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[Junk]Fax.com Fined $5.4 Million
Satanboy writes "This article states that a record $5.4m fine was levied on Fax.com after blatantly ignoring requests by the FCC to discontinue the activity of sending unsolicited faxes. This is similar to actions CmdrTaco posted about earlier." The people at junkfax.org are apparently planning a large class-action suit against fax.com as well.
I am SURE someone has pointed this out already but why can't the junk fax law apply to SPAM as well? That is, why can't there be a smiliar law drafted that applies to SPAM like junk faxes? SPAM affects EVERYBODY.
The 5.4 million dollar fine is based on the TCPA, not actual damages.
The problem is that the TCPA hasn't been shown to cover spamming. Which is unfortunate. They really need to superscede it with a law that bans advertisement in all cases where the caller does not foot the bill of the communication -- i.e. making only telemarketing and junk mail legal.
Gentoo Sucks
Spamming on the internet or via snail-mail is bad enough. You waste bandwidth/carrying capacity and a lot of time. But with fax spams, you completely tie up someone's fax lines and waste their ink and their paper. That's even worse than regular spam: it's regular spam plus DOS plus vandalism (those bastards are writing what might as well be graffiti on your quality paper).
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
We have a few major AP articles on the state of spam today and where it's going, plus we have this tidbit hitting the national news.
This is an election year in the US!
Print out these articles and mail them off to your congresscritter and your class II senator if you have one. Include a letter talking about how spam is an issue to you and how you'd like to see things like this happen to junk e-mailers as well. Maybe talk about how similar the two are (using the recipients expensive communications equipment without permission or reimbursemet). Mail some letters off to anybody else running for those seats that you know of.
Write them! Now! You don't even have to get up off your asses for this one! Just open the damned StarWrite window and write!
You should be free to say pretty much whatever you want.
I should not have to pay for your speech.
When you fax me, I have to pay for your speech, unless I agree to do so, this is theft.
Free speech is not absolute, Trade secrets, NDA's, treason, libel, slander, fraud and any number of other things are "speech" but that doesn't permit you to do them either.
The fine calls for the company to pay the maximum penalty of $11,000 per violation.
The FCC is also issuing citations to more than 100 businesses which used Fax.com, warning that they too could be liable to pay the maximum fine if they continue to send unsolicited faxes.
$11,000 per violation? That's a lot. This will make people think twice before doing it. I especially like how the advertisers may be held liable if they continue as well, although I don't think they should only be punished if they continue the practice. They knew what they we buying for their advertising dollar, or at least they should have.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
There's an apropos quote from Carlin, or somebody. What was it? hmmm... oh, yes:
"Fuck the fucking fuckers!"
Maybe congress should pass a law requiring all marketing/advertising/solicitation to be traceable to the advertiser/marketer/solicitor.
In the case of phone calls: valid caller-ID information, and, on request, phone number and address.
In the case of faxes and postal mail: a valid phone number and address.
In the case of email: valid headers, address and phone number.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
And why? Did fax.com send them 5.4 million dollars of spam-infringing material? :)
Maybe it's me, but perhaps the Shareholders of companies running spam should get all the email from uce@ftc.gov forwarded to their private AOL accounts.
That'll show'em.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
The law that was invoked only applies to messages sent to a Telephone Fax machine... and therefore doesn't apply to email. Bummer. Clearly, the law could be extended to include email.
And although it won't stop all spam, those who spam (and those who try to advertise via spam) will be at risk of significant fines. Plus, recipients will know that the messaging is illegal, and will be more likely to take action to protect their resources versus merely tolerating the crap and clicking "delete".
Clearly, a $500 fine per unsolicited fax is a lot of money now... and in 1991, when the law was passed.
But imagine a world where this law didn't exist. There would be many many more organizations that spam fax materials to every number they can find. IN the end, the FAX would become a useless device, where there would be 99% noise and only 1% light.
Therefore, congress passed this law to protect such forseen abuse. At the time, FAX machines were the next great electronic technology, and they had to be protected to be a success.
Now email is on the verge of failure. Many people get 10, 20 or more unsolicited email advertisements per legitamate business correspondence. Clearly, such misuse of email infrustrutre is damaging this new technology. Children can no longer use email due to the pornography advertisements; business people must wade through dozens of junk messages to find the important ones.
Therefore, congress should act now to protect this new and cost-saving technology. Otherwise, it'll be too late, and email will fall out of favor with the business world.
Before you do this be sure to set your CSID to some BS number so that the recipient does not know who it came from!
You do NOT want the recipient to see your company letterhead on the top of your 500 page junk fax!
I suggested something similar to this to someone at my office. They pointed out that the only reply number we had was a £1.50 per minute premium line.
But the fact is that spam prevents me from receiving e-mail as well - through my Bigfoot.com account. I have the free service, which only allows 25 messages per day. Guess what? One day I was informed that "you have exceeded your quota". The rest of the mail was not delivered! And guess what else? The 25 messages I received that day was pure spam!
No legitimate mail seems to get through my Bigfoot forwarding address anymore. Spammers are preventing me from downloading legitimate mail!
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