and (b) were not sent at the request of or with the consent of the recipient."

    Perhaps not plain english, but as close as legalese gets.
    YES!!!

    --
    "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
  3. Re:only a slight improvement by Genom · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Actually, I think it may make a difference, but not as drastic a one as those who wrote the law hope for.

    Valid return address - allows you to track down someone to be held liable for the spam. This makes complaining to the upstream provider much easier - and while the spammer will probably just hop accounts for the next one, it'll at least be a thorn in their side.

    Address removal - This won't really change anything -- they'll remove you from the one-time list they used to generate that particular spam, but add you to 3 other lists that will be sold or used to spam again.

    ADV: in subject - This is the one that could change the user experience signifigantly, if mail server admins use it. If spam is required by law to contain ADV: in the subject, than email can be filtered server-side to cull it out. Obviously this requires a little bit of work on the server admin's part - but if done right, this could bring your spamcount to zero (assuming the spammers obey the law)

    Now...most likely the spammers won't obey the law. They'll keep going as they are now, until enough of them get fined/jailed over it - then they'll have to figure a way to get around it. Most likely this will involve large "donations" to various congress members, in return for their vote against making there be any real penalty for violating the law.

    So yes - you're right on the one hand that the ammount of spam that comes in may not change - but the few spammers who actually abide by this law will make themselves easy targets for good filters. (and most good filters already cull out ADV: subjects ;P )