Slashdot Mirror
Direct Marketers Association Asks To Be Regulated
alanjstr writes "Recognizing that with all the spam out there, the legitimate messages don't get through, the Direct Marketers Association (DMA) has decided that they will no longer oppose federal anti-spam legislation, but that forged headers should be illegal."
Hell has just frozen over.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
SOMEONE PLEASE STOP ME BEFORE I SPAM AGAIN!
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
from article: But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."
so the Direct Marketing Association is still a bunch of scumbags after all...
Direct marketing finally gets a clue. Hooray!
What about when I have one mail address on my server with a lot of aliases pointing to it? Can I still "forge" the headers to say that it's coming from one of the aliases?
Yes, yes - this really isn't "illegal"... My question is, when does it become illegal?
Further information from the Star Tribune can be found here...
What's up with the 'but' there? There's no contradiction in those clauses. They're both in support of a common goal.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
The story is about the Direct Marketers Association asking to be regulated by the government, yet the topic icon doesn't have wings.
Strange...
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
However, if you read the article, all they're trying to do is water down the existing bills in Congress!
Hell hasn't frozen over, and enemies of spam should still be enemies of the DMA!
Please Mr. Legislator, shut off that spam (which doesn't come from us), so that we may send our spam messages in peace.
I think the Direct Marketers who really want to sell stuff have realized that they need positive marketing techniques, and are willing to realize that the spammers, and other not-so-reputible business establishments have really made consumers sick to death of hearing from anyone selling anything.
The first step for these businesses is to see that spamming and dishonesty doesn't win customers - customers will not do business with you to spite you if they get ten unsolicitated e-mails from people about your business than if you just put on advertisement on television, or just used word-of-mouth advertising.
i've noticed that a great deal of the spam that has the "opt in" notice is by reference and changes on a daily basis.
1. you opt in on just one, let's say amazon
2. warner bros makes a "patnership" with amazon. warner bros starts spamming you.
3. warner bros then makes a partnership with the bestrate loan company who starts spamming you.
4. bestrate loan company makes a "paternship" with joe's porn palace and before you know it your p*nis is being enlarged!
Considering that the DMA setup an alleged "consumer
group against spam" back in march or so, this apparent change in stance is not news to me.
The only newsworthy thing is that the DMA has recognised that some forms of their crap are not productive.
I have the utmost confidence that they, and their members will completely, utterly and absolutely ignore _any_ anti-spam legislation that is passed, just lack they routinely violate the _current_ TCPA laws.
Any product that requires marketing by _any_ members of the DMA can be safely dismissed as a scam, as the only requirement for admission to the DMA is to be a con artist.
"We absolutely need legislation," Cerasale said. "So we're going to have to work to get a compromise that'll have enough support so it will pass."
Really, opt in would be nice, but if they could just follow the common rules and use [ADV] series tags in the subject line, I would be perfectly happy.
-
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein
*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
;) Course do code samples get through?
Was gonna paste some spam here (hoping for a score of funny) but Slash didn't like the number of "junk" characters.
Nice technique
An opt-in list is a publicly available database of verified email addresses likely to be uncluttered by 'legitimate' spam. Won't it just be targeted by offshore spammers?
Additionally, since a vast amount of spam is fraudulent (or so my Nigerean Finance Ministry contacts tell me), assuming ethical standards for any of these people is absurd.
Let's face it - spamming is no more a profession than being a heroin dealer. To expect professional standards out of them is equally fruitless.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
... now I can get legal spam instead of just the regular... :D
God does not play dice - Albert Einstein
stood for something else...
Di-something.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
The DMA (or the gun lobby or you name it) gets involved when they see that regulation is inevitable. Their purpose? To "shape" the law according to their perogatives -- i.e., eviscerate it. Microsoft uses a similar strategy with "embrace, extend, extinguish."
The DMA's job is to promote DMA, not to tailor it to our desires or rights -- requiring opt-out is a good example. They provide a limited opt-out for junk mail and telemarketing primarily to silence their critics and head off decisive government intervention.
Many states already have anti-spam legislation on the books, but it is rarely enforced because of the difficulty in tracking these cretins down. A federal law would provide uniformity and predictability of everyone's rights and obligations. And hey, it might even work.
A recent article reported with a straight face a major spammer's contention that they HAD to forge the headers because otherwise anti-spam zealots would complain to their ISP and get them shut down -- making opt-outs impossible. Ha!
if spammers can't resort to forging headers, won't this make them easy (easier) to filter?
Essentially, they are saying "Spam will be sent, but from businesses that we warrant legitimate". Are these pornography companies not legite? Surely, some of them must be...
If (and it's a big if) SPAM was opt-out, but the opt-out was centralized, and as effective as the DMA's mailing and phone opt-out lists, this wouldn't be that bad. Those "physical world" lists work quite well. Difference is, of course, that, if you hate junk postal mail and telephone solicitations, the DMA _wants_ you to opt-out; why spend postage, phone charges, and staff time soliciting people who aren't going to buy? It's a waste of money. For email SPAM, though, the wasted money is so minimal as to be irrelevant...
These advertisers can then pay ISP's a 'distribution fee', which allows mail signed by that marketer's key to pass through the ISP spam filter. This ensures that spam is not free, which will drop the number of spam messages, and will also cause a corresponding increase in quality.
We are not getting rid of spam, but establishing a reasonable system for permitting its distribution seems fair.
If they're regulated, they can point to the legislation and claim legitimacy whenever they do something not explicitly outlawed.
Not to mention that they'll probably sneak in a clause to outlaw RBLs.
And besides, I doubt the worst offenders are members of the DMA, much less citizens of the US.
This has to be a setup or a trick or something.
But then again I see MS gave Linus a beautiful giant wooden penquin this morning. Things are looking up
As with all computerized information that can be modified, I strongly believe it should not be illegal to modify headers in an email message. The possibility of such modification is extremely useful for the computer professional in fields including programming, debugging and network administration.
Instead of having laws passed to dictate what can be done with a particular tool, I believe resources should instead be spent on securing and strengthening software, and on otherwise improving this field technically. To prevent the reception of email messages that appear to come from a trusted source, all email clients should automatically apply encryption. Nearly all mail sent through the postal service is enclosed in envelopes. I strongly believe the electronic realm would benefit from the electronic equivalent of an envelope.
...Like a supermodel.
...With a 6 pack of Keystone beer.
My email is constantly bombed with spam. Within 2 hours after registering an email account the first spam arrives. It slowly increases until it chokes off all life. Does this sound like a noxious weed?
And beer is free and the camels run the streets free... free as a bird. God taht was ahorribly bad Lennon song. -1 offtopic
the difference between the DMA and the gun lobby is that the gun lobby is fighting for your rights. so dont bring them into it, you cant compare the two since one organization invades your inbox and the other allows you to protect yourself.
that said, yep the DMA will definitely only do things that are in its own best interest.
I bet DMA don't like Microsoft either. Microsoft has promised that their Palladium will stop spam.
Direct marketing is spam and a darn nuissance, no matter what DMA claims.
Personally I don't want any of the above.
The DMA is open to the idea of the government saying that some forms of theft of service by conversion and trespass to chattel is unaccaptable, so long as the theft of service, theft by conversion and trespass to chattel that their members want to commit is still legal.
Did I get that right?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
What is good news, though falls under 'I will believe it when I see it' is headers that are not forged. To be effective, this will have to go beyond a valid from and return address. It will have include all headers, including all routing information. Such information will be critical if a user is not promptly removed from a list after a request. We have to be able to notify the upstream provider that the company is not following the rules.
The next question to ask is if forged headers are bad, then why is anonymous telephone numbers for telemarketers good. Mind you, I think it is a good thing because I ignore all anonymous phone calls(none of my friends or contacts are so cowardly as to hide from me), but I wonder why anyone would think a business that needs to hide behind an anonymous phone number would be slightly legitimate?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Much of the spam is relayed through open-relay overseas servers that don't log their originating hosts in Received headers. Such relaying is not only obfuscation, but theft of services as well, and I strongly encourage any anti-spam law to explicitly bar this practice of using insecure third-party relays, as well as forging headers.
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
So basically from what I can see, this means nothing? So direct marketting will follow the rules and not forge headers, and they think that it should be illegal.
Big Deal
I will still have to filter out the same number of get rich quick schemes, drug selling operations, and teensexwhoreslutlittlegirlswithbigboobs.com type companies from my mailbox. The "legit" spam will be filtered out just the same as always, or at least, I'll try to keep the filters going.
I can see how this has the same affect as the "you must provide a way to opt out" rule put in a while ago. This meant that now people don't opt out from spam because you don't know if the company is legit and is going to take you off their lists, or if they are just trolling for valid emails.
Basically spam is spam is spam, it's unwanted mail in my inbox, and if someone says it's legal to do, that's great, I still don't want it.
Great! Now we will have to accept spam as a civic duty!
"We need legislation," said Jerry Cerasale, the DMA's vice president for government affairs. "We believe the sheer volume will just swamp the medium and the medium will no longer be useful for marketing."
When the spammers realise that, then I'll take notice and celebrate!
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
If the DMA does start lobbying, Everett-Church says the big question will be the wording of the final bill: "The question is how are they going to define spam and solve the problem in a way that actually makes a difference to consumers' mailboxes?"
I can see these guys lobbying
Maybe they can spam the legislators until submission.
-R
While the law will probably enumerate various possibilities, think of the intent of the changed header.
If you can be easily reached after changing the header field, there's not a problem. This is why that "I had to forge the headers to protect the opt-outs" claim doesn't hold water - if this was a serious concern you could set up a second accuont to handle all complaints yet still protect your outbound account.
If you can't be reached after changing the header field, then it's a problem.
And if attempts to reach you result in the harassment of an innocent third party, e.g., the guy whose domain name you forged in your headers, then it's definitely illegal.
Everything else is just window dressing.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If these "direct marketers" understood how e-mail works, they would shut the fuck up. But no, they have taken the great network and turned it into a medium to convey advertisements without learning jack shit about it.
The authors of SMTP server software have the power in this situation. Spammers will not stop until the protocol is modified and it's not possible for them to "forge" headers anymore. The protocol could use some changes, but not part which allows headers to be "forged."
When a company asks to be regulated, WATCH OUT! What they actually want is to be regulated, so that they can control the regulations. Then, everything they do will be legal, so there won't be any reason to block them.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
It really doesn't matter what they propose or do now, they have ZERO credibility, and the tools to ensure spam of any sort doesn't get through are getting much better. I've gotten used to accepting mail ONLY from those names I choose to and rejecting everything else...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
So what if the US passes laws and regulations on what spam can be sent? Most of the spam I get doesn't originate from the US anyways.
Even if this weren't a masked attempt at legitimizing "opt-in list" tactics and such, it still wouldn't do any good.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
1. Jack
2. Shi...errr, squat
Seriously, though...do spammers really care about the law?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
If their business model requires me to not opt-in, what sort of business model is that? Just because opt-in isn't in their favor doesn't mean that they should have the right to waste my resources hawking their wares.
Any time where I have to pay to receive messages, I shouldn't have to receive messages I didn't sign up for. If I get an ad in an email, it's usually a sure fire way for me to avoid that company and it's products
No, you apparently get that by deluging me with junk mail i never asked for. The "noneconomic model" comes from the fact that I have never and will never do business with a company that stoops to "direct marketing."
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Still, this might help in spite of them. A U.S.-wide law against forged "from" messages from commercial spam would at least dissuade some, especially if it had a stiff penalty. This would make it easier to set up my mailbox so that I raise the priority for people I've talked with before; with stiff penalties, they're less likely to forge friends' addresses.
This would be REALLY good if the federal law also required the "ADV" convention, and nailed down EXACTLY what it means. It's already in some state laws. If I could automatically reject the messages without having to read them all, that would steal my bandwidth and storage, but at least it wouldn't steal my time.
Yeah, not everyone obeys the law, there are offsite systems, etc. But it would be a first step, and some legal tools would make it a lot easier to employ technical ones. For example, there's no point in tracking down offenders if they've broken no law. Also, the evasion techniques make it much clearer that they ARE breaking the law. Finally, if nearly all email from some asian countries are spam, then entire continents can blacklist them... and that would be a real wake-up call that would reduce spam. So, a few basic laws can really enable technological solutions, so even a feeble law might help.
I've written down a few comments and anti-spam techniques at http://www.dwheeler.com/esssays/stopspam.html; some of you may find them interesting. I know many others are interested in stemming this outrageous flood of spam that is threatening to steal the ability to receive email.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
If this gets at least some effective anti-spam legislation on the books then let's look at what an acceptable anti-spam legistlation meeting the DMA's requirement would need to be a good thing. First it would need enforcement with teeth. Long, sharp, pointy teeth. No itty bitty fine and a clear ability to get by the shelters and shell corporations that the spammers set up to distance themselves from their dirty work. Second it would need to have no cascading opt-ins. Nobody has any control over what 'marketing partnerships' (which is really just old-fashioned selling of mailing lists) a company engages in so any opt-in should not automaticaly transfer. Third there should be an option for an enforcable global opt-out. I know that the DMA hates this but I regard it as necessary. We have some e-mail address that just serve business purposes, i.e. info@.... and sales@... amd service@... and webmaster@... and so forth yet these get the worst quantites of spam because they appear on the web site and are picked up by the spiders. But frankly having the DMA not opposing everything means that at least some legislation can be passed (unless the powerfull breast and penis enlargement lobby can block it!)
The DMA (or the gun lobby or you name it) gets involved when they see that regulation is inevitable. Their purpose? To "shape" the law according to their perogatives -- i.e., eviscerate it. Microsoft uses a similar strategy with "embrace, extend, extinguish."
In general, the legislation may be flawed and the opposition and reshaping justified. Personal approval of the goal or the proponents may lead you to support bad legislation, this sadly happens too often. The people writing legislation are sometimes well meaning but fairly ignorant of the subject matter and their proposed law may have far reaching and unintended consequences. For example "anti plastic gun" legislation outlawing anything without a couple of ounces of steel. The flaw is that steel is a specific alloy and a gun with several pounds of metal may not have enough steel. You may dislike the gun lobby but they are correct in reworking the legislation so that it only outlaws things not detectable by current metal detectors. Similarly Microsoft may have the occasional good point as well.
Is to do what in fact this article says, make it illegal to send spam. Develop a government run system that requires online businesses to register with, and have that system send out the emails to the users registered on the companies lists. Some will say this will cost too much money? So what, make the businesses pay for it. They butchered the use of emails so badly by sending all their junk, they deserve it.
If someone fails to abide by this new law, then slam them with a badass penalty. No one will want to disobey it if it comes with a severe penalty. Unless of course they think they can get away with it.
- Direct Marketers Association
- Asks To Be Regulated
At least they can opt-in. .A couple of us around here have been assigned to create direct mail programs and some of these programs, while initially billed as using strictly Opt-In, degraded into Opt-Out and even eventually into a simple spamfest. I admit I sent out two groups of "spam" (though clearly marked according to California regulations, blah, blah) on behalf of a failing employer. I have to admit: it was fun to do (one was for a legitimate product the other was for a MLM, the Amway web effort) and we had fun optimizing the script to pump out more spam. But the list we were given was complete junk! Over 2 million addresses (took a while to load into MySQL from the CSV file)--including my own father's email address! It also included harvested email from die.net. Ever tried to send mail to die.net? It's a great honeypot/tarbaby for spammers. But 2 campaigns were enough for my conscience (we sent less than 500,000 total messages).
When asked to make a Flash/Windows multimedia program that could automatically extract email addresses from a users machine and send them to a central server--on behalf of serious players in the music industry no less--a couple of us around here drew the line and said "no". [The couple of us I keep refering to no longer work for the slimebucket that wanted to move spyware to a new level in exchange for listening to HipHop tracks.]
Anyway, when complaining about spam realize that someone with technical know-how enabled the peabrain spammer to do his evil.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
if it was, I'd use the (now useable) headers to send all spammers, say, a tar archive of /var/log, or all my mp3s and wavs, encrypted of course. Nothing too much, just a few 100M to each.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I guess you don't have any friends or contacts who use phone cards. (or calling via on-campus phone system). My phone card blocks caller ID as I go through their 800 number. Also, I am pretty sure that my calls from campus used to result in strangest things on caller ID display...
Considering that spammers always break the law when they spam, no. Note that many even cite nonexistent laws to claim 'compliance'.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
We have a Republican in Office. As far as GW is concerned the right of Big Business to share and abuse your medical, financial, and personal information is not to be infringed on.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Unidentified Cosmic Ether...that's great.
It's your responsibility to release the name of your employer so we can "eliminate the problem."
It ails me to know that there are technical people willing to send spam. Do you rape small children as well?
Rot! Rot I say!
I'm not too familiar with how far the DMCA extends, but does anyone think it might be possible to argue that forged headers are a conscious effort to circumvent anti-spam software?
I mean, there's a lot of material that enters my inbox that would be inappropriate for young children.
Also, there's the possiblity that the excessive amounts of spam could clog your account, preventing important emails from getting through. Similar to DoS attack?
These might be tenuous arguments, but there's gotta be a way to make the legislators realize... anything...
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Direct Marketing is not a legitimate profession and should be made illegal. A complete and total ban on non-consumer-initiated marketing messages is really the only thing that will ultimately have any effect.
This of course means that marketdroids would have to actually THINK from now on, so I'm not terribly hopeful that this would happen.
Corporations are people to! i'm serious. They also pay taxes!
Paying taxes does not make an entity into a person. While there are lawyers who have perverted the word to refer to both corporations and human beings in the same way, we don't have to accept their twisting of the English language.
If a corporations are people, why didn't Union Carbide get life in prison for the killing 3,800 people in Bhopal, India?
Why are tobacco companies not being "executed" for killing people? They knowingly sold something that was lethal while lying to the purchasers and claiming that the product was not shown to be harmful. If you started selling arsenic-laced lemonade while claiming that it was safe, you would be in prison or the electric chair.
When corporations are jailed for criminal acts and their ability to do business is halted during that time, then I'll think about sharing the title "person" with them. As of now, corporations have the rights of people with none of the responsibilities.
Probably mentioned before, but what if that same law also made it obligatory (sp?) that all spam should have an "x-spam" in the header or "SPAM:" as the first 5 characters of the subject line? (or both)
That way a lot of ISP would probably turn on 'spam-protection' by default, or make it very easy for their subscribers to do so themselves.
And yes, I know this does nothing against the chinese spammers selling viagra, but it is a start.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Ever since I've installed SpamNet (for Windows, Unix people should get Vipul's Razor), spam is no more.
I think that's what they are afraid of. Anti-spam tools are getting so good and easy to use that pretty soon everybody will be using. DMA will die a slow and painful death.
Dejan
There's also compromised servers with hacked spam relays, often running on nonstandard ports so port-25 blocking won't work.
This just in. Foxes have asks chicken farmers to place stronger locks on hen house doors to prevent aberant foxes from getting into the coop and swiping a meal. Farmers are currently reviewing the proposal which includes protections for foxes who belong to hunting co-ops and who happen to sneak into the hen house via the windows, cause we all know how insecure those are...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."
This is because, no person in their right mind would opt-in for advertising of any sort. THAT is their 'noneconomic' model. They realize they are scum and wish to remain that way. If Federal laws are needed, it is to forbid anyone from sending SPAM, or using people's personal information in any way. That is the only thing that is acceptable to me. Period.
...only outlaws will forge headers.
But seriously, will legislation have any effect at all? Most of this stuff originates (or at least is relayed) from outside the US.
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Please, dowse the flames now. Microsoft and Guns in the same post. Serious flame bait.
but even though I'm registered in the phone opt-out list, I get app. 3 calls a week.
So now I say, fuck it, let's follow the example of the EU: opt-in is the way to go.
As long as money is to be made, ethics *will* take a back seat.
Careful what you wish for. If forged headers become illegal in email - what exactly would that mean, anyway? Presumably that sending "false" information in SMTP fields becomes illegal. So does sending "false" information in other standard protocols - say, forging your User-Agent: header in HTTP - become illegal also? Be veeeery careful with this.
Forging headers should *not* be illegal. For goodness sakes, even putting a fake return address on a n actual piece of U.S. snail-mail isn't illegal.
Here's an idea. Give them their law, along with the opt-out model, but tack in a stipulation that all legal spam has to have an identifier in the header that clearly marks it as spam so I can filter it out.
Or will not reading DMA spam be stealing?
I think you mean: "UCE": Unsolicited Cosmic Ether
"You have liberated me from thought."
the legitimate messages don't get through
Are there legitimate messages? Oh, they must mean the "good" spammers. Or the ones who pay dues to the DMA. Or maybe they mean the ones who send you spam with a legit telephone number, legit product, etc.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
In addition, the law must *SPECIFICALLY* specify the string to be used.
I believe a California law required spammers to put ADV: in their subjects. (Maybe not Cali, but elsewhere)
Spammers interpreted this as allowing:
A.D.V
A D V
A_D_V
etc, etc. - Specify BULK MAILING in that exact format with no additional spaces or other characters.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Spammers are now starting to be successfully sued. In some cases for a lot of money.
The DMA could be worried about legal exposure. Lawyers go after those with money.
Maybe the DMA is worried because there are more and more anti-spam laws and anti-spam sentiment now.
The DMA realizes that they will soon be on the "wrong" side of mass public opinion, and probably lots of new laws.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Once forged headers become illegal, sending to the wrong people WILL be wasted money.
:(
Not the initial mailing, but the retaliation it will provoke.
There's one big problem with opt-out - So many spammers have abused "opt-out" systems that using an "opt-out" system is considered the best way to get your email propagated to new spammers - No one trusts it anymore.
On the other hand, if a central database is enacted AND stiff penalties are enacted for those that ignore it, it could work. Unfortunately, spammers will likely just move offshore.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Would someone define "(un)solicited" for me, as it is defined regarding email?
For some reason I recall that if you get a random 'introductory' mailing, and if you delete it right away but did NOT click the unsubscribe link, they consider that you have opted IN (by not opting out), and thus future mailings are considered solicited.
Similarly, what defines "opting in/out" ?
$8.95/mo web hosting
Two problems with this, first U.S. law doesn't apply to 'the internet', and secondly enacting a law is not the same as enforcing it.
If they bring in spam laws in the U.S. everyone will either ignore it or just move offshore. How are they going to enforce their spam laws on email sent from Zimbabwe to someone in the U.S.? As for the spammers in the U.S. I suspect they will just ignore this, figuring the reward > risk.
Spam can't be stopped, only controlled through ISP policies and decent filtering software.
Life Insurance in Canada
I'll conviently leave my firewall open (or at least 1 computer) to contribute to that DDOS attack.
i always figured you didn't need new law. in our society, people aren't allowed to claim they are things they are not: i can't claim i'm a lawyer, or a doctor, or a certified public accountant; i can't claim to be an individual who i am not; i think there are even specific laws which make it illegal to put a false return address on regular mail. why don't those laws naturally extend to email?
maybe my libertarian ways just want society to work with a couple thousand simple laws. the tens of millions of micro-laws we have seem, to me, a terrible way to govern.
We need software that will automaticaly read the header, then lookup the server it came through and forward the spam to the server it came through with a note.
My favorite quote on this is from Full Metal Jacket.
"If it weren't for assholes like you their wouldnt be crime in the world." referring to private Pyle who left his footlocker unlocked...
If only IM and pr0n spammers were covered under this. Also, how far do we go to enforce foreigners using fake headers when spamming americans? Could use WA states philosophy on a country level. :)
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I feel a huge visceral agreement with this.
Erm
please GPL your code immediately. It would have way more interesting uses than spam filtering.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Governments exist to protect the people, not to forward corporate interests.
As any institution eventually they exist to ensure their own survival.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
it is logical that one could ignore the email and still be interested in the product so in fact 0.02% is probably a low estimate.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I suspect that DMA is mostly concerned with short-circuiting the indvidual state anti-spam laws, overriding them with a watered-down Federal law that offers less protection.
I live in Connecticut, where the state's "Do Not Call" list has been a spectacular success (at least for me). Considering how thoroughly the state DNC lists have zapped the telemarketing industry, I think DMA is simply defending against a state-by-state implementation of "do-not-email" lists.
I object to being lumped together with spammers.
In the case of medical marijuana, the Constitution is clearly on the side of California. Your implication that strong federal law trumps weak state law does not have a basis in the Constution (though the federal government would like you to believe it does.) The powers of the federal government are enumerated. Those which aren't enumerated default to the state. Have you ever wondered how the federal government justifies its anti-drug laws. They claim they have juristiction under the interstate commerce clause. If California decides to raise marijuana and sell it entirely within the state, the federal government simply has no Constitutional authority to stop it. Like I said, I'd like to see California sue the U.S. government over this issue. It would give the Supreme Court a chance to say that after over 100 years of no states rights, the 10th amendment might mean something again.
"Don't steal. The DMA hates competition."
(This, of course, follows through with the idea that spamming = theft of other people's computing resources; Bandwidth, disk space, CPU time, etc.)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
At around the same time, possibly the same press conference, this Associated Press article at Wired has the following from Jerry Cerasale, DMA's vice president for government affairs:
"Cerasale said the DMA supports unsolicited e-mail marketing as long as it targets a certain demographic or interest group -- say, 25- to 35-year-olds or homeowners -- and isn't merely sent to every e-mail address one can gather."
and
"We need to give the consumer the means to TRY and stop it.
Try to stop the unsolicited mail? How bizzare!
Without fair enforcement, regulation is reckless. The FTC is up to its necks in tracking down people who are running real scams, perpetrating real theft.
There really is a continuum of legitimacy in email marketing between "real scams" and pure 2x opt-in. The regulations as proposed basically only apply to marketers who are willing to follow them. Such regulations fail even a little logical test because violators will violate anyway.
Regarding enforcement, the regulating of spam sounds similar to regulating guns. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns. Spammers are not subject to the same kind of ethical concerns as more legitimate businesses such as those that belong to the DMA. The regulations as proposed only serve to create a safer haven for criminals (and weasels) to operate unmolested.
If this regulation results in real enforcement, then the major project becomes how to fairly enforce. On one side, you have the sort of rogue self-appointed vigilantes like the RBL folks ("my law is now your law") and on another extreme you have what? Federal agencies that are supposed deem legality of messages?
I've yet to hear of any really fair method for enforcement even if standards were agreed upon. DO we really want an environment where every single email sent is subject to the question "Are the content and intent legal?" I agree with other posters who have said it's far better of an idea to spend resources on locking down server and client software to reject more messages per user configuration. Many people here have written and specified user-customizable intelligent learning systems to help reject messages without a lot of human oversight.
SPAM (like all scams) really does hurt legitimate business--think of the sender, not the message. It's very hard to argue credibly otherwise. Given that reality, we should all want to stop "it." Doing so will help the economy, which helps everyone's standard of living. But spam regulation has about as little help to offer as gun regulation offers to prevent violent crime.
--- Programmers do it with their digits!
Implementing US Federal law against spam does little to solve an international problem.
The state laws are even worse (more laughable). For example, the state I live in, Connecticut, has an anti-spam law. One problem: it only applies to spam sent from an e-mail account based in Connecticut to another e-mail account based in Connecticut. My webserver/e-mail server is in Texas, so the law can't help me.
Remember, spam is pollution, and just because one nation/state outlaws it doesn't mean our mailboxes won't be flooded by others. The law won't help us in this case. What we need is a technological or economic solution, not a legal one.
I hate spam
Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."
In other words, the Direct Marketing business can't exist without e-mail. Never mind that it thrived for decades before anybody even thought of e-mail.
Oh, I heartily agree. Unfortunately, until the US Supreme Court has an opportunity to review a case, people will continue to be thrown in prison for these violations. I've always had issues with the federal government imposing laws against posession and sales. The only law I can see having any teeth would be a prohibition on the transport of certain drugs across state and international borders. Recall that for the prohibition of liquor to have any teeth, it was necessary to write an amendment to the constitution.
...with all the spam out there, the legitimate messages don't get through...
That's very nice, except that the DMA is coming from the position that their spam is part of the "legitimate messages", and they aren't about to tolerate any legislation that says otherwise. They'll support legislation to get rid of non-DMA spam, sure, but it must have some twist in it to legitimize (and also _require_ delivery of) DMA-approved spam (ie the stuff they get paid for).
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Come to that, when they say they are willing to accept a ban on fraudulent headers, are they talking about on their emails or on ours? I usually make up a one-shot address when I have to give an address to a trader, so that I can devnull spam. Do they want to ban that?
[Direct Marketing Association VP Jerry]Cerasale said a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."
The DMA had a conference this week in San Francisco which I crashed. The talks were all about "how to find the least educated demographic and either sell them crap or employ them as cheap phone labor". The law discussion groups were all about either "new loopholes to legally do something so unethical that the other guy hasn't thought of it yet", or "how to make it look like we're responsible so that real laws don't get passed". Guess which subject this Slashdot story falls under?
The NRA is a facist organization. The gun lobby supports terrorism, murder, and racism.
The NRA has been constantly trying to pervert and rewrite the constitution to suit their nazi pro-gun nut agenda. Sorry, the second ammendment doesn't apply to gun ownership by individual gun nuts.
Screw the serial sniper in maryland. We need a serial killer that targets spammers.
screw the maryland sniper. We need a serial killer that targets spammers. And hopefully makes their deaths long and painfull.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 prohibits several actions; such as junk faxs, prerecorded commercial calls, etc. It specifically is mentioned either in the law or through FCC memorandums throughout the years that it does not opt-out state law where that state law is [b]more[/b] restrictive. If the federal law states there can be no calls between 9PM and 8AM and the state law says no calls between 7PM and 9AM, then state law takes precedence.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
(Fine, I'm plugging, but it's a good site.)
This sig no verb.
Why does that spokesman's comments remind me of The Tobacco Institute's comments when they finally gave in to the requirement of warning labels on the packs?
Just got a note the other day from my MBNA Mastercard (the one I'd actually cancelled a month ago because they kept trying to rob me on high interest rates) stating that they had a new "privacy policy" and I needed to call up to "Opt out" of their transmission of my personal info to others.
Anyone know if there's a law against this? I would consider any time I cancel a credit card, that I'm automatically permanently "opting out" of any such activity they would want to do with my personal info from that point forward. Sounds like MBNA's learning from the spammers as well.
Exactly. They're giving up the point that has the least value to them -- forged headers -- to become more palatable and try to codify in law the legality of opt-out and spam in general. I had the same eye opening "whoah" when I saw the first news stories, but then I read their bodies. Nothing more to see here...
Then they get the media to report that they've gone good and wonderful...
May we never see th
The value of reviews would increase, and publications would come out giving customers said information. Since consumers now have choice, and control over what they're reading, the information is of value.
Yes, a few business models would break. That's always going to happen when you start mucking around with economic rules. New ones will also come up.
It pretty much comes down to "If you don't let us force Foo (useful product news/advertising) on you, you won't get Foo and you wouldn't want that". This ignores the fact that if customers wanted Foo, they'd willingly sign up for free Foo. Yes, current advertising generally sucks from an informational standpoint, and isn't that entertaining. There would have to be changes in the product information distribution system.
May we never see th
Media Companies, Communications Companies, Oil Companies...they all yell about how new technologies will ruin their business models and how they need to be protected!
...
... Didn't they run the music distribution business back in the crosby/ol'-blue'eyes/jukebox days? Like with "kneecapping" and extorting a Detroit radio station to kill the career of a local singer who sounded too much like their star?
The Mafia has a very effective business model which the government has also tried to ruin (or at least CLAIMED to BE TRYING to ruin) from time to time. A big part of their business model consists of using the government to keep the competition from doing the same things that THEY do, while buying off its agents so THEY don't have to obey the laws imposed on others. Another part consists of lobbying FOR laws against entry into their product lines - drugs, "Adult Entertainment", extortion,
Wait a minute
And aren't a couple of the current media conglomerates direct descendants of those organizations? Without EVER having the organized crime members running their "business model" systematically extracted (other than one at a time, over outside activities) from their operations?
Or am I confused?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way