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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.
So, wait, if there's only a handful of spammers that account for 90% of the spam in my inbox, when do they get a 5.4 million dollar fine?
Surely there are damages. Bandwidth may not be as expensive as paper, but possible productivity used to delete spam is costly. Besides which, the porno spammers could get sued for lots of money by the parents of minors...
Idiot 1: Hey man, let's send some more junk faxes.
Idiot 2: Didn't the FCC say we would get hell if we kept doing that?
Idiot 1: What's the worse they can do? Fine our "company"?!?
Laughter
Idiot 2: I hear the Bamahas are nice this time of year.
Burn Hollywood Burn
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.
The full text of the ruling is here.
The ruling is currently being appealed of couse, but as it stands right now what the spammers have done is prefectly legal. The FCC fine is a joke.
You can also read the relevant K5 story.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
I got a fax the other day that looked like a newspaper clipping, and had a handwritten "thought you might find this intereseting" not on it. Very irritating.
whoops... "not" should be "note"
Article
ruling Kuro5hin thread on the subject
No Zen is good zen
The damages from faxing are aparent in costs of paper and toner, along with tying up the machine itself. Email while annoying doesn't neccessarily impede you from downloading the rest of your email in a timely manner. The only way I can see a comparison would be if there were more email spams that were attachments that were in the megabytes. Those are always a real treat to download when your on dialup, and I can see where it would be comparable.
Basically this sets a precidence that will be followed in the future. Spammers beware... we can only take so much. Right now I average about 80 spam messages a day. While I just sort them into the trash, it is becoming a trend which is getting rather annoying. And I can attest that quite a few of them all come from the same PLACE, not the same email server. If it's an advertisement for the same sex site then they should be held accountable, last I checked there wasn't any free advertising packages available.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I have posted this on slashdot before, but the comment fits the article.
They will hate me for putting this idea into people's minds...but everyone I explain this to gets a kick out of it, so here goes.
1. Take 5 sheets of black construction paper.
2. Scotch tape them into a single 5 sheet long sheet.
3. Place start of "page" into fax machine.
4. Dial the "recipient".
5. Watch sheet start going into the fax machine with glee.
6. Once out the other side, Scotch Tape beginning of "sheet" to end of sheet forming a giant black loop.
7. Giggle like a teenage girl and show your co-workers. Trust me, the showing co-workers step is needed for the full satisfaction. Choose co-workers carefully.
8. You Are Done! Not only that, but the recipient is now out of ink or toner.
Not that I have ever done this...but I know someone who has done this to someone who kept sending them spam faxes.
I hold no responsibility for your actions yada yada...
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
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.
My favorite is the one where there is some product information printed out, as if from internal company report or something Then, there are some lines underlined or circled and a note written in the margin somewhere which says something like: "Jim, this is the one I told you about!"
I guess you are supposed to grab this off the incoming queue and think, "AHa! I've intercepted a confidential memo! Now I, too, will reap the benefits of this secret deal!"
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
Here's a sure-fire way to confound junk faxers and spammers alike:
1) Harvest phone numbers from spam e-mails and e-mails from junk faxes. (you can find these online)
2) Figure out where spammers and faxers get their information from and flood these locations with the e-mails and phone numbers you find; USENET and message boards (like slashdot!) are good for this.
3) Wait for the faxers to start faxing the spammers, and for the spammers to start e-mailing the faxers.
Problem solved.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Phone calls take place, in legal terms, at the location of the person who gets the phone call. For now, let's assume faxes work the same way.
So, the ruling (pointed to by the person to whome I respond) might apply to all of the faxes that Fax.com sent to Eastern Missouri, which may have contributed to the fine, but not to the others. Other courts may (or may not) be advised by this ruling - it is only binding precedent in Eastern Missouri, and coming from a district court, it isn't very strong.
The company itself is in Alisa Viejo; so, unless someone in the District for Southern California, on the 9th circuit has ruled the TCPA unconstitutional, they definitely have no blanket protection. If Faxes take place at the point of transmission, this ruling provides them no protection at all.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
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
"and indirectly for increased cost of postage."
Junk mailers tend to do all their own sorting, research the validity of their addresses in the USPS database and print POSTNET barcodes on them so that any USPS sorting equipment just has to scan the barcode.
First class postage went up because your chicken-scratch handwriting is just too damned hard for the OCR equipment to read and you're too damned lazy to go to usps.com to check to see if you have the right ZIP+4 code.
"We all pay for the amount of pollution it takes to make paper and deliver the mail."
Trees grow back and paper biodegrades (and as you noted in your post, recyclable). The coal used in the power plants to generate the electricity your e-mail rides on doesn't grow back (at least not in our lifetimes) and dumps carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Your call.
They could be considered to be "stealing" your fax paper, or by circumventing your SPAM filter, hacking. Maybe someone can dream up a DMCA defense against spammers.
If all speech is free from liability, it would make the DMCA violation stuff interesting to say the least.
Yeah this is just an infantile link 2 bad things together to cancel them out, and it will probaly never work.
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".
What happened to the right to reasonable privacy within ones home? I know some *cough cough* public figures have said that we cannot expect privacy in public, what about within our homes?
Isn't faxing materials into the home a violation of our privacy?
Maybe we should hold the fax senders under the same standards as telemarketers, after all they are using the same technology.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
We have a /. article talking about an unsolicited junk faxer, and this yahoo posts an article talking about solicited ads.
Where's the "-1 Disinformation" option when you need it? Probably right next to the "-1 Has No Clue" one...
It is already illegal to make an unsolicited call to a cell phone. For exactly that reason. All the major telemarketing firms cull cell numbers from their databases.
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.
Wonderful. Now if only the FCC would actually enforce their radio regulations and clean up the land mobile mess.
If....
If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
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'm sorry that makes no sense at all. How can a federal court decide something is against the constitution but only on one area of a particular state? More importantly, why would they? That would mean the same trial would either effectively have to be tried a few hundred times or the Supreme Court can give up any hope of sleeping.
Can you find a reference to back up that claim of yours?
No Zen is good zen
_A_ court found it unconstitutional. Not _the_ Supreme Court of the US. It's a step forward for spammers and junk faxers, but it is far from the death knell for the law.
What worries me is that now that candidates for public office are spamming, it makes the 'free speech' argument a bit stronger. But it also ignores a few things.
First, fax machines are definately not a 'commons' in any sense of the word. By printing stuff on my fax machine, or sending spam to my server, they have committed a trespass.
Second, there is no possible way to rationally interpret the first amendment as granting the right of trespass. They can send junk email; my mailbox belongs to the federal gov't. But my fax machine is mine. Even if the line belongs to Verizon, the machine is mine. Similarly, even if the IP is only mine temporarily, the server is mine. Mine, mine, mine.
More stupid judges...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This is why it's useful to save junk faxes you receive: if you report them, they migth get added to a large case, and then help shut down a junk faxer.
We get waves of junk fax, all crap -- nothing even marginally businesslike (get free vacations, buy toner cheap, etc.). They all look crappy, all have stupid calls to action, typically no easy way to reply even!
I started faxing the faxers back saying, hi, thanks for giving us all your contact information; here's the relevant US statute that proves what you just did is illegal and we know how to find you. Never send us anything again, or we'll pursue all civil options available to us.
Oddly, the faxes have stopped. Who knew that would work. Now if it only worked with spammers!
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
that requests that you fax your interest back to them.
Step 1) find black construction paper at your workplace.
Step 2) write "Stop Spamming" in stencil on white paper
Step 3) Cut out message and tape to black construction paper
Step 4) fax back message that uses a shitload of recipient's fax toner
Step 5) Smile and enjoy the rest of day.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
I'm capped, so I can't whore.
A quick google search turns up this:
Decisions of a federal court of appeals must be followed by all of the district courts located within that circuit. District courts outside that circuit, however, are not bound by such decisions. Further, one district court does not have to follow the rulings of any other district court. A court is bound only by the decisions of higher courts that have direct jurisdiction over it. This is the concept of precedent. Because it is the highest court in the country, all courts must follow precedent established by the United States Supreme Court.
Yes, the site that is from is directed at HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. In the future, you might do a little research to see if the thing you dispute is common knowledge, before asking for a source.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Anyways, it'd be kinda fun if it was possible to somehow detect a junk fax (maybe an empty TSID is good enough? All the legit faxes I get have a TSID) and then deliberately try to keep the faxer on the line as long as possible, running up their phone bill. Force the modem to 300 baud or something like that :) Maybe request retransmissions too (I don't know if faxes even support that). So is this possible?
Besides which, the porno spammers could get sued for lots of money by the parents of minors...
I'm still waiting for an aggressive district attorney to file criminal charges against porno spammers who send mail to minors - there are a number of different charges that could be brought up. I wonder why it's not been done, yet.
It's going to take the threat of criminal charges to stop most spammers, I think.
Get off my launchpad!
"This is a fax virus. Please light this fax on fire and place it on the floor."
We actually caught a company doing this to us a couple of years back, except instead of the fax, they were actually mailing us those magazine ads dressed up to look like articles. Attached to said ad (carefully looking like it was ripped from a real magazine) was a Post-it-note, with our company's owner's name on it, to this effect:
:(
"David, here is the article I was talking about". Seems pretty personal, until I found the very same thing at several companies we dealt with - all with THEIR company's owner/president/manager's name on it. I guess those business directories for mass marketing really DO have a purpose.
Of course, nothing beats the latest from Publishers Scamming House: envelopes and contents dressed up with realistic "highlighting" and "handwriting", all carefully printed out from a high-speed color printer. The crossed out "spelling mistakes" and detail of the highlighted lines, all made to look like a real person did it, astounds me every time I see it.
Maybe it's just me, but such blatant attempts at deception sure come close to fraud in my books. The Better Business Bureau disagreed, however
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Not that it affects me, I live in Missouri and our no-call list works beautifully. I have had one telemarketing call since the list was started. A few clicks on the mouse and a lookup of the phone number on caller id and I had it reported to the Missouri Attorney General's No-Call site.
You should have waited a few minutes before posting, there were cites in Politech in the very next post pointing to other Federal courts where the anti-junkfax law was upheld. Unless the 8th Circuit upholds the District Court's pro-junk fax ruling, the FCC enforcement continues.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The bst blacklist filters get 50% of the spam, and have a positive number of false positives (i.e. real mail accidentially junked) as well.
Your point that filters aren't perfect (with both false positives and false negatives) is correct, but your 50% estimate is way too low. The IP-based filtering at spamcop.net catches 90-95% of my incoming spam, with around a 1% false positive rate. It's much better than Brightmail, which my ISP uses.
What you do is sign up for $30/yr, and they give you an email address at spamcop.net. You forward all incoming mail to that address; their system looks through the headers for signs that it originated (or passed through) a blacklisted system. Stuff that passes the check goes into a POP3/IMAP mailbox, or can be forwarded offsite (your choice). Stuff that fails is either tagged as spam or diverted to a separate folder, again by your choice.
Some people have much higher false positive rates than me: if you are unlucky (or stupid) enough to use an ISP whose servers are blacklisted, then all of your incoming mail will be filtered. But if you use it as recommended, this just tags or diverts the message, it won't be deleted.
They also make it pretty easy to report incoming spam, and their filter is based on blocking any IP address that has been reported sufficiently recently.
It's a good service.
Quite a few people are asking how to apply something like this to email spam. My suggestion is to use whatever anti-spam law may exist on the books in your state and sue the advertiser named in the spam. File it in small claims court, then subpoena their advertising records to prove the purchase of service from the spammer. Even if the suits are thrown out we're still talking about a cost of several hundred dollars per suit to the advertiser. At some point it would have to become more expensive to defend the advertising than to stop it.
That really is the key here, to make it more expensive to advertise this way than not, and ideally the law should make both the company advertised and the spammer liable. That together with a spam email being prima facia evidence of the crime placing the burden of proving the spam was sent without the advertiser's knowledge on them.
If you have it auto forwarding, then its you that is calling a cell phone, not the telemarketer. Your fault, not theirs.
BTW, a simmilar argument was made for email a few years back, there were some products out there that would auto-forward emails to a fax machine (I even wrote one of em!). This was when email wasn't a primary means of communication, and fax was. They could have business people go grab the pile of faxes, and not have to have a seperate process for emails.
When spam started taking off, people said "well, If I forward to my fax machine, does that count with the anti-spam-fax law?"
Nope, because they were sending to the fax, not the spammer.
On most machines, the local buffer holds a scan of all the pages BEFORE the machine even dials. Your machine may differ.
There's lots of problems with the continuous black page attack, but this one is the most easy to mitigate. Most FAX machines that I've dealt with can disable the "memory send" feature, which results in a direct transmission of the FAX. I do this all the time, since my FAX machine is brain dead and waits 5-10 minutes before even starting a memory send.
The other problems others have mentioned: no actual printing machine on the other end, expensive toll calls, are hard to get around. I would imagine that "pro" faxsmappers use outbound-only trunks that cannot accept an incoming call, their computers are originate-only. And how do you get their number in the first place, providing they're dumb enough to call from a regular line with whatever machine they have set to accept?
Better to get their home address, some friends and a couple of fungo bats.
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First, fax machines are definately not a 'commons' in any sense of the word. By printing stuff on my fax machine, or sending spam to my server, they have committed a trespass.
... they are using your equipment and your resources to advertise their products, at your expense. There is nothing whatsoever in the constitution that bars a well crafted law from banning such activity outright, or from providing harsh remedies for those who do violate such a law.
Excellent point. In addition, you are paying the cost for their "speech." Clearly the constitution intended for speakers to provide their own soap box, not be required to be given one at someone else's direct, monetary expense.
Second, there is no possible way to rationally interpret the first amendment as granting the right of trespass. They can send junk email [sic?]; my mailbox belongs to the federal gov't. But my fax machine is mine. [emphesis added]
Was this a typo? Surely you meant the can send you junk postal mail. Your email box belongs to you. It is a file you own (literally, and in several senses of the word if you run UNIX or GNU/Linux), residing on your hard drive, with data that comes across the internet or telephone connection you pay for. It is not, in any way, owned by the government.
Email SPAMMERS are exactly like Fax spammers
Postal mail, on the other hand, is another story, as you correctly point out.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's worth noting that in my state (Arizona), [spamming telephones using automatic dial announcement devices] is illegal.
It's also illegal in the United States for anyone involved in interstate commerce. It was made illegal as part of the same junk fax law (47 USC 227), which I refuse to call the TCPA because of the Palladium implications.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, junk mail subsidizes your mail. Mail would be more expensive if it weren't for the junk mailers.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
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