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NY AG Sues MonsterHut Over Marketing Spam
Ian Hill writes: "This BBC article tells how NY State Attorney Elliot Spitzer has sued marketing firm MonsterHut.com over "millions" of unsolicited e-mails. He claims MonsterHut.com falsely told its clients that e-mails sent on their behalf were sent to addresses who registered themselves as interested parties. Also at question is how exactly these addresses were collected." eviljim adds a link to a press release from New York's Attorney General and a reminder of how MonsterHut was disconnected from their ISP.
It is about time some of the cost associated w/spam got moved to the spammer. More of this can only be a good thing. If it gets too expensive, maybe it will slow down.
I do worry though about legal remedies just moving the problem to where the laws don't exist.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
No, people simply care about fraud, too. Even in the United States, free speech isn't an absolute for anyone.
But among this crowd, vandalism and stealing software are also protected speech, so they should open fraud with open arms.
Spitzer Says Company Sent More than 500 Million Unsolicited Messages to Consumers
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today filed a lawsuit against a Niagara Falls-based "spammer" that sent hundreds of millions of emails to consumers whom it falsely claimed had requested the emails.
"Every day New Yorkers are being inundated with unsolicited commercial emails, or spam," Spitzer said. "Some of the spam is a vehicle for fraud, some of the spam is inherently fraudulent, and much of it constitutes a real annoyance for email user. This lawsuit is the next battle in our continuing fight against online fraud, and an attempt to help consumers maintain control of their email in-boxes."
MonsterHut, Inc., its Chief Executive Officer Todd Pelow and its Chief Technical Officer Gary Hartl, are accused of fraudulently advertising and representing the company's email marketing service as "permission based" or "opt-in," meaning that every consumer to whom they send commercial email has explicitly asked to receive it. In fact, the suit alleges, the company's email lists are only partly "opt-in," and include many consumers who never asked to receive email from the company. The suit also alleges that this false representation of MonsterHut's business practices enabled the company to profit through the deception its Internet access provider, its own paid advertisers, and consumers at large.
The suit alleges that since March 2001, MonsterHut has flooded consumers' email in-boxes with more than 500 million commercial emails, advertising a variety of goods and services. At the same time, negative consumer response to MonsterHut's spam has been overwhelming. More than 750,000 consumers have requested to be removed from MonsterHut's mailing lists, and tens of thousands have complained to MonsterHut's internet access provider, PaeTec Communications, Inc., of Rochester.
Earlier this month, PaeTec cut off MonsterHut from its network, after a New York appeals court held that MonsterHut had violated an anti-spamming provision in its contract with PaeTec. However, nothing in that decision prevented MonsterHut from spamming consumers through another internet service provider.
"We are seeking to prevent MonsterHut from continuing its fraudulent, deceptive and illegal practices, not just over PaeTec's network, but over any ISP in New York," Spitzer said.
The Attorney General is seeking a court order to:
- Enjoin MonsterHut, Pelow, and Hartl from falsely representing the nature of their unsolicited commercial email;
- Require MonsterHut, Pelow and Hartl to disclose how it obtained all the consumers' email addresses; and
- Require MonsterHut, Pelow and Hartl to pay civil penalties and court costs for its violations of New York's consumer protection laws.
This case is being handled by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Kline of Attorney General Spitzer's Internet BureauNo, not the canned mystery meat, the junk e-mail that clusters my inbox everyday. I really hope this case will set a precedent that will deter the 25 or so people that seem to like to spam my account with their 'earn 10,000 a day', 'make your penis larger', 'diet now, lose 100 lbs a day and get paid $1 a pound', etc. I am truly sick of this shit, and I hope that someone gets the message. Of course the trick is to make this non-profitable, either by suing them blind, or by simply not responding to any of these e-mails. Keep in mind that the only reason that they don't do this via snail mail (aka: USPS) is because it actually costs money to mail a letter via this means, otherwise you would find it necessary to have a mailbox 4' X 4' X 6' and it would still be overflowing after 2 days.
It'd be really cool to see mandatory micropayments for UBE - I would be willing to accept the extra load on my mailservers if I know I was making a tenth of a penny per message.
:).
Hell, running an open relay would rapidly go from moronic to profitable
--
Phil
All the logic is there an the anti-junk-fax laws. It just needs to be applied to e-mail. This way it would be much easier to prosecute groups like monsterhut.
On a sidenote (with regard to the quest for the email address source), it's fairly common knowledge (enough so that Paetec mentioned it somewhere on litigation.paetec.net back when they were soliciting affidavits from spammed parties) that a number of the addresses used came from WHOIS records.
Monster Hut makes the best monsters. I love their personal pan monsters, and their deep-dish Chicago style monsters, also. Great for parties. The crispy thin-crust monsters are also good, if you like a nice New York style monster. A slice of their leftover monster also makes a great breakfast. I like to order a medium monster with pepperoni and peppers and olives. This is enough to feed me and my girlfriend (who also loves monster), plus leaves a little leftover for the next day.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
...came to my attention last week when my wife signed up for text messaging for her cell phone. Her plan allows the first 100 messages each month free, with extras for an additional price after that. What happens if (when) that number gets on spam lists it can be sent in the form of an email, ie, cell-number@provider.com? At the rate I get spam in my inbox, surely she'll run over the 100 limit, and it WILL cost me money to receive spam. Surely there's cause for recourse at that point?
Wouldn't be too hard to take the ball and run with this one. Get on the message boards and put your number in your sig. Too bad I don't have the time or resources to do it.
Please mod this as a troll. We have made this argument a million times and everybody by now knows that not one tax payer dollar goes to the US Postal Service.
I hope there is a lot more cracking down on this method of marketing. I've always wondered why it works for them in the first place? Seriously, why do they think that if they keep sending me five copys of the same email EVERYDAY, eventually I will answer? Or why would I answer if they use a completly misleading subject line so that it gets through my filters? They say that they are complying with whatever laws apply by giving you an email address to be removed, but it you mail that, it's either not a valid email, or they just sell your email to others, and you get tons more emails. Obviously some people must answer these emails, but I don't understand how it would ever be worth the cost of thier investment.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
there is a difference. At least the people giving you junk mail in your home mailbox had to spend real money. They had to believe enough in their product so that the cost of solicitation would be covered.
But with the cost of email spam (the opportunity cost) being orders of magnitude lower, to the point where it's so close to zero per unit, the "social contract", whereby the one doing the soliciting has made an up-front investment, has been violated.
Oh, by the way, deleting spam on your computer is not free. It takes some of your time, and, even if you were to value your time at the minimum wage, your investment is far higher than the spammers.
...but I'm starting to love this man. If he figures out how to make regular old junk mail opt-out, I'll be the first to nominate him for sainthood. He'll have the miracles thing covered.
The only thing stopping the AG's and other law enforcement is a lack of imagination, not a lack of laws. If spam is fraud, pursue it as fraud. If someone is violating copyright, go after the individual. How freaking hard is it?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I am "simply shocked" that a company would tell such lies to it's customers.
Thank God that we don't know of any other companies that would do something like that.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
My spam has been going up over the years, using the same email for 5+ years, seems to do it. And Im a busy Internet poster, and active on mailing lists and online BBS boards, so it compounds matters.
Topics lately that have passed my spam filters, "Your Bill", My Name correctly(most spam dont use names, just email addresses), Actual products that I use, (someone must of sold my email address), Mailing list type headers (vnc/linux kernel/etc).
Funny thing, some mailing lists are tagged as spam, like IGN computer news, which I had to tag as good. Spam takes way more of my time than it should. I know for sure, I havnt opt'ed in for anything, and "Opt-Out" is a fucking joke.
november 2004:
in a closely watched and eagerly anticipated presidential race, embattled president / shell oil spokesman george w. bush won a landslide 99% of the vote over his honest, crime-fighting opponent eliot spitzer, who, despite his record and widespread public acclaim, was completely unable to raise any campaign funds.
bush's victory speech thanked his supporters for their efforts, and that clean, pure shell gasoline for putting in overtime at a great price.
go get it
Declare the internet the 'land of the free'.
Instead of calling it your 'inbox', it's now your 'american spirit'.
Those dirty emails you send to your wife are now 'vital communications of the heart'.
Your mom nagging you to visit her more often are 'sincere messages from the home front'.
Once we make spam a terrorist act only terrorists will send spam! U-S-A! U-S-A!
are you stupid?
taxes for the USPS... uhh no... no taxes spent there. and the spammer SPENT MONEY ON POSTAGE.
99.997% of all spammers dont spend a dime on their bandwidth. they offload it onto unsuspecting servers. in effect the STEAL the bandwidth for it.
Please, next time dont be a retarted idiot. (Oh wait... nevermind... I forgot that your IQ is under 3.)
and noone is STUPID enough to even think that you really are Jon Katz.. mr lamer....
"open fraud with open arms"?
I'll assume that you mean "welcome fraud with open arms".
Three points:
1. I don't vandalize (though I've been tempted to root a few spam servers, and reserve the right to do so at some future date, or teach others how to);
2. I don't commit fraud.
3. I don't steal software. I do have about 40' of software that I paid for before I got into the open source movement, so I'm guilty of encouraging the likes of Micro$hit, though.
the only double standard I see is yours, so I'm going to assume you're a troll.
This suit has been making the rounds in the anti-spam circles, like the SpamCom mailing list and the news.admin.net-abuse.email Usenet group.
It is good to see things heading in this direction. The MonsterHut situation stunk very badly for a long time, and it's good to see them getting smacked for such irresponsible behavior.
-----
Apple hardware still too expensive for you? How about a raffle ticket?
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Spam on the computer, is generally bad because it's so cheap to send (virtually free). So we end up with tuns of spam. Also, because computer spam is so cheap, it's not at all targeted, for some reason, mail ads tend to be much more interesting.
;-)
And, opting out is easy in your mailbox. Just write "Return to sender" on the unopened message, and put it back in your mailbox. The USPO will charge the sender to return it, and the sender will usually abruptly stop. If you want to get nasty, tape the letter to a brick first
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Thanks for the cut-and-paste.
Question: how can I begin nagging my local government (Quebec and/or Canada) to start acting on this shit?
After all, we now cooperate with Project Phonebusters (telemarketing scum^H^H^H^Hscams).
1. There's a right and a wrong way to do things. Sure we'd all likely get a laugh out of this, but as far as I know (IANAL) that's still illegal, and only serves to hurt your own cause.
2 & 3. Good for you, but there are many out there who have hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of software and music that they didn't pay for. These are the people who have no business complaining about the evils of spam when they haven't a moral leg to stand on.
I never thought of the brick bit. Love it.
Mind you, I've started marking "deceased" on it.
Do this, and you'll find out who gave the junk mailer your name soon enough, and cause distrust between the junker and the junkee. (This is a ***good thing***)
My pet monster, monster of a freind.
My pet monster, my very very best friend.
My peeeeeet monsterrrrr frieeeeeeeeeeend.
He was cool, however Beestor was a real prick.
Would be nice if spam companies such as this who periodically engage in widespread consumer fraud could, by court order, have all assets liquidated and the funds distributed to a state task force designed to root out further spam comanies. If this isn't serving the public, I don't know what is.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Man. What an old argument. I am assuming that you are a 12 yr old troll who knows nothing about the complexities of law and just spouts "first amendment" without even thinking.
the majority of the spam I get is chinese/japanese/korean shit that I can't even read anyway.
Is there a way to filter spam by charset?
i have a yahoo account, get about 5 spam emails a day, and forward most of them right on to the FTC. not sure if they're actually doing anything, but it makes me feel good :)
and my inbox remains relatively free of spam.
2) This case will have no effect on the SPAM that is currently coming into your e-mail box. Monsterhut is already kaput.
3) NY State has no real SPAM laws so Spitzer is mangling current law to go after a defunct SPAM house.
4) Do you really think that Spitzer is going to get $500 a pop for 500 million e-mails from a defunct SPAM house? Or do you think he will waste thousands, if not millions, of tax payer dollars promoting his "high-tech savvy" trying to squeeze blood from a rock?
5) How can the AG of NY State sue a company that "violated the rights of consumers" in other states? Wouldn't that be the job of the US AG or the Federal Trade Commission?
Unfortunately, the time and money wasted by Spitzer in this "Look At Me" case would have been better spent in the State Legislature crafting an anti-SPAM bill that goes after all spammers instead of one high profile SPAM house. Also, this will do nothing about the likes of btamail.net.cn. What is Spitzer going to do about them?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I actually reply to spammers telling them what MY terms of service are (for reviewing their spam) , and these include their agreement, by continuing to send spam, for me to access their machines and any intermediary devices on the network, for the purpose of removing myself from their spam lists.
If they send me any more spam, they've opted in.
So it's not illegal in this case.
Yes, kudos to Mr. Spitzer for finally doing something about spammers. His litigation may make some of the more egregious, mass spammers think twice before trying to force-feed our Inboxes with herbal viagara and penny stocks.
But here is the HOWEVER.
With technology regulation a) not particularly well defined on the books, and b) almost always implemented the *wrong* way (DCMA?), I have little doubt that many legitmate newsletters and mailing lists will get hit by Mr. Spitzer's shrapnel. There are plenty of Attorneys General out there who are not quite so intelligent as sheep (let alone, Mr. Spitzer), and will follow New York's example to the detriment of legitimate mailers.
Damn. Another message for teen sex in my Inbox. Heck, maybe it's worth it....
-FC
I've had them blacklisted for a couple years now. I wish other states would jump on the bandwagon. These SOBs deserve to pay. They should be forced to read every piece of spam they ever sent out I think. That should keep them occupied for a few life sentences.
I am a New York State resident and I must say that Elliot Spitzer has been nothing short of wonderful when it comes to protecting the consumer.
.02
First it was unsoliticited phone calls (we were one of the first states to set up a no-call list). Now I recieve maybe 1 unsoliticited call every 2-3 months instead of 1 or 2 a day (and at dinner time.... arrrrgggg).
Then it was dissent on the microsoft case. In all likelyhood, New York State served as a keystone for the 9 dissident states.
Now we've got Spitzer battling the evil spam demons. My guess is that once again, Spitzer will come out on top.
Spitzer is a definately a defendant of consumer rights and privacy and has been unwavering in his cause.
my
I just want to point out that anyone who found that "joke" funny is a moron.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The problem is fraud. (1) Spammers forge return-addresses and lie in their subjects to trick you. This makes it hard to weed out unwanted mail. (2) Practically all spam comes from fraudsters. Spam is so despised as a marketing tactic that it cannot be used (openly) regularly by legitimate businesses without them getting a lot of flak.
I hate spam. It drives me crazy. But I believe we will never fully get rid of it, because it makes money. And there may truly be compelling free speech reasons that keep us from banning it (I'm not decided on this point).
But I think three steps would take most of the pain out of spam for me.
- Spammers who are criminals (stock-pumpers, penis-mightiers) get arrested and deterred/reformed. The NY AG move is a much-needed start.
- Spam must be given a proper subject like "ADV:", and need a legitimate return address. Violators are subject to large fines and jail.
- Spammers need to pay for all their bounced mail. Not sure how to enforce this, but it would make me feel better.
Once these things are true, maybe spam will reach the same annoyance level as junk mail in real life: annoying, but not obscene.the federal law was deemed to be against the First Amendment found a link here about the Supreme Court ruling.
In canada [I worked at a postal outlet] if you change the configuration of the package [which includes opening it] then you cannot RTS it.
As you originally said the best remedy is to write RTMF or RTS it
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Since I've added a LART list of IP addresses and domains, per SPEWS, i've seen a nice decrease of UCE coming directly to me.
2002-05-01 09:37:21 recipients refused from [212.90.15.164] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-05 07:49:48 recipients refused from [210.76.113.46] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-07 00:18:46 recipients refused from cis-ns.careinfo.co.jp [210.226.191.114] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-09 02:49:48 recipients refused from [200.24.95.174] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-13 13:14:06 refused relay (host) to from H=nat170.63.mpoweredpc.net (none) [142.177.170.63]
2002-05-15 18:06:36 recipients refused from [211.218.38.20] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-15 23:36:06 recipients refused from w045.z208037064.nyc-ny.dsl.cnc.net [208.37.64.45] (RBL relays.osirusoft.com)
2002-05-15 23:58:10 recipients refused from [211.174.179.8] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-16 20:33:15 recipients refused from [202.164.96.4] (firewall-user) (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-17 04:01:57 recipients refused from [202.164.96.4] (firewall-user) (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-18 19:16:22 recipients refused from [210.105.80.65] (RBL relays.osirusoft.com)
2002-05-19 11:36:51 recipients refused from [202.164.96.4] (firewall-user) (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-21 23:41:55 recipients refused from [202.164.96.4] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-24 06:53:23 connection from outmta016.topica.com [64.125.140.225] refused
2002-05-24 06:53:54 connection from outmta016.topica.com [64.125.140.225] refused
2002-05-24 07:41:45 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 08:33:05 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 09:35:23 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 10:46:02 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 12:17:27 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 14:19:49 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 16:23:14 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 19:01:45 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-24 21:31:16 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-25 00:07:19 connection from bso002.topica.com [64.125.140.241] refused
2002-05-25 05:29:37 recipients refused from www.shinohara.com [209.153.61.10] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-25 16:22:30 recipients refused from [203.199.213.3] (RBL relays.osirusoft.com)
2002-05-28 04:37:49 recipients refused from h-64-105-76-95.nycmny83.covad.net [64.105.76.95] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
2002-05-29 08:22:41 recipients refused from [211.102.2.131] (RBL relays.ordb.org)
So you can see I'm rejecting mail per relays.osirusoft.com and relays.ordb.org. My LART list is pretty big, too. But that's just for a small mail server.
If you apply similar rules to a multi-hundred or multi-thousand user system, you can really cut down on tons of UCE. Combine it with spamassassin and UCE will almost never get in your inbox.
Spamhaus.org records about MonsterHut
It includes such gems as
MonsterHut's PR
and
Whine: MonsterHut Letter to Spam Clients
(scroll down - the header index is identical for these links, but the material below is different)
Definitely worth looking over, for a profile of a spammer.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
What good is governement if they want to govern me? (pennywise)
If we want the government to stop trying to creake things like mandatory age checks before accessing adult material, then we need to stand up and tell them not to create spam laws either.
It is a problem that can be solved technically. We should strive to find better technical solutions instead of finding ways to sue them.
Hey, Coward, this is not a speech issue. It's a property rights issue. I don't get upset about junk mail in my postal mailbox; I don't have to pay for it. The sender pays the postage to have it delivered to me. I just carry it to my trash.
Spam, on the other hand, is often times paid for by the recipient. If you want to play First Amendment with me, I'll play Fifth Amendment with you:
Since you say that Spam is the sender's First Amendment right, it appears that delivery of said spam is "public use," and can't be paid for by the recipient because there's no just compensation. Spammers can't take my money (private property) to deliver your message (public use) without paying me (just compensation) in return for paying for your message's transmittal.
By the same token, you can't use the Freedom of the Press clause-- for the same reason. I can't be forced to pay (private property) for the publication (reception) of spam (public use) without paying me (just compensation).
If they want to pay me to receive their messages, that would be constitutional. As it stands, sending people unsolicited messages that they must pay for is not only not protected speech, but unconstitutional.
Read more about it
but close. The goal is to make it cost the spammer more to spam than it costs us to litigate.
I'm sure if the NY AG, by some miscarriage of justice, wins against MonsterHut, that telephone solicitors, junk mailers and door-to-door sales groups will leap to MonsterHut's aid and have it overturned, thus ensuring their much cherished freedom to do business as usual.
"There ought to be limits to freedom" -- George W. Bush, regarding www.gwbush.com
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Okay, Niagra Falls is in NY so suing is cool, but 500 million emails to just New Yorkers? Of course if all of the 19 million people (last census) in New York state received an equal number of emails that would make about 25 per person which seems reasonable, but if we extrapolate that same rate to the 280 million in the US they sent about 7.5 billion emails from March last year to April when they were cut off. (Think about it, the extrapolation is reasonable) At a very conservative 1kB per html-email this makes about 7.5 terabytes of data they've sent in a little more than a year. Which makes about 20.5GB of email a day. That seems like a bit much to me.
This is all mental math, so please correct me if you've got the time.
If the recent internet Libel case goes to verdict, it may impact the power of current anti-spam laws as well. If it turns out that people can be sued for libel in the jurisdiction where internet content is being viewed, it then follows that spammers can be sued for breakage of anti-spam laws in the jurisdiction where the spam is recieved. Only time will tell how this will paly out but there is a silver lining to everythnig, if you look hard enough.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I used to read slashdot, but you guys are much more entertaining. Plus I get the bonus of ya'all not being 'linux fags'. Keep it up.
Amen.
I'll see your Fifth Amendment response, and, I'll raise you a Supreme Court ruling.
A man's home - and his email box - is his castle. Any spammer invoking the First Amendment is full of it.
Attorney General Spitzer, YOU ROCK.
Can I stick double-sided tape on the back of it, and hope it picks up some of the other junk in my mailbox?
Mind you, I get more mail addressed to other people on the street, and other streets, than addressed to me, anyway.
Thanks for the info on changing the pkg. conf.
It seems to me that the answer to spam is whitelists. I find I get very little non-spam from people who aren't in my address book (you just have to be diligent about keeping your whitelist up to date).
I realize that some people do have a different email usage pattern and do get lots of mail from new senders, but then you could just use an "ask for confirmation" style whitelist filter.
Is there some reason why whitelists aren't more popular (aside from the fact that it's not the default configuration of Outlook [Express])?
Sure, but you'd only get the big fish. It'd be on par with stomping out drug dealers (which are also connected with .. ha .. dopes) And it'd be pretty much useless once they move off-shore, to places we love to laud like Sealand (whom we'd torpedo in a second if they became the sole relay of spam.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For those who inforce the law. It seems as though so much time and energy has been spent as of late in the courts to protect big business (read RIAA) from the actions of people (read us).
It's about time the courts were used, en masse, to protect people (us) from the fradulant actions of business (monsterhut and others).
In a free market, business is supposed to be at the mercy of the consumer. We keep the government around to pass and enforce laws when that does'nt happen. It really does make me feel good to see the NY AG doing it's job.
---
The Internet is generally stupid
I have a Deutsche Telekom cell phone for business trips (it was VERY cheap), and you pay $.16 or so all over Germany for calls you make, and $.05 or so per SMS you send (if I recall correctly, I may be off somewhat); NO charge for incoming anything from anywhere. It is, IMHO, a MUCH better setup than in the US, where I pay for incoming.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Bringing perjury charges aginst people sure sounds nice, but in practice you'd have noone left in the states.
E.G.
Bill Clinton,
Most of microsoft,
Most of the prosicuting states (they must have told a fib or two?)
Anyone who's ever been sued,
Anyone who's ever sued.
Any the parot that said it couldn't talk. (Called Bush or somthing?)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Sure sounds like most of the prople I know.
New Employee: ' Who's that guy in the corner'
Inductor: ' Oh that's Bill, iv'e been here 20 years and still havn't work out what he's supposed to do!'
New Employee: Hmmm.... I have a plan......
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Hmmmm according to Spamhaus their servers were put under lock and key when PaeTec TOSed them. Hmmmm i wunder how much they want for their equipment.. I could use some of their parts, or they could be put to good use in a RTCW or a Q3 extreme server for that matter. :D
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
No, this current approach is a losing battle. What we must have is transparency. The Spammer cannot be allowed to use fake email addresses. I have complained about commercial emails with fake addressee, and the providers refuse to do anything. There must be an opt-out link or email address that is in the same domain as the from and return address. These address must be in the owner domain, and not Yahoo, Hotmail, or whatever free service they use for one time addresses. The subject line must clearly identify the company being advertised. If the email is to a website, the website must have an email link, and, if it is a DBA, must have a link to the corporation or person.
These guidelines will create a proper and honorable two-way communication. There are companies like (I think) Virtual Holdings that cowardly hide behind fake addresses and do not even put a real address on their domain registration. They keep their costs down by hiding behind fraudulent websites that do not have a single method of communicating with the owner. It is the highest form of arrogance that they think they have the right to spam us, but we don't have the right to spam them.
I know it has been said before, but let me say it again. Get a free email account. When you get a spam, especially with a fake email, look up the registration for the websites advertised. Look up the registration for the DNS providers. Send an email to every address you can find stated how cowardly and dishonorable using fake email addresses is. Let them know we know they are vermin. You do not even have to include your own information, as you are complaining about bad netiquette, not Spam.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They have the right to speech, but not the right to force me to listen. Get a clue.
Hormel gets pissed if you called unsolicited commercial email "SPAM" because that's their trademark. They have however given their blessing to the use of "spam".
I'll call your ruling:
Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.
Not that I think that spam is good, rather the argument that "My mail server is mine, thus spam is illegal" does not follow.
- Justice Black, U.S. Supreme Court, Marsh v. State of Ala., 326 U.S. 501 (1946)
I'm the best IRC client ever.
The first amendment doesn't give you the right use my property to excercise your right to run your mouth off. It would be like you coming into my home and and preaching to me in my living room. It's my property and it's not your right to be on or make us of it.
I would be very interested what conditions/strings you happen to be looking for, What kind of dropped/legitimate mail rates do you get with a mass filter like this running?
It seems to me that the answer to spam is whitelists. I find I get very little non-spam from people who aren't in my address book (you just have to be diligent about keeping your whitelist up to date).
If a whitelist is the solution, you don't understand the problem.
A whitelist is pretty much like "bolting the barn door after the horses have eaten your children." You're basically just closing your eyes and saying "I don't see it, so therefore it doesn't hurt me."
Spam has two problems, and the concept of a whitelist (or email client "spam filter") only covers one: the nuisance factor (it's a pain in the ass to wade through all this spam.)
The second, much worse, problem is that spam costs the recipient money. Bandwidth isn't free - it costs money.. even if you don't directly pay for bandwidth, your ISP does, so it costs them money, which they charge to you (even if you don't see it broken down in your monthly bill.)
Any client-based anti-spam "solution" (such as your whitelist) is ignoring this: the bandwidth has already been consumed by the spam, so it's already been spent. Rejecting the email AFTER it's been delivered to your server only means that you don't see it - it doesn't mean that you're not paying for it, and THAT is the biggest problem with spam - you're paying for something you don't want.
From Marsh: you have a 1st amendment right for areas "freely accessible to and freely used by the public in general".
You have a point that it might apply to mailservers in general, but I don't think it would fly for saying spammers have right to fill up individual email boxes. Marsh said they had a right to be "on the sidewalk" of the town, not in the indivdual homes.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Would be nice if spam companies such as this who periodically engage in widespread consumer fraud could, by court order, have all assets liquidated and the funds distributed to a state task force designed to root out further spam comanies.
This is what happens with drug cases, and it is badly abused. You will see cases like "The State of Florida vs. a really cool looking Mercedes."
The agency who seizes the property gets to use it, which is a huge conflict of interest. And since the property doesn't have rights, innocent until proven guilty is out the window. You need to prove you weren't using the Mercedes to transport drugs to get it back.
There was awell publicized cases where a charter airplane was seized when the renters used it for smuggling, even though the owners did nothing wrong.
We need to eliminate existing civil forfeiture laws, not create new ones.
You don't think that allowing anyone to mail you is making your mailbox "freely accessible and freely used by the public in general?"
Please, leave my infrastructure intact. I'd rather that I get the mail and filter it than have random messages dropped because I couldn't let the public at large email me.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
the ISPs can't or won't implement those technical solutions, or when they are threatened by lawsuits for doing so.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Since I don't give out my email to anyone that shouldn't have it. No it is not "freely accessible and freely used by the public in general".
http://www.windmeadow.com/
I am Familiar with the U.S. Constitution, however you sig makes me wonder if your views are in keeping with modern jurisprudence. Not to engage in political baiting, but it seems you take a very conservative view when it comes to property rights.
To take your point a little further. Why can I not bill for time spent disposing of junk mail? (in addition, materials garbage bags, etc.) What about electricity used to power the doorbell when a solicitor comes?
Spam sucks. However, I am not sure how much resources you are deprived of compared to other previously accepted solicitation norms.
Let me see if I can boil all this down to something smaller:
You have the right to speak; you don't have the right to force people to listen.
Spam wastes my time. If I pay by bandwidth, it wastes my money. At the very least, I have the right to refuse it; at best, I have the right to restitution for damages.
Get off my launchpad!
You are kidding, right? I hope you have not deluded yourself to believe that sending an email will absolve you of any legal issues with hacking.
Michael Loves Me!
[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Maildir]$ egrep -r monsterhut * ./tmp ./new ./cur .
[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Maildir]$ du -h
4.0k
212k
95M
95M
[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Maildir]$
We need to implement a new e-mail system as the standard which charges the person sending the e-mail money and credits it to your ISP's account.
Anyone wants to send me a message? 10 cents please. On my cell? 20 cents please.
Then if it's a friend, I waive the charges after I read the message, and perminantly add their address to my "no charge list"
If it's a spammer I don't want to see again, I add them to my "charge this address $5" list.
Spammers can setup mail servers to spam addresses. They can even filter for the cost (Only send to e-mails that cost less than $.05).
If we did this, I think people might actually enjoy spam (making money is always a good thing), and it doesn't hurt legitimate opt-in lists either, because a mailing list would simply send you messages with a filter so that they only send if it is free to do so... therefore the user has to opt-in at the website AND put the mailing list on their "no charge" list.
It also cuts down bandwidth because the negotiation for cost of sending a message is a LOT shorter than most spam messages, especially the ones with images.
This system has a lot of shortfalls, mainly how to have ISP's reimbursing each other, but it'd be a great thing to have.
Maybe in 10, 20 years... I hope.
-=Lothsahn=-
Can I stick double-sided tape on the back of it, and hope it picks up some of the other junk in my mailbox?
hehehehehe, I doubt it. Mostly the rules exist to prevent fraud, e.g. you can't open the package cuz what is to stop you from faking the addresses then having it RTS'shipped for free or something.
Probably some other reasons but since I was only a cashier lacky they didn't tell me.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'll be honest ( and hide under the Anonymous Coward name ), I work for an email marketing company. I can't say who, but it should not matter, I think I will be hated for it no matter what. I do get to see the inner workings of the email marketing world everyday though, and I'd like to throw a little education out there.
Something we all know is that the whole system is corrupt. The current laws passed by the 106th congress are almost never enforced, and spammers blast out billions of email in a totally un-targeted fashion through relays or by deleting their headers. The anti-spammers are just as corrupt, using sweeping generalizations of anyone even remotely associated with the business, coming almost to the points of slander, and using blacklists as extortion tools.
" Extortion?? " Yup. We have found you can easily get off a blacklist with $1000 or more in hand, but if you simply ask to get off the list because you are not a spammer, "Nope. You got on there at some point for something, you must be!" No record check, no records at all. Your business name can be sullied if someone simply puts your URL in a piece of spam. Bribe or no bribe, they don't ask questions of the validity of the argument, but only one way will get you off the list. Not everyone does this, but not all spammers hide their identity or blast millions either.
The entire system is almost defunct. In fact, in my experience, anti-spammer have created their own problem with some fuel from a few abusive spammers.
The email marketing business is like any other, adapting to ensure their way of life. When it first started, removal lists were gold, always honored, and mailings were done through the proper channels, like private or bulk servers. Then a news article pops up about a guys spamming the world, and everything goes to hell. As anti-spammers make it harder to spam, spammers make it harder to be detected. This means removal lists never get made, and no one is ever able to get off of a list. Anti-spammers are so busy taking down sites and killing mail boxes, they are almost making it impossible for even the current laws to be used as guidelines. Spammers are no slackers either. New software is always being created to hide their servers, or are sending from outside the country. Politicians aren't going to help. Much like anti-spammers with no scruples, they will go to the highest bidder.
Email marketing needs something along the lines of traffic cops. People to enforce the laws of "No tampered headers, a valid return address, and a way to be removed from the list" without interference from vigilante groups. ISPs can still enforce mailing limits so people don't use them as cheap ways to blast out millions, and they could also respond to complaints by deleting the account, but also have extra power to report to a working federal authority. Large bulkers would use special bulk ISP's like today, and the government or some regulatory body would be able to keep tabs on the whole process.
But still there is that lingering cry of people saying it puts the costs on the receiver. Though I have never seen one ISP raise their rates because of spam, I would be interested in someone showing me one. But then again, that is the premise of the internet. Requesting a pages means you have to hop through a bunch of servers along the way, costing them bandwidth. Same goes for email. It costs a lot to deal with a complaint, doesn't it? Perhaps even the same or more as any other email? Granted, spam is in overwhelming bulk due to the shoddy system we have now, but the internet still works on the same premise it always has. An inter-connected network of computers sharing the costs to make it cheap for everyone overall. No one is happy about ISPs in Australia charging by bandwidth used, but no one even speaks about the same demands being made on a piece of mail. Everyone pays $40 or $50 a month for their cable modem or DSL, but the people who only use it once a day are not whining that we geeks take up gigs of use a month. 1% of high speed users take up 30% of the bandwidth, but I don't see any of you advocating to more fairly divide the costs.
Is spam a problem now? Yes. Email marketing works, and helps small businesses make their presence known. Unfortunately , many legit marketers get squished in the uncaring cogs of anti-spammers, while most of the major problems are unreachable to CAUCE and Spam Cop. Yes, there is a lot of crap, yes it needs more finite guidelines, and yes, there are a few who are ruining it for everybody. Instead of trying to pass laws and kill email marketing, try and educate and make the system work.
That would be pretty outrageous if it weren't a complete and utter fabrication. What actually happened was that he sued several "crisis pregnancy centers" for deceptive advertising. They had ads that implied that they performed pregnancy tests and abortions, when if fact they are essentially in the business of persuading women not to have abortions. Under a consent decree they agreed to change their advertising. They didn't have to pay fines, and they certainly were never forced to provide abortion services.
2:
The idea is to deter future instances.
3:
If they violated current anti-fraud law, why not go after them using the existing statute(s)?
4.
No, but he might get something. If not from the company itself, maybe from the officers of the company personally. Also, see 2.
5.
Obviously this only applies to victims in the state of New York.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
They accept non-spam complaints from a web form, so they know how to do it right. Clearly they're not serious about stopping spam, even though California has a strong anti-spam law, and the courts have ruled that it is valid. There haven't been any high-profile spam cases from the California AG yet.
(There's a legal challenge to the California anti-spam law, but the spammer is losing. The California State Supreme Court recently decided that the California anti-spam law was valid (Ferguson vs. Friendfinder). Friendfinder may still try an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that has to happen soon, or the decision is final.)
all the profitable business models, and US industry got left with the other ones!
Interesting. How'd they get it?
First I grabbed a sendmail access database someone else was using as a base to start my anti-spam efforts from. To this I add domains from which I or a coworker received spam from. One spam and it's done. This list contains more than 9000 domains and IP addresses.
Next I added ordb.org as an RBL. This has helped as well but has also exposed some of our clients as having open relays. I find it interesting to get a call insinuating the problem is with my mail server when the user has not even read the error message. (Which, as you may know, tells them to visit ordb.org to find out what the story is) It is frustrating to explain that I am not going to turn off my RBL because their mail server is incorrectly configured.
I've been using the RBL for about 20 hours off and on and the access database for about two days. So far it has dropped 309 messages intended for a mail server with about 20 users on it.
If they reply, they've entered into a contract.
A contract has 4 parts:
1. parties capable of entering into a contract (that's them and me);
2. an object of the contract (my reviewing their spam and offering to access their machines to remove myself from their lists);
3. a consideration in return for the object, except for gratuitious contracts, in which there is no payment. (The consideration, in this case, is that I receive the right to access their machines for the purpose of removing my name from their list, which I think is a good and valuable consideration indeed);
4. the "meeting of the minds", or acceptance, which, in this case, is expressed by their sending me more spam.
At that point, since I'm doing it with their agreement (they did opt in as per my prior offer), it's not hacking.
It is probably much better than the click-through EULAs that software manufacturers have been foisting on us over the last few decades.
Why do I say much better? Because, unlike the EULAs, which are known as "contracts of adhesion", where the offerer of the contract is in a much better bargaining position than the consumer, here it is the consumer who is making a counter-offer, which the spammer is able to accept or decline.
As for the legality of the opt-in, their spam said that I had opted in, even though I hadn't. By their use of opting-in as a means of reaching agreement, they have indicated that opting in or out is a valid and sufficient method to conclude a contract betwixt them and myself.
I would love them to try to get an injunction against me, if they send any more spam. I will, of course, observe all the niceties (informing their ISP, etc), and give them a chance to have their day in court, but, let's face it, a contract is a contract, and this will stand up in court.
Not to pee on your parade, but I would run that by a real lawyer before you start hacking. I honestly don't think that is going to fly. If a spammer is (ab)using a third party's mail-relay, or open proxy, or formmail script, your 'contract' is not going to be worth much. But, honestly, if it works, more power to ya!
Michael Loves Me!
There's probably been a few other cases establishing email servers as private property and that's there's no such thing as "the right to email".
The latest blocklists (SPEWS) go after the spamhausen ISP's IP-blocks as well as the spammer's IPs. It's a shame to block non-spammers as well, but they are supporting spam-friendly companies with their money. Hitting the ISPs in the pocket book is the best solution yet, because pin-point IP blocks just didn't work.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I hate SPAM and really enjoy hearing about spammers getting nailed but this probably won't even slow MonsterHut down.
"We are seeking to prevent MonsterHut from continuing its fraudulent, deceptive and illegal practices, not just over PaeTec's network, but over any ISP in New York," Spitzer said.
Well, That's good for New York but MonsterHut will simply move its operations into another state and continue to spam.
The Attorney General is seeking a court order to:
Enjoin MonsterHut, Pelow, and Hartl from falsely representing the nature of their unsolicited commercial email;
Require MonsterHut, Pelow and Hartl to disclose how it obtained all the consumers' email addresses; and
(Now this could be good if they would/could go after people who sell harvested email addresses.)
Require MonsterHut, Pelow and Hartl to pay civil penalties and court costs for its violations of New York's consumer protection laws.
How much will they pay in civil penalties and court costs? Will the amount exceed the amount that these jerks got spamming people? If not then it doesn't seem much of an incentive to stop.
Personally, I feel that we need to get these cases out of the civil courts and into the criminal courts. I think that if Pelow and Hartl had to spend some quality time with Bubba the Butt Fucker they might not spam again.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
In the US, your mailbox doesn't actually belong to you - it belongs to the US Post Office. They allow you to take mail out of it.
I don't like junk mail, but someone's paying the US Post Office to deliver the snail junkmail to mailboxes which are the US Post Office's property. (To be absolutely technical - I think it's something like "you may purchase and own the physical container on the fencepost near the driveway, but the USPS still owns the space within it.")
> (in addition, materials garbage bags, etc.) What about electricity used to power the doorbell when a solicitor comes?
OK, fair enough :)
The (non-property-rights) issue with spam is the one of scale -- junk mail costs money for the sender to deliver. Door-to-door solicitors are throttled by the time/effort that it takes to walk from door to door. Even telemarketers are rate-limited by the number of drones they can have behind the predictive dialers. (Which is we've passed laws to try and combat the use of prerecorded telephone messages. But even these are rate-limited by the time it takes the recording to play back into the victim's voicemail.)
Spam, regrettably, has no such bottleneck. Even if you don't agree that it's theft of the recipient's mailbox, most of it comes through open proxies and open relays -- which clearly qualifies as stealing service from the victimized hosts.
Whether they're stealing very small amounts from millions of victims (the recipients) or larger amounts from a few victims (the bandwidth stolen from unauthorized abuse of intermediate open relays and open proxies) - spammers are thieves.
Source-based filtering work best when the sources are concentrated and not moving (like when Sanford Wallace was making most of the noise.) This still works a little, and is the premise that all the various RBLs and DNS-BLs are based upon. Content-based filtering works only when the content of the spam is either identical for a large number of victims over time (which is how razor works) or contains patterns that are very unlikely to appear in legitimate email. (Tools like spamassassin work well against these.) If these technical measures against (obvious) spams were effective and universially applied, it would cut down on the volume of spam, but the spammers would get more subtle, and start sending spam that is very hard to detect.
Since most spammers do it only once (but there are a lot of them) it would likely help to educate the public that the spamware-salesmen are essentially con-artists. If it were illegal to send spam, this would be a lot easier. Legal measures alone would likely be unenforcable, because of the sheer numbers of spammers, and the fact that its easier for them to get new accounts and other services than it is to track them down. If I my offer an analogy, this is like people burguling my house. I can stop most of them by putting locks on my front door. For those that are determined enough to defeat those locks, the police will will stop them by sending lots of men and women with guns and handcuffs. It also helps if parents and schools teach their children that it's not right to steal.
D'oh! Not Paetec. Another company with a similar name.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Paetec made the mistake of agreeing to contract terms that specified that if 2% (I think that was the figure) of the addresses were found to be non-opt-in, that this would be an acceptable margin of error. Presumably MonsterHut would have removed them from the list if asked. Even in the worst case of assuming that every complaint was one of those non-opt-in addresses, the complaints would have had to reach the level of 2% for Paetec to disconnect them under terms of the contact. It's that contact that allowed MonsterHut to get the injunction. MonsterHut didn't need to say that 100% were opt-in ... it only needed to say that 98% were opt-in, and Paetec didn't have enough numbers to prove that more than 2% were genuinely non-opt-in, at least not initially.
Paetec made some legal blunders. The rest of us can learn from their mistakes. I'll give Paetec the benefit of the doubt for being fooled in this case. A future company will not get that from me.
One step an ISP can do (if they didn't stupidly sign away any rights to do this) is to put the spammer on static IP and set up reverse DNS to name them with the spammer's domain name. Then I can block the spammer without blocking the ISP, regardless of the stupidity of the ISP's lawyers. And this is my common practice ... I block just the spammer if they are in reverse DNS identified static addresses. And I block them by their domain name, so if they move, even to another ISP, they are still blocked. They have to change domain name to evade this (and I'm sure many have).
Also, I do all my anti-spam blocking at the server during the SMTP session. I don't want their spam in my servers, and I don't want rejection notices to sit undelivered for days, either. By stopping spam before the mail is delivered, it doesn't get queued and the sending server has to deal with the rejection (but there is still a rejection in the cases of legitimate mail getting caught so the sender at least knows something happened, and can look for a way around).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I said I would observe all the niceties, including informing their ISP that one of their clients has entered into a binding contract to give me the right to hack through their system to break his box.
I think the ISP would consider that against their TOS (terms of service) and cancel the shithead^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspammer's account fairly quickly - which is the real goal here, isn't it?
After all, just removing my name wouldn't be doing the world a whole heck of a lot of good.
Besides, I'm not stupid. It's a legally binding contract, I can assign it to anyone I choose. Think there aren't a few people who would like to try it out?
Last, but not least: if they do spam, and thus opt-in, they are the ones who are, in effect, saying - "we have agreed that you should come and remove your name by hacking through the boxes connected to us." Now, since they don't have that right in the first place, they are guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation, and this is more ammunition that the ISP can use to shut them down immediately..
So, rather than waiting for the law to catch up, we're using existing laws to can the spam.
I think the ISP would consider that against their TOS (terms of service) and cancel the shithead^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspammer's account fairly quickly - which is the real goal here, isn't it?
Well, I think it will be you who has their account canceled. This would not float at the ISP that I do abuse desk work at and I doubt it would help you out at any other ISP.
Besides, I'm not stupid. It's a legally binding contract, I can assign it to anyone I choose. Think there aren't a few people who would like to try it out? Last, but not least: if they do spam, and thus opt-in, they are the ones who are, in effect, saying - "we have agreed that you should come and remove your name by hacking through the boxes connected to us." Now, since they don't have that right in the first place, they are guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation, and this is more ammunition that the ISP can use to shut them down immediately..
So, rather than waiting for the law to catch up, we're using existing laws to can the spam.
Well, if you really aren't stupid, you SHOULD run this by a real lawyer. Just cause you say it is a legal contract, does not make it so. Considering what happens to crackers nowadays, I would not want to be the first person to try this with out some good legal advice.
Michael Loves Me!
No free speech problem, since the spammers are still free to send their messages. I'd just be choosing not to view them. People who actually wanted to see spam for some reason could opt in at their ISP. I'd be willing to guess that it wouldn't even hurt the spam business too much because spam-haters like me never buy anything advertised via email on principle.
The one thing I don't know is how to allow real (meaning actually opted-in) email through when I've really requested information on a product. So here's a challenge to all you slashdotters - how can you phrase a law to only allow truly requested messages through without opening a loophole for the MonsterHuts?
The Mighty E
1. I wouldn't do it from my machine, or my account, so ... takes care of point one.
2. If we wait for our "wonderful, all-knowing, omniscient legislators" to do something, even 320 gig hard disks won't be big enough to can the spam.
3. Most lawyers know less about the laws concerning software, intellectual property, etc., than I do. I've had to fire lawyers in the past and conduct my own defence (which I always win and if you think this is idle boasting, you've never had to defend yourself against an ex who was an unholy bitch, and paid off witnesses, who were too stupid to stick to their stories under my cross-examination).
4. Remember - half of all lawyers graduate in the bottom half of their class.
How about penile removal from the ones marketing penile enlargement through spam? That'll learn 'em.
Say good bye to public SMTP network, you've got email only from corporate brand domains.
Look at the result more carefully - it is equalled as you would accept only e-signed email. Instead of destroying the idea of public and democratic email infrastructure - you'd rather help to support PGP.
How I see it would work: Bounce back all unsigned email. All email with untrusted e-signature should be delivered with warning, bounced back with the warning, and registered in the local DB of suspicious ones - keep your patterns regarding domains and IP here. If email came with trusted e-signature - accept it even if comes from very strange domains and IP-zones.
New result: the res of the world can communicate with you, not just corporate users.
But still there is that lingering cry of people saying it puts the costs on the receiver. Though I have never seen one ISP raise their rates because of spam, I would be interested in someone showing me one...
DAMNIT!!!!!!!
My time *IS* money, and the time I spend trying to sort through 50-60 spam messages a day to make sure I'm not missing a client's important e-mail is costing me REAL money. Not to mention all the general maintenance time it takes to download and get rid of the sh!t. I can't tell you how often a legitimate message I received gets mistaken as spam for whatever reason and then I'm forced to do damage control.
I hate ignorate posts about "spam doesn't cost anyone anything!"
I hate to break it to you, but the 5th Amendment applies only to governmental institutions, not private entities like corporations and individuals.
Does that make spammers liable to $2k per spam? Could the NYS AG be persuaded to read the law that way, and start going after spammers?
What do you mean?
:)
" Even in the United States"
Have you ever even bothered to check the legal status of free speech in other countries? Or are you so well fed with the notion that the US is "the land of the free" that you believe they are the rolemodel when it comes to free speech? I'd really say that the US is not. This is based on information I gathered when writing a paper that was comparing free speech in different European countries and the US. I'd say that the scandinavian countries (with some variations) are currently the "leaders" when it comes to free speech.
And no, I'm not scandinavian...but I'm not a native english speaker either, so forgive all my tpyos