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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."
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...
Please Mr. Legislator, shut off that spam (which doesn't come from us), so that we may send our spam messages in peace.
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!
I have received notices that mail I tried to send couldn't be delivered. But in fact, the mail was not from me, and some spammer had spoofed the email address and pretended to be me.
What happens when this is done and spoofed to point at an innocent person and gets them legal trouble?
And how come these damn spammers don't realize that I DON'T read the spam, and if by some accident I do open the letter, I refuse to ever buy that product because of how they market it.
SPAM HURTS YOUR SALES!! DON'T SPAM ME!!!
[/rant]
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
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."
Oh yeah, I've ALWAYS found that spammers are considerate enough to not reap e-mail addresses from the From: field, and to always send spam to the address in the Reply-To: field.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Are they going to come and take me away because I'm illegally altering headers but not sending spam?
I'm getting more and more convinced that we can't make good technology leglislation without infringing freedoms and that we're all doomed.
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
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...
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.
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.
They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed stronger state laws.
It is still a positive step... Without forged headers it is much easier to know who to boycott.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
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
Yes, and the DMA protects my right to free speech. Those of us who don't like the DMA are protecting our right not to be hassled. Those of us who don't like the NRA are protecting our right not to be shot.
And the comparison is perfectly valid. Any organisation, heroic or otherwise, will try and protect their own free hand. If they are in danger of losing it, particularly if the public is against them, they will "bargain" by proposing compromise laws in the hopes that they will be seen as a good team player and be treated leniantly.
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.
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 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, they realized that everyone hates them, and they're desperate to prevent any real anti-marketing legislation. They probably figure if they give in a little in the beginning they won't have to give in a lot later.
I hope there are more people like me. When ever I receive a spam that I actually read, even if it is a product I would normally be interested in, I refuse to buy it. If it is something I need to buy I buy from their competitor.
If 99.95% of people throw it away without even looking, .02% open and buy, and .03% open and then actively avoid and boycott that product, the company loses money.
Maybe I am the oddball, but whenever a company advertises in a way which offends me (i.e. spam, or super annoying commercials) I refuse to buy that product.
I wish more would follow that ideal, and that companies would discover annoying and angering your customers hurts your business.
But I guess the american public is too interested in just getting what you want instead of going without some small thing in order to show your disapreciation.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
That's interesting. I was under the impression that most gun killings were commited by friends and relatives are you saying that those guns are obtained illegally?
The statistic I believe you are referring to is that "58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances" This statistic does not stand up to scrutiny. Acquaintances are not necessarily your friends. By the definition of this statistic, an acquaintance might not even know your name. An example of such a scenario is when drug dealer "A" kills drug dealer "B" for invading his territory.
While we are on the subject, my other favorite pro-gun-control statistic is the one where they say "X kids are killed every day by guns." This one fails to mention that even 19-year olds are classified as kids. And of course gang killings and suicides are rolled into this statistic as well.
My apologies for the now very-off-topic post.
I do the same thing (and tell the company), but that only works for legitimate companies. It's hard for me to boycott a product I would never consider buying.
I wish I could come up with a good penis enlargement joke.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
"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."
Corporations also DO NOT pay taxes. The myth of corporate taxation is one of the biggest ones that most people believe.
Taxes to a corp is an EXPENSE. Corporate taxes get passed on 100% to their employees (in lower wages), and to their customers (in higher prices).
It's really just a mass charade to make people THINK that corps actually PAY taxes. And it honestly should be ended, as the cost in paperwork and government bureaucracy is a drag on the economy.
Worst of all, most people don't realize that it is THEY who are actually paying corporate taxes, simply by buying their product!
They could double the corporate tax rate tomorrow. All that would happen is employees make less, and customers pay more.
Really, our whole tax system is a sham. Numbers were just released today that showed that in 2000, the top 50% of wage earners ($26,000 a year or so or more) are paying 96% of all taxes...
Corporations are NOT people. They are a legal quasi-person, a fiction. Honestly, I think that they should be abolished. In a way, they are, as the new laws being passed in the wake of Enron/Global Crossing/WorldCom ARE putting personal liability back into corps, by making the CEO's personally liable for fraud.
And it's long overdue... If corporate executives were personally liable for what the corporation does, there'd be a lot less chicanery.
My best solution for spam regulation would be to hold the company being advertised liable for spam sent.
Corporatism != Free Market
NO. This will lead to more spam. Spam that can't be attacked with laws like those on the West Coast. Plus it will place a barrier to entry for new potential spammers. Thus, we will have a definite, concise, legal group of spammers to deal with. This would give them legitimacy they don't need or deserve.
Think about it. How many new car companies have you seen pop up in the last 30 years? The barrier to entry is high because of the 'safty' laws the Big 3 encourages the government to pile on.
I have put "effectively" above in bold, because that's really the crux of the issue. The law legalising medical marijuana in California is not an effective one, because the federal government still cracks down on the medical marijuana industry. People believe that they now have the right to grow quantities of marijuana to sell to the authorised sellers, and they regularly get raided and arrested on federal charges, and have property seized. Thus, I'd argue that the law is hardly "effective" at this time, since the federal government needs to alter its regulations as well to allow state governments to make the choice about what drugs are acceptable.
And in further news ... Hell has just frozen over.
And Iraq has asked for weapons inspectors to return. One shouldn't take these things at face value. It's a tactical maneuver to avoid harsher penalties.
Wrong. Look at the 21st Ammendment. It ended the Federal prohibition on alcohol, but it also specifically allowed state and lower level governments to pass their own anti-liquor laws. OTOH, if the Federal anti-spam law says specifically that it superceeds all state laws on the issue, it does. This is sensible and constitutional, given that the Constitution and laws passed under it are the supreme law of the land (i.e. superceed any state law that is in conflict with them) and Congress certainly has the power to regulate interstate commerce (which the net is) and the post.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
What are you talking about? It's not a positive step. What the hell does forging headers mean? What, we're all required to identify perfectly where the message came from? What about anonymizing proxies?
Keep this crap out of law and we're be the better for it. The moment you put it into law, you're screwed and it'll just be one more reason for me not to move from Canada.
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!