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Politicians Seek Spam Loophole
Steve B writes "An article in the Mercury News by Mike McCurry and Larry Purpuro (respectively heading an "advocacy management and communications software company" and a "political e-marketing firm") wraps the case for political spam in all the usual Mom-Flag-&-Apple-Pie cliches. They conclude with a cynical appeal for a special exemption, while condescendingly instructing anti-spammers that their efforts are "better focused on commercial e-mail" and painting spammer Bill Jones as a victim who made a few trifling mistakes."
Is it just me or does what they are saying really just boil down to, "Everyone elses Spam is bad but ours..."
Very similar to the old cliche that some people really believe that their shit don't stink.
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
First we'll have exceptions for candidates for public office.
Then we'll have demands for party affiliates and candidate support groups to have their own equivalent exceptions added, since they speak on behalf of the candidates (purely nonprofit, of course).
Then we'll have demands from the lobbyists to have their exceptions added, since they push the issues that the candidates deal with on a daily basis, and if a candidate is, say, pro-life, why shouldn't the pro-choice lobbyists get equal say?
And finally, since many lobbyists are on corporate payroll, the corporations can just take the gloves off and ask for their own exemptions, since they might want to support a particular candidate, and as a legal "individual" (without voting rights, of course), they are entitled to endorse a particular candidate in means outside of the normal campaign contributions.
But, of course, once they get their hands on the e-mail lists of a certain group of constituents, you can bet that it will accidentally fall into the wrong hands, along with the demographic/geographic data that accompanies it.
Marketer heaven. And, before long...Spammer heaven.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I love how he repeatedly says how the candidate saved money. Not once mentioning that it actually costs ISPs money to deliver these things. Like he thinks by pushing the send button, the magical internet fairies come and deliver each email by hand. But then again, politicians were always good at spending other peoples money.
Once political spam becomes mainstream, you'll soon see some dirty tactics.
It's an old trick for a candidate's staff to canvas for votes for the OTHER guy -- at 3AM. No better way to piss people off and get them to vote for you instead of them. Print up campaign stickers for the other guy, and paste 'em on people's car bumpers. Make sure they're the sort that don't come off without special chemicals. There are several variations on this theme that have been used before and will be used again.
So when your mailbox gets bombed with 100 spams, all asking you to vote for someone, and all infected with Klez -- don't assume they actually came from the candidate.
In reading the piece, "Internet can level the political playing field" by Mike McCurry and Larry Purpuro, I felt the overwhelming need to stress a single point that seems to have been completely missed by the writers. They utterly failed to realize that e-mail costs the recipient of the e-mail message time and money. Be it the 3 seconds wasted downloading the message from their mail server, or the cost of the phone call for the internet access, or the usage of total monthly bandwidth that some ISP's allot to users, e-mail costs the receiving party money. This is the very heart of the problem with ANY unsolicited e-mail. Television, radio, and print ads all do not cost the recipient of the advertisement money. If it wasn't an ad for a politician, it would be an ad for some product or service; in any case, the recipient would still receive an ad. But e-mail is a very cheap way to mass sent advertisements to others while making them pay for the "privilege" of receiving the message. This is the very reason why people are not allowed to fax unsolicited ads to other fax machines. The cost is a lot more dramatic in the case of a fax machine, but the cost is still there even in e-mail. It should not matter whether it cost you $.10 because of paper and ink in the case of the fax machine or the $.01 it can cost for the bandwidth, memory needs, and time it can cost for an e-mail.
Here is a simple question that I would like answered. Should we, as consumers, have to pay every time someone sends an advertisement for their product to us? If we did we would all be broke very quickly. The people promoting and advertising products, services, or political campaigns are the ones who should foot the bill of spreading their information.
Unsolicited e-mail is like sending something cash on delivery without a way of refusing to receive the item. Any person or group of persons should be held accountable for any and all monetary charges they force upon others. Unsolicited e-mail in any form should be dealt with in the harshest manor available to the recipient. There is no such thing as unharmful unsolicited e-mail, if it costs anyone other then the sender money, then it is causing harm.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Can I mod this article -1, Flamebait, please?
All we have is a spammer apologist claiming that 'spam is only as bad as as direct-mail, telemarketers, or TV ads!'
Well, guess what? People hate telemarketers, but that's not the point. The point is that all three of those are (say it together, now) PAID FOR BY THE ADVERTISER.
Spam isn't. It gets paid for by the recepient, like postage-due junk mail.
And you don't even get the choice of refusing it.
If spammers were willing to pay all the costs of sending spam (not just the cost to click the 'Send' button), I think there'd be a lot less concern.
I know I'd be more willing to 'just delete it' in that case...as well as set up a bulk mail filter (I just depend on Sneakemail right now).
I mod down anyone who uses M$ in their posts. I like to live on the edge.
Is what the guy really did that bad? Yes, it was an unsolicited email, but don't you want to know about who's attempting to be be elected to the highest government office in the state? This wasn't exactly an ad for penis enlargment or girlie porn, but an example of free speech.
This man is attempting to gain a seat of enormous power over Californians and they they don't care about that, they care about what was likely a text message with a link or two. ---Speculation of course, but I've seen no presentation that it was otherwise.
If this practice does become more widespread, I wonder if voter turnout would be affected, beyond the possible minority that would attempt to vote out the evil, malign spammer. It does make a good point about leveling the playing field a little bit. I would think that this would lend a little bit more democracy to the process of elections and government, rather than how elections are often won now, with money.
No one ever said that a government of the people, for the people, and by the people was supposed to be easy.
If any spam legislation does come about, the politicians should have a loophole.The process would likely self regulate itself. If a politician sends out a spam, and if either his presentation or content prove unpopular, they get knocked out of the race. Most importantly, these are messages that in essence say,"I'm one of the guys trying to control some heavy aspects of your life." To not listen to those messages could be a tremendous folly.
We not only need more voters in the US, we need informed ones.
This is a little OT and some might not agree. In any case, I think elections in the U.S. would be much better if TV campaign ads were banned altogether. I could live without donation limits or overall campaign spending limits if only TV ads were banned. I don't think it's a free speech issue. Nothing guarantees my right to go on TV and spout off about my piss-me-off-du-jour complaints. The politicos and their henchmen argue that I could do that - if I had the money to do it. Let's face it, a big chunk of campaign money goes to TV and cable operators.
Get their self-serving, bashing, slime-hurling, pseudo-factual (and sometimes outright dishonest) ads off the air at election time altogether. Let the voter who wishes to be informed to READ about the candidates and issues rather than having (dis)information spoon-fed to them through the boob tube. The cost of campaigns would decline dramatically.
Ah, what the fuck. The problem of spamming politicians pales in comparison to the damage being done via political ads on TV. This country is doomed because the vast majority of the people in it are fucking stupid. Who was it that said "Nobody ever went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the American public"? At one time in this country reasonable people had a good shot at educating/informing/persuading the masses as to what was "the right thing". TV, and to a lesser extent other forms of media, have turned Americans' brains to mush.
...this makes way too much sense. Perhaps I'm just being too cynical, but as wonderful as your suggestion is, I just don't see it happening, for three reasons.
1) The vast majority of the voting populace is stupid. Too many of them couldn't distinguish a good public debate from an old episode of Flying Circus. (Frankly, given some of the candidates lately, I'm not sure I can either.) Now I'd hope and expect this to be less true of the subset of the public that regularly uses the Internet, but sometimes, I'm just not too sure about that.
2) Most politicians don't want real public debate on issues. That takes thought and preparation and may require an admission that they were wrong about something or perhaps don't know enough about the issue to form an opinion. As long as there are only a few debates, they're televised, and they're short, the politicians can focus on just a few tried-and-true issues, avoid the tough questions, sling a little mud, distort a few statistics, and just be done with it already. Much less effort, and to the vast stupid swaths of population, much more convincing.
3) Most politicians don't want the playing field too level. Incumbents have more money. They like that more money means significantly better chances. And the Democrats and Republicans like that the television debate format doesn't scale well with increasing numbers of candidates. They'd like us to believe that really only two candidates can comfortably fit on a half-hour televised debate. Anything that brings third-party candidates into debates and lends them any air of legitimacy is bad to them, and to be avoided.
Again, this is my cynical side speaking here. My idealistic side is saying the exact same thing you are. Unfortunately, in the world of politics, and especially American politics, my cynical side tends to be closer to right much more often.
-----Chaz
Oh come on. Spam is going to level the political playing field about as much as the Internet leveled the business playing field. Do people buy more books from amazon.com or from Wobberly's ? If an underdog mounts an email campaign, an overdog mounts a bigger email campaign. Duh!
People still cling to the quaint vision of democracy in America rising from the ashes because of some magic ring that can only be worn by the good guys. There's no such thing!
America is governed by lobbyists and PACs who have successfully cracked the system. The only way I can think of to win is not to play the game. Instead of competing make money irrelevant, for example by making Congress sort of like a priesthood, wherein elected officials relinquish all material goods for the rest of their lives and live on a modest stipend. Something like that might work. Yeah, like it would ever happen.
Quote:
When a political candidate sends a voter an e-mail, that recipient can choose to delete the message without opening it, unsubscribe from the list, read it or even reply and engage the sender. That choice should belong to the voter -- not to anti-spam advocates
And the authors of this are:
(1) president of a political e-marketing firm
(2) CEO of a communications software company
So, the above should really read - "Don't you anti-spam advocates mess with our business, it's very different from spam. Spam is all about Viagra, while we offer you politicians !"
I like my outfit, it's inexpensive, but cool -- April Ryan
Spam: Bulk email from a stranger. Solved mostly with technology and a little bit by laws. By emphasizing method (bulk), not content, we can use technology to block spam and courts are likely to uphold our rights to do so. Blocks or bans on content (1), non-bulk email (2), or email from a pre-existing business relationship (3) are likely to fail and could make the problem much worse.
Non-bulk email, or email from entities who aren't strangers: not spam, however annoying. Generally solved with boycotts, public ridicule, and questions about ethics "Would you accept 'technically I didn't lie' from an employee? Then why should we the public accept it?" (As for 'friendly' email, replies of "By forwarding this email to me you give me permission to think you're an idiot. There is no virus. Timmy hates postcards. You can't send angelic blessings as an attachment, and if I wanted that joke I'd go to rec.humor.funny-the-1st-time-20-repetitions-ago." might work.)
Laws: Even on spam not a good idea- ineffective at best. Dishonest spam & spammers (forged headers, etc.) don't care about existing US laws- they break laws on contracts ('no spamming' ISP contracts), theft (stolen credit cards to pay for accounts), identity fraud, spam (California requires "ADV," in the subject line...), and more already. And domestic laws can't stop a fundamentally international problem. Even worse, if US laws only ban dishonest spam then honest (think DMA) spam is legitimized. And banning commercial speech alone won't make it because of the Constitution. It protects commercial speech much more than some people might think. Thus, it is bad to focus on...
(1) Content: Political or religious messages can still be spam, and any speech, commercial or not, has to be really, really bad before the Supreme Court will even start to think about unprotecting it. You'd have to prove Spam-speech is equivalent to "'fire!' in a crowded theater" or "riot right now" speech. Unlikely. Instead, focus on...
(2) "Bulk" because bulk is what causes damage. One bounced email: no problem. 100,000: big problem. Courts are likely to find that individually written emails, however annoying, aren't going to cause the damages of bulk - people just can't write that many in a day. Courts won't like punishing a person who wrote one letter ("Hi, I saw an article about you, you might be interested in my software..." is an unsolicited commercial email. Laws that ban it won't last very long.). "Bulk" makes a better brightline. If a spammer is caught breaking an ISP's contract, and claims the emails weren't bulk, easy perjury... Judge: "4 emails with boilerplate text after the first sentence. This isn't bulk?" Exceptionally stupid Spammer: "No."
(3) "From a stranger" for two reasons. One- its easier to prove that bulk email from strangers is inherently a burden. Email from all 200 businesses and 10 candidates you do know: irritating but not impossible to deal with, maybe not worth curbing speech. Email from all 29.9998 million businesses and ten thousand candidates you don't know (opt-outable or not): impossible. Two- if you voluntarily gave your email address out, courts might rule that caveat emptor trumps "punish them because their email annoys me."
[...]
Your district's natural resources are there for slash-and-burn style exploitation by your district's largest political contributer to your political fund.
I can't help but thinking that that is exactly what all the candidates are actually saying beneath the sugar-coated fluff that are their campaign speeches.
Ah well.
The cost needed to run a successful campaign in the US is already ridiculous. And this weeds out people who cannot obtain truckloads of corporate money - surely not a good thing.
How high does it have to go before you would start having doubts?
Female Prison Rape in NY
The good thing about political spam is that it is really easy to trace - at least so far. All the political spam I've received has been straight-up about who sent it (usually their campaign office).
In my book - this isn't SPAM. If I can call, write, email, or personally visit the guy who sent it, then I really dont class it alongside 'send $10 to PO BOX 666 for a hot babe' type SPAM.
Email from hagkjhkj@hotmail.com offering viagra is SO different from 'hi - vote for me'.
Politicians have a duty to inform the public - email is an excellent, cost effective, environmentally friendly way to do this. Drop your SPAM IS EVIL mindset for 2 seconds and see the wider picture.
In the USA, the odds are about even that any political spam you get was at least partially funded by an RIAA/MPAA member.
It gives you a reason to vote for the opponent of whoever's sending it.
For a politician with a clue (yes, there are a very few), it's also useful. If a political consultant proposes it, he knows to fire the imbecile and hopefully, the consultant will go to work for the opponent. . . sinking the guy's campaign.
So political spam indeed serves a useful purpose. It tells you that the politician it promotes is an idiot without having to do the ordinary work required to get the candidate's position on the issues that matter to you.
A spammer politician is not going to be proposing or voting for a repeal of the DMCA.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Well, I depends on your point of view. I already get a lot of spam on how to evade US tax laws - or how to get certains US permits, etc. Guess what, I don't live in the US. Getting messages from US politicians would certainly be spam in my book.
At least, viagra works - the same cannot be said from politicians. :-)
The core problem is always the same "it's not spam if it is sent to the right people". The problem is, spammers are not very good at selecting the right people.
If you add up all the people that cannot vote in the US, don't care, don't want to get political stuff at their work address or hate the guy anyway - it makes quite a lot of people that will get unsollicited e-mail, eg will be spammed.
Political messages can be handled in the same way that legitimate communications from organisations: by using an opt-in mechanism.
Politicians have a duty to inform the public - email is an excellent, cost effective, environmentally friendly way to do this. Drop your SPAM IS EVIL mindset for 2 seconds and see the wider picture.
So, if a political candidate calls you collect to ask you to vote for him, it's okay? What if you couldn't refuse the charges?
First of all, see the wider picture yourself and realize that campaign emails are not "informing the public" but are advertisements.
Secondly, the problem with spam is that it costs the receiver money[1] as opposed to most other media where it only costs the sender. When spammers advertisements don't cost me any money, then I'll be content to set up my filters and let them have at it.
Television ads don't cost me money. Direct mail doesn't cost me money. Radio spots don't cost me money. Until you can say the same thing about email ads, stop comparing them.
[1] For the few who haven't heard this before: Even if you pay monthly for unlimited access, it still cost you money. Your ISP has to pay for the extra bandwidth and equipment to handle the traffic. One guess who gets to pay for that in terms of higher access fees.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.