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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."
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...
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...
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!
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!
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."
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 (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.
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.
Hehe. Thanks for catching that! For a second, my deep-seeded cynicism was in danger of becoming slightly less hardened, and my heart slightly less jaded. It was a close call.
... who gives a fuck?
:)
Now, in response to what you found...
I know I say this a lot, but...
"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."
Yeah, and the laws against prostitution are really hurting the members of the Direct Whoring Association.
I'm sorry, but I just can't stand the "but our business model needs this" legal argument. I'm serious! What university is putting out the MBAs who think whatever dumb-ass business model they think up is going to be okay, and they have the right to see it succeed.
Of course, they have the right to try, and the sad thing is if their stupid argument actually works, then they just managed to succeed anyway.
The enemies of Democracy are
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
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.
Those of us who don't like the NRA are protecting our right not to be shot.
I totally agree with you. Not only should dissolve the NRA, but then afterwards we should pass a law that makes killing people illegal.
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
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
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
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!)
- 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
Now, I don't agree with either the DMA or NRA, but respect the NRA a lot more because it is made of individual people protecting their individual rights --- even though guns obviously do more damage than junk mail. In fact, as far as Big Evil Trade Associations go, the DMA is fairly harmless (compared to the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc.) It mostly represents regular junk mailers that use the postal service, not spammers.
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.
Yes, but many of them still have a contact person in the US -- there has to be a contact point somewhere for the sleazeball to collect money from the suckers, and sending money to another country complicates matters. An enforced (that's really the catch) law against stealing people's bandwidth would make the contact person liable as an accessory (at least) to the crime.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
When I said DDOS attack, I just meant 10 million people sending back an e-mail... and it's even legal.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
(Fine, I'm plugging, but it's a good site.)
This sig no verb.
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