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Do-Not-Email Registries?
prgrmr writes "Wired has an article about Colorodo and Missouri's latest legislative proposals to deal with spam and with spammers. There appears to be actual consumer-protective teeth in these bills which mirror the telephone 'do not call' lists. A nice example of a government perpetuating a working concept instead of trying inventing new ways to break things."
To get an update on this registry, just send a blank email to opt-in@colorado.gov.
Next, try and get all spammers to admit that what they are sending is "unsolicited". That's not going to happen any time soon.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Whatever happens, you'll still get the email equivalent of the following:
*phone rings*
"Excuse me, sir, are you interested in..."
"I thought I was on a fucking do-not-call list!"
"Sorry sir, you are, it was an accident. Sorry sir."
Direct marketing is here to piss the hell out of us for a long time yet.
-Mark
It seems like this would only protect us from spam by legitamate countries in America. I can just imagine trying to sue the fly-by-night spams I recieve, many of which I don't think are from this country.
I don't know how much this list will help.
Or who's to say that anyone who signs up with their email address on thist is from one of these states? I mean if we can forge just about anything else on the web I can certainly say I'm from colorado (In fact since I'm really from CT, oops...I missed that little drop box by one)
Now the question is, would the spammers want to risk it?
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
Will there be an opt-in list for those of us who still want to enlarge our penises and make money fast?
---
Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
Fight Spammers!
In Washington State, spam is illegal and the attorney general encourages people to file complaints. These are often done by filling out a simple form.
To help argue against spammers saying "we didn't know this address originated from Washington State", there is online registration for users who reside in the state and do not want to receive spam. You can find it over here:
http://registry.waisp.org/
-trout
Accountability. The telephone companies have a limited number of telephone accounts, and they have a rough idea of who owns each one, where calls are coming from, etc, etc. And, most importantly, it's very easy for them to track down offenders and terminate connections. Spammers, though, don't face exactly that same problem. Jumping to a new vulnerable server is MUCH easier than getting a new telephone line. I wouldn't be surprised to see illegal spammers using these lists as a source for their spamming.
I understand the problem with SPAM, but why a legal solution to a technical problem? It reminds me of the litgation induced from "deep linking," when in reality the web master simply needs to better configure his/her server. Similarly there are technical solutions to this. If I'm on a "do-not-email" list, then why don't I configure my email client to only accept emails within my address book? Many email clients can do this filtering, even web based ones, so what's the problem? Effectively, this is what these people want and there's a solution so why the red tape?
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Hi. I an email market-person from Laos. Where I get list so...ummm...I know who... er...not ... to send e-mail?
I'm on a state no-call list, and it's practically worthless. No all my sales calls have callerID numbers like 999-999-9999. Obviously if my phone privacy can't be protected, this email no-call list will be equally useless. Not to mention that... I can already see that the no-call list would be the most extensive (and valuable) list ever compiled. Who would secure it and how?
Opt-out does not work! These solutions are going to be just as effective as states that outlawed spam entirely in stopping spam, and are going to be just another source of validated addresses, thus ensuring more spam for those on the lists.
-Philip
I don't think this will work. Do not call lists (for telephone spam) work fairly well because it's rather easy for the government and/or utilities to investigate who is violating a DNC list. This is made even easier by the fact that phone/fax spam from abroad is almost non-existent in the USA.
With email, it is far more difficult to stop. First, the jurisdictional issues. Second, it is trivial for an email spammer to hide his identity -- there are plenty of open relays to bounce through.
I already receive spam for "500,000 opt-in email addresses on CD!" -- when do-not-email lists are in place, I'm sure I will be getting adverts for "500,000 do-not-email addresses on CD!". And nobody will be able to stop them.
Of course we all know overseas spammers wouldn't dare harvest emails from such lists, because the government would arrest them at the airport when they came to visit...
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
And we KNOW that the spammers will pay attention to this.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
...is a major benefit. But these do-not-call lists still don't address the bulk of my spam, which is usually done by fly-by-night, illegal operations. Hell, I don't even have a listed phone number and the large number of calls I receive from politicians and telemarketers through war-dialing is astounding. Do politicians honor do-not-call lists?
The meme police, They live inside of my head
Well, we know two state government's whose officials' email addresses will have 400 offers for great savings and/or sexy girls in the next hour.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Maybe submitting a crypt() of your email? Or...?
Seems like a great idea to me! Hope it succeeds and becomes law. I have almost no telemarketing calls since I subscribed to the do-not-call list.
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Any measure other than completely banning the practice will just invite loopholes.
.ru.
1 such loophole with this would be foriegn spam outfits, big deal if the US has a "don't spam me" list, doesn't stop them from setting up shop in china, new zealand, or
...to add michael@slashdot.org to the list
the do not call list that was put into effect in Missouri has been a god-send. the Missouri attorney general has been vigilant about prosecuting those who break the list.
if a no-spam list works half as well as the do-not call list, I'll be ecstatic. but I'm still curious how they'll get it to work successfully.
But how many people do you know in real life who would be willing to take someone to court over advertisement. It'd be like me taking a Credit Card company to court every time I got a junk snail-mail.
Kinda silly.
-Aaron
As in, do not mail me junk "snail" mail, it's incredible the amount of crap I get in my mail box every day.
If I was someone who had a god-given mission to enlarge your penis, I sure wouldn't pay attention to any Do Not Spam list.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
Nevertheless, Congress has failed to pass any of the 19 national antispam bills introduced since 1999, thanks in part to lobbying efforts of the business community.
No antispam bill has passed because the DMA wanted to reserve the right for their members to spam you.
Sounds great and all... except Saddam will just add himself to a do-not-email list, and Bush can't send him the "Free Penis Enlargement" 'ads' he sends him every day. Bush will become outraged, and nuke Iraq, and the world will meet its doom. *Sniff sniff - sob*
I can see where they're going by trying to make spamming less of a money maker. However, $500 anually for access to the list is nothing compared to what a hard core spammer can make in a week. Plus, they can still spam people who are on the list, they just can't spam them enough that it becomes worth their while (the spammee) at $10 per message to take the company to court.
USE='clever' emerge -u sig
The Colorado Junk E-Mail Law would require companies to pay an annual fee of up to $500 to access the registry. It would award consumers $10 for each unwanted message that they receive...
Sounds more like the states are in it to line their own pockets, as usual. How many people are really going to sue a spammer for $10??
(I say $10 since it seems most of my junk email is from completely different sources).
Sign me up...oh wait, I am in New Hampshire :(
The article linked to makes an excellent point about the main problems associated with enforcing such a law. If someone creates fake Yahoo! accounts from Tahiti and uses them to tell you about how you can turn your cocktail weenie into a Polish sausage in just two weeks, the state of Washington is going to have a hard time going after the culprit.
I think this problem, and other problems associated with the internet, can only be realistically attacked by treating the Internet like what it is; an alternate universe that sprawls across the entire planet. International law needs to be written regulating how this sort of thing is going to be addressed, or it's simply not going to work.
Of course, that brings up all kinds of interesting side-issues having to do with enforcement. I'm certain there are any number of things I'm missing (I usually learn about these issues by reading other people's posts and following their links, but I seem to be the first responder to this one), so those of you who know more about this sort of thing; educate me!
~Benjamin
This will never work. Like spammers will listen to this.
The only reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the naughty girls live.
With email, the source can be proxied and faked up enough that broad enforcement is difficult. At least a phone company can find the source of a phone call pretty easily if you're on the "do not call" list and get annoyed with a telemarketer.
Anytime I track down spam that I get it almost always is coming from servers located outside the US. While this is great for dealing with US originating spam, will it be effective for foreign countries?
I hate spam. I'd be for anything that'd combat it.
How are they going to get the spammers in other countries? Doesn't a lot of it come from Asian countries?
Really doubt this will work.
They will find ways, or simply send from other countires (like they do now)
I Encrypt My IM's
"The Colorado Junk E-Mail Law would require companies to pay an annual fee of up to $500 to access the registry. It would award consumers $10 for each unwanted message that they receive, assuming they are willing to take the spammer to court. If they win the case, their attorney's fees would be reimbursed.
In Missouri, companies would have free access to the list, but residents would be able to sue marketers for up to $5,000 for violating it.
Critics say the proposed opt-out lists are a futile version of equally futile statewide spam laws. (Both Colorado and Missouri already have statutes regulating unsolicited commercial e-mail.) "
Look, I hate spam as much as the next guy (I postmaster over a dozen domains), but the leagal history of most topics on Slashdot clearly shows that an ill-considered "solution" often does more damage than no solution at all (if only because when companies start lobbying for these *known* ineffectual measures alongside the clueless public, they be come (politically, pragmatically))
unstoppable in the eyes of politicians
Stupidity ensues.
The anti-"fax spam" laws only worked because faxes were still heavily concentrated in the offices of companies and professionals. They were affordable, but as someone who'd had faxes at work, school, as part of professional organizations, etc., since the 80's, I can assure you that when that law was passed, the fact that I had one at home 24/7 still surprised people. Though the standard modem was already a faxmodem, few had them configured and on (not to mention the whole consumer OS crash problem, which was a major problem, even if it was often better than it was in the mid-late 90's)
as the government gives them a new batch of addresses to add to their lists...
__________
[Big Brick Wall]
*shudder*
As in, don't fill my snail mail box with useless crap I could care less about. It's amazing the amount of crap I get in my box every day.
Once again, what is to stop people from getting the list and using it outside of the country?
Now it wont be the spammers spamin you, itll be the government using this list to spread their political messages...hey, well, if their not askin my if i want to enlarge my penis, it might be an improvement...maybe
A more serious reason for not liking this is highlighted in this quote from the article:
"Antispam activists, including the 16,000-member Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, charge that opt-out lists unfairly put the onus on consumers to remove themselves from spam databases that they didn't want to join in the first place."
Exactly! Why should I put my name on a list that says, uh, let's say that I don't want to be slapped on my face as I walk down the street. Well, excuse me, but if I get assaulted, there are existing laws that take effect. Why do I need a new law? Just enforce the existing law. And why should I be forced to say I don't want spam when that is the default condition of 99.9993% of the population?
-----------
I don't get it.
They (CAUCE) complain that it shifts the burden onto the consumer to be a member of the opt-out list (which is free, and easy to get into). The complain that we are treating the symptoms and not the cause.
Bull. It costs the spammers money to even SEE the lists, and they face $500+ penalties if they don't check and mail first. Hence, this is a real financial deterrent (at least in those states). This artificially raises the transaction costs, which gets at the cause (that is, email is cheap and free).
Instead, CAUCE wants it to be like junk fax laws wherein no one can send you email without having established "a business relationship" with the recipient. I see too many ways of twisting this around in court that would prevent legitimate email from being sent to people when your first contact with them would be through that medium. It would scare people away from just sending email notes because they won't know how it'll be interpreted at the other end. I can envision paranoid use policies sprouting up in IT departments all over our fair land. Nooo!!!!
What is unclear is whether both the spammer and the spammee (sp ?) have to be in the same state (or in states with similar laws) for this to be effective. In that case, all the spammers will just base their operations in Florida where half the GDP comes from MLM and other scams.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If the lists are freely available, what would prevent someone exempt from those laws (out of state?) from using it as a database?
Although, I think the spammers might be smart enough to realize that sending spam to someone so wholly opposed to it would probably just delete the message before its even read.
-- If it aint broke, fix it till it is. --
Somehow, I get the feeling that the list will be eaten up by a spammer, and as a result, I'll end up getting more spam... :(
Part of the problem is that not all spam is from these massive-spam companies -- quite a few are from "free" accounts which people create and throw away after a day's use...
btw.. fp... almost...
I for one have been on the no call list for a while. It's great and no calls really means no calls. I sure hope that this pans out for email. They get a $500 per call fine for calling someone on a no call list. That's the only way you get them to stop.
The problem with this is that the transaction costs are so low for just deleting spam that there's no real incentive to pursue legal action against spammers. In other words, it costs me more - far more - to register a complaint against a spammer than I'd ever get in a penalty payment. There's also the legal question of damages: what harm do I suffer from spam, other than annoyance? (I'm not saying there isn't any; rather, it just may be minimal as compared to available damages.)
... it's turtles all the way down.
The real damages are suffered by the network providers who have to route all this crap. But then there's the conundrum that there's no reliable way to separate the wheat (legit email) from the chaff (spam).
I betcha the only real way to defeat spam is to introduce validated transactionids on emails so that the source and destination can be realiably authenticated. Kinda like certified mail in the paper world.
But, then again, that introduces the nasty spectre of MICROPAYMENTS... bleh.
It's probably cheaper for me to filter and delete spam and bitch about it than it would be for me to pay for each individual email.
Then again, my broadband may be cheaper if so much spam weren't sailing through the pipes.
*sigh*
Any network provider sysadmins out there got any hard numbers about the percentage of bandwidth (and, thus, profits) eaten up by spam?
Most spam doesn't bother me too much, it mainly originates from WHOIS or Mailing lists and is easy to filter; but when people decide to send 500Kb attachments to address that isn't splattered around the Internet - I get upset...
;-)
Of course, the 300 or so spam messages from WHOIS and Mailing list archives do waste bandwidth; but that could keep people expanding networks, building bigger, faster routers.
Right now the job situation for us tech-folks really stinks. So how about paying at least some of us highly-educated-but-unemployed to work fulltime, hunting down those deceptive spammers and shutting them down?
Think of the many hours you've wasted fighting the spam in your inbox--wouldn't you be happy to see your tax dollars go to a project like this?
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
$10 per unwanted message? I could earn $1000 from my Hotmail account in a week!
And mother said I'd never be able to live on Spam...
... but seeing as how most of my SPAM is from out of the country... oh well. This is a good start to get American business SPAM out of my inbox, I'll have to rely on procmail and SpamAssassin for the rest of it, I guess.
MORTAR COMBAT!
You can opt-out of some emails by joining the Direct Marketers Association "Do Not Email" list. This is similar to the do not call list they maintain, and is used by many companies.
DMA Email Opt-Out
I'd have to agree that this sounds a little to corporation friendly. How does Joe user take on overseas providers like terra.es (one of if not the most henious spam hosts on the planet) in small claims court? It might turn out that the number of people who persues legal action (especially at $10) does not outweigh the benefits reaped by paying the state for the list and then spamming that list.
Still, it would be good for one of these states to try this as an experiment because at the very least it's a somewhat agreeable law because it doesn't greatly obstruct anyone's right to be obnoxious, and isn't that what this country is all about?
ôó
..this is it!
Can you imagine what will happen when the spammers get the list?
I'm sure glad not everyone has to sign up for these databases, because I need to recieve my e-mail notifications for special offers. For instance, without me even having to ask, sun microsystems sends me a useful newsletter, just because I downloaded the JDK. Now if I want to start some sort of enterprise network it will be that much easier. It also eases my depression a little when I pretend that all my spam is mail from friends and family. Look at all that mail. Someone really loves me.
My Blog
In order to have a do-not-email list you have to have an accessible list of valid email addresses. Okay so company A looks at the list and agrees not to email any of the people on it, and then turns a big profit by covertly selling the list to other companies comfortably located outside of US jurisdiction.
Email is global, it's hard to believe that any state is going to come up with a way of significantly controlling spam.
Spam is already supposed to be illegal in those states, isn't it? Creating this kind of 'opt-out' program would seem to be a step backwards by giving spammers a flimsy shield in court if their victims didn't sign the list.
How are they going to prosecute it. It's a big dog, w/ mean teeth, chained to a post by a chain 3 feet too short to touch the spammers.
I do security
Great Idea, have everyone add their email address to a Do-Not-Email list...
You actually trust those spammer jerks?
Is this sort of thing an incremental step towards federal legislation (the only decisive approach IMHO), or will it delay it? Is there a downside to almost-there legislation?
Clearly legislative solutions are going to happen. People are angry, and even politicians must get junk mail that their staff complain about. What I'm perplexed about is why the federal junk fax law was passed so (relatively) quickly and (relatively) easily. Surely the interest groups are more or less the same.
Oh, I almost forgot: Die spammers, die. My spam % has hit about 60, through no fault of my own (some idiot managed to "opt-in" my email address for his; now that the address is burned into some commercial CD-ROM I'm hosed). Because teh geomatrically expanding junk email reduces the email technology to uselessness, I will not accept any solution short of opt-in only.
We have "do not call" lists in the UK and it is illegal to call numbers on them for marketing firms etc., but, get this, the list is maintained by an independent for-profit company who charge to gain access to the list.
So basically you have to pay up or you could be breaking the law! It's like a telephone spam tax!
Actually- that's a good thing, isn't it?
graspee
P.S. First post
The real question with a law like this is with enforcement. Both of these laws require residents to sue the spammers. This would be fine if one knew whom to sue. But how many illegal spammers (those ignoring the do-not-spam list) would put actual identification information in the emails or use legitimate accounts that would allow for tracing?
Sure, the "nice" spammers might voluntarily honor the do-not-spam list. Haha.
(At least with telephone spam, the cost per call is significant, discouraging calling those that don't want to be bothered.)
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on Slashdot.
Unfortunately, the "targeted marketing via email" (read: spam) industry doesn't have the FCC rules and regulations that the telephone does. If the FCC does have a bit of control over an area of communications, then that opens up a window of opportunity for lawmakers. Unfortunately||fortunately for us, the FCC doesn't regulate e-mail, so we don't have the protection afforded to us by the FCC, but keep in mind that e-mail is/was a constantly moving target. We don't have solid, rigid definitions of e-mail like we have solid, rigid definitions of a telephone. Because of this distinction, e-mail is hard to regulate.
As for the idea itself, I'm all for it.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
For crying out loud. If you are going to spam 1,000,000 people with a penis replacement advertisement, then you'd at least better give an address so that people know where to send you money! Does a lot of spam, nowadays, not include any way at all to contact the spammer? How can that be profitable?
--panties
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
No?
So what good is it?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
werd
1. Let's all put our email addresses on a list that spammers can download, so they'll know not to spam us.
2. ???
3. Profit!
slash is broken
Perfect, just what the spammer's want, a list of working email addresses of people who will be eager to read their spam so they can sue.
Hope the list is just a list of checksums or the like so you can't get the email addresses out of the list yet still check it easily.
How do they know where I live?
I live in New York. If I sign up on one of these lists, will I get less spam because spammers just don't send to the whole list?
Of course that's assuming it was effective enough that spammers took it seriously..
How exactly do they plan on enforcing this? I'd imagine there could be some jurisdictional issues?
Jay Nixon is the attorney general of Missouri where I reside.
He has been very active in ensuring his office in on the net and useful.
He has made great strides in the nocall area. His legislation is used as a template by most states.
Here is an older story with much more info on the legislation and what it brings to the table.
Good to see state government making a national impact.
Dear Citizen,
Did you know that the State of Texas has some great special offers this month?
To find out more why not visit our Website
-----
You received this message because you registered for the junk-mail opt-out list.
To opt out of opt out click here
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
spammers are always a step ahead of the curve, unfortunately. :(
Of course, by the time this actually goes through, all the teeth will be pulled, but it's a nice suggestion.
Yeah, and then spammers from other states add your e-mail address to their list...
This is a violation of everyones right to free speech.
Wheter or not you want to hear them, solicitors have the right to send you all the shit they want.
One reply to one of my earlier comments about this saidI was confusing the right to speak with the right to be listened to but I'm not. If you are being told you can't speak to people because they said they didn't want to hear you, its violating your right to free speech.
But who cares, just one more nail in the coffin of the Constitution...
Unfortunately, the "targeted marketing via email" (read: spam) industry doesn't have the FCC rules and regulations that the telephone does. If the FCC does have a bit of control over an area of communications, then that opens up a window of opportunity for lawmakers. Unfortunately||fortunately for us, the FCC doesn't regulate e-mail, so we don't have the protection afforded to us by the FCC, but keep in mind that e-mail is/was a constantly moving target. We don't have solid, rigid definitions of e-mail like we have solid, rigid definitions of a telephone. Because of this distinction, e-mail is hard to regulate.
As for the idea itself, I'm all for it.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
This system has worked well. Since it went into effect about two years ago, all the telemarketing calls have stopped save for one long distance company. On the second time they called me, I politely reminded them that what they were doing was illegal in Missouri and if they called again I would hand them over to the Missouri A.G. No more calls since. I'm a happy camper.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Finally... a reason to be glad I live in Missouri
Yah, right! As if some "do-not-email" list will keep away the spammers who are based in the far-east. If anything, this DNE list will become a convenient source of valid email addresses for the spammers! If I were a resident of these states, I'd stay as far away from it as possible. :-)
Why, you ask? Becuase companies tend to be in a couple of categories, as it comes to email marketing:
(1) Deep pockets to lobby the elimination of this bill; or
(2) Fly-by-night or off-shore types that could care less.
Pity, as I would love to see the end of spam in my lifetime.
I hereby claim Nth invisible post on this story!
graspee
p.s. don't mod me down, fucknutz, I am highlighting a problem with slashdot- it is accepting comments but not showing any new ones.
I would sign up for such a thing. I am a slacker college student, having an avenue to sue somebody for my daily spam alotment in $10 increments is worth it to me. Do you know how much cheap beer and crappy chips I'd get for one days worth of spam suits?... *drool*
Too bad I live in wisconin.
I'm a little tea pot.
finally...genius
I don't see this being much of an impact on people getting spam until it's an international law.
Too bad it won't work when your dealing with spam coming from foreign servers. Hell, the US can't effectively police the nuclear world (not saying the US should). How can we police spammers?
Well, maybe there is more incentive to get spammers.
How many spammers right now obey the existing spam laws?
Ohio has a law that says you have to provide full identification on unsolicited email advertisements, and that you must provide a way out for the consumer. But I still recieve plenty of spam with no identification other than a forged header, and certainly no way to tell the spammer that I don't want their stuff anymore.
Good intentions, but, just like every other law covering the digital realm, it's too hard to enforce.
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
This is a cheap way to up your post count and not get modded down! New- non-corporeal posts!
graspee
How about a "leave me the hell alone!" list?
Dustin - A different story...
All we need to do to stop spam is to find the personal contact info (home address and phone number) of the people running the companies. Once their info gets posted here and they get maildotted, maybe they'll realize how irritating and intrusive spam really is and decide to use their evil powers for something else.
No sig, sorry.
Its surprising that spam is looked down upon in the adult webmaster world even though so much spam is pornographic in nature. Most sites that spam you, you can easily find the sponser that is paying them for every signup and report them there, that way they get screwed for their spam. Remember nice sites like Digital Teenz.com never will spam you. So report what porn spam you get to the sponsers the spam is promoting, if enough people do this you might be surprised at how much spam gets cut down.
And my blantent spam: Check out Digital Teenz
maybe
This is basically stated in the article, but this will never work. They have no jurisdiction over a huge amount of the spammers - even a national do not e-mail list wouldn't stop overseas spammers.
Speaking of overseas spammers, it seems that the high cost of long distance telephone calls is one of the few things that keeps me from getting telemarketer solicitations from people based in, say, thailand. While it doesn't look like this is going to happen anytime soon, if international calling prices dropped significantly due to, say, VoIP, would we end up getting a bunch of calls from overseas selling us penis enlargers or mini rc cars?
This is mostly just a law to close a loophole. In current Colorado law, if the offending email doesn't follow certain rules ("ADV:" in the Subject, etc.), the recipient can take the spammer to Small Claims and win $10 -- if they can somehow collect it.
One possible legal defense for spammers is to claim that they didn't know the recipient was in Colorado. This would create a directory of emails so that the spammer should have reasonably known that the recipient was in Colorado and shouldn't be contacted.
Overall, though, I'd like to see the list be free, too. Spammers can easily avoid court if they opt to 'go renegade' and not check to make sure no Colorado or Missouri residents receive the email -- because the costs of losing are so much less than having to buy several lists of people not to email. If it were free, they might be more inclined to check.
This should be the law: If one wants that garbage: get it by opt-in. Getting it anyway? - Find, persecute, and punish the spammer hard. Yeah, it should be possible to get most of them (at least the newly-recruited) without going totalitarian.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
The Colorado law is not modeled on our highly popular telephone registry. In the latter case, if somebody calls us we can report them to the state and the Attorney General will go after them. I don't know whether we get any renumeration, and frankly I don't care since the intent is to ensure compliance. A call from the AG's office carries a lot of weight with companies, even those suing to overturn the law.
In contrast, the proposed spam law still puts the burden on us to track down the spammers, and for our trouble we'll get the princely sum of $10. Thanks, but no thanks since I already have that right for the 99% of the spam I receive that doesn't have "ADV:" in the headers. Meanwhile the $10 won't come close to compensating me for this asshole passing my address along to everyone he can in retaliation.
What I want to see is the right of the AG's office to go after anyone who violates some common sense rules. $100 fine/message for forged headers. $1000 fine/message if the forged header pointed at a Colorado resident. $1,000 fine/message if the forged message was bounced through an open relay located in this jurisdiction. $1,000 fine/message if a commercial message did not contain a valid "remove me" link, and $2,000 fine/message if the message was not acknowledged and acted upon within a reasonable period. (Say 3 business days.) With stacking fines. One night with a spambot and even a low-level spammer could be facing tens of thousands of counts, and millions of dollars in fines.
That won't stop the Nigerians or the jerks bouncing mail through Korean ISPs, but it should stop the spammeisters who brag to the WSJ then bitch when they get tons of unsolicited physical mail.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
But few cases have been successfully prosecuted under state laws, partly because spammers hide their identities -- by forging e-mail headers and routing information or by relaying spam through an unsuspecting host. That makes it hard to pinpoint the humans responsible for sending out the illegal missives.
If spammers can avoid prosecution under these laws, they can use the do-not-email list as a source of emails to spam. We know they would do this because of how they use the "reply-to-remove" links to see if an email address is live and unfiltered.
There's a way to avoid this problem: don't publish the emails; publish a one-way hash of the emails. Cracking the hash would take enough resources that it wouldn't be cost effective for the spammers, but "ethical" spammers who are trying to obey the law would be able to use the hashes to check if emails already on their list were opted-out.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
They can't make real people stop calling my house, and we are supposed to believe they can make anonymouse internet people stop sending out mass emails. RIGHT!
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Obviously, the legal protections would be void... but any reduction in spam would be welcome. (On the longshot that the lists actually help)
It would award consumers $10 for each unwanted message that they receive
So, you can sue em for $10 per spam e-mail. Better start saving up.
hmm...
This is different to MO's (I live in Missouri) no-call list, because when they call I can:
Get Firefox!
Legislators for the state of Oregon are considering such a law. The state Attorney General is pushing it, according to this story. It doesn't seem like it would be a huge win, but it's something, and the recognition that spam is out of control.
A great idea, really. not quite treating the problem (stopping the spammers in the first place), but a step better than just treating the symptom (filters, where the emails have to be downloaded anyhow and clog up the network). Not to be an out-and-out wet blanket, but I think the following details aren't going to be worked out. Taken from the article: Furthermore, spammers reside in several different states or overseas, bringing up jurisdiction problems. Nevertheless, Congress has failed to pass any of the 19 national antispam bills introduced since 1999, thanks in part to lobbying efforts of the business community.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Radio Shack will not spam you, but they'll send you a flyer.
Beep. Boop. Beep. You have questions. I have answers and your home address.
Have anyone considered having an entire domain name as an atom in the do not email list as opposed to only individual email address? For instance, the administrator of goatfactory.com could simply request that *@goatfactory.com be added to the list. It would of having to submit joe@goatfactory.com, buyagoat@goatfactory.com, etc... as well as subsequently having to add each new email address that he assigns.
This is the ultra-difficult to secure first post on The Thread No-one Could Reply To.
graspee
Come on, congratulate me or something!
until someone cracks into the database and sells the x million verified email addresses to overseas spammers
It is apt to grow into one humongous cat and mouse game trying to find out just *who* sent the spam.
This seems like a neat idea, and at least having the law publicly on the books gives a bit of leverage against blatant spamming, although I do get the idea it may be difficult to enforce.
I am of the idea that receiving spam may be something we will just have to live with, just as I think P2P will be something the **AA's have to live with. I just think the best idea is to know its there, and make provisions for it. It just comes with the territory, so to speak.
I know there are those of us who would like to demand we see ads if we are going to see the content, and many of us circumvent that. There are many of us ( me included ) which highly detest unsolicited ads - but I really do not see any way a lawyer is going to help me. I see both of these as a technical issue, and are best solved through technology.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Going to Small Claims court is not worth the ten dollars. It's not worth the $20 if they email you twice. It's not worth the $30 if they email you three times. It's simply not worth the trouble, and the small chance that you would lose, and the high probability that the spammer wouldn't even show up.
They should at least make the penalty as costly as the court fees needed to collect it.
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
Second, if you don't verify the information carefully, at minimum with double-opt-in and some kind of Turing test (e.g."type the number from the gif into this box"), there'll be all sorts of abuse, signing up people who don't want to be there, automated h4X0r b0ts trying to kill everybody in the state, random crap like that. Do you trust your average state government to implement something like that right? (If you answered "yes", and live in California or New Jersey, you obviously don't bother reading headlines about state government computer project debacles, and if you live somewhere else, your local government is just as stupid by I haven't been paying attention to them :-)
Third, there are ways to provide some privacy protection while still maintaining a blocking list. For instance, instead of keeping a database of addresses that pass the double-opt-in test, publish a list of harder-to-abuse hashes of the addresses:
Fourth, this doesn't always mix well with newer tagged-format addresses ("username+tag1@example.com") or domain or subdomain addresses ("anything@mydomain-example.com" or "anything@username.fastmail.fm") unless the rules are tediously explicit and accurate for how to use them. These kinds of addresses let you give every recipient a unique address, which your email programs can filter on to discard stuff that's obviously abuse and sort stuff that's from real people.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Thats what I'm waiting for... what they'll be fined or how much time they'll get.
Being beaten with sticks doesn't seem to unfair to me, considering how much I loathe spam.
Some spammer will set up shop overseas in a country that will provide them a safe haven to use these "Do-Not-Email" lists as "Super-verified-to-exist" lists. That's just as good as replying to a spammer requesting to be removed from their list. Of course they remove you! What they don't tell you is that now you're on a totally new list of e-mail addresses known to be valid and of people who actually read their spam (How else did you know the remove proceedure?). Spam sucks.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I only bring it up because it's the sensible temporary personal solution while public policy continues to fail us. We can't count on Washington, and few can count on state legislatures. An e-mail address, like a pair of aces, is something to hold close to your chest. Use Microsoft's spam trough for public communication.
The optimal solution to spam is simple: thunderously vicious overkill, an art in which the US (thanks to the Drug War) is now well-practiced. But we can't get legislation from our servile lawmakers, who well understand that to even think of hushing the roar of unbridled greed is to sacrifice their usefulness to the Machine, and hence their careers.
The registries are promising, but feature one tremendous drawback and other subtle ones. The main problem is that you don't want to leave these matters open to the vagaries of shifting political control. Here in Minnesota, our state opt-out telemarketing registry will take effect in a matter of weeks -- if the new radical right wing government here deigns to operate it correctly. In an age of fiscal and moral deficits, I'm not holding my breath.
More subtle are the problems of collection and control of information. First, registries place the onus of education and participation upon citizens when properly the onus of desisting should fall upon spammers. Second, registries collect the very data after which spammers lust, and hand it to them. Toothless penalties will only encourage massive abuse, making spamming easier.
And this version of the proposed law sucks big-time. How about they put a million bucks in a pool, open up 50 or 60 tracking bank accounts, and buy whatever it is the spam is selling.... Thus creating a $$$ trail that can be followed, and a judge can just take and put back into the state coffers. Him em where it hurts... in the pocket!
I wrote a real post, but it's not showing up here. Sigh...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Even as much as we hate spam, the idea that states should be allowed to regulate E-mail is really frightening. On most of my E-mails, I have no idea what state (or nation) the recipient is in.
If state regulation of E-mail is upheld, it means every time you send an E-mail you must figure out what state it is going to, learn the laws of that state, and then obey them. Sounds fine if it's an anti-spam law, but the principle would apply to any regulation the state might dream up. You would get 50 different sents of rules about what emails were legal and which were not. For example, New Mexico tried to pass a law regulating decency in internet traffic to New Mexico. No thanks to granting states that sort of authority.
If you want an opt-out list, it's got to be global or at least federal. Global's hard to do. Unfortunately, unlike phone numbers, I have an infinite number of E-mail addresses so an opt-out list is not so practical. If you allowed patterns you could cover it but you would need a way to authenticate the ownership of the pattern.
You also don't want the list published in cleartext, though it's hard to avoid this. While you could publish a list of hashes of excluded e-mail addresses, it's not hard to extract a lot of the addresses since the real ones come from a finite space. After all spammers have managed to harvest well enough.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
come from the U.S. and comes from countries with not extradition agreement well what do you do then.
Legislation against spam is great, but I wonder how enforcable it could be?
"This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original..."
So maybe slash is down for upgrades, as I haven't heard of this before- though I think that they would have had a piece informing people of it if that were the case.
If it knows this comment existed maybe it was stored after all.
JESUS CHRIST this topic is going to have about 1000 first post claims on it! It could go down in history!
Can we beat the highest post count on a story ever? Will they let the record stand?
Am I really sad for playing slash like a game?
Am I going to lose lots of karma along with lots of other people as the mods who get up don't realize the problems slash was having with showing posts?
AHHAHAHAH Historic day!
graspee
but how are they going to procecute out-of-country spammers?
basically they're getting a huge verified list of email addresses.
what I'd do is put some test addresses in there before my personal one and see if it gets spammed first.
should be interesting either way.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
.. its about time.
Of course, what will prevent a company (off shore or otherwise not under the influence of US law, well, except for that one Russian incident) from getting a copy of said list and then using it for more spam?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Here's my written testimony...
Testimony
The house bill 228 wasn't perfect, it still needs a lot of work. It was suppossed to be voted on last Monday but I didn't hear the results.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The key is government enforcement (i.e. stiff fines) for spammers. I think the "do not call" list is unnecessary and error prone. I think we just need big penalties for spammers who don't a) abide by current laws to have non-fraudulent "remove me" instructions, or b) use truthful headers. I think those would cut way down on spam without forcing people to sign up for something that *everyone* wants anyway.
And if you want to be on a do-not-call for via Gra, you might still want to get emails about network software tools!
The one thing wrong with this idea is that once government starts providing services, it also looks for compensation. And we know that once it finds a source of money or power, it never, ever gives it up.
Let's save the 'net for the people. Keep government out of it!
I signed up for the Do Not Call list in Massachusetts and it has worked great- no pesky calls since then. I hope the email implementation can have the same success!
Um, yeah, just put your e-mail address here on this "special" list, and I swear I'll send them to the state for the do not mail list.
:)
Oh, and you may receive a few notices as to other great products we offer, such as appendage enlargement, ways to meet women, and wonderful investment opportunities.
Best Scam Ever.
I am so lost, no posts after like 30 seconds. To keep this from being a troll: The do not email list will never work, it would be too big and take up too much processing power. It would be possible somehow if they used open source, open source will always work because it is what keeps the world at peace.
Just get a spam filter.
Do what you do with annoying Jehovah's Witnesses that come to your door -- don't let them in.
One of the proposed laws gives the consumer $10 for successfully sueing a spammer. Gimme a break, who's got the time to go to court for $10? Another of the proposed laws awarded the spamee $5000 (or was it $2000?) if they had registered on the no-spam list but gets spammed anyway. That would certainly be more of a deterrant, but it doesn't address the problem of finding the spammer to begin with. While it's good to see someone trying to do something about the problem, this ain't it.
According to postini.com, my ISP's filtering service, up to 65% of all email is spam.
Spam costs money people, we are paying for that drain of bandwidth, and time.
I think a DNE list is a great idea, and make the spammers pay for it by charging for them for updates to the list!
Can we really stop spam through policial solutions? Seems like things must be done on a technical level first before laws can become effective.
Are they going to send a couple of Highway Patrol officers to Taiwan to arrest people sending spam to Missouri?
ps - Where the heck is 'Colorodo'?
ps #2 - Wherezalla posts? Will I find out when I click 'Submit'?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The spammers will just hide thier tracks using servers outside the US in safe havens for shady activities.
Practically speaking I'd like to see international law recognize that those profiting from spam (the people who are actually taking the money for the products) are responsable for the spam even if the spam cannot be traced directly back to them. Fines with teeth would be needed for enforcement.
Go here to create your own Slashdot dis
Someone plz post something for me to read. Thx. o.o;;
Luke-Jr
and I invite everybody to visit the page and enter their email adr. if they don't want go get spam in their email.
btw please fill in those field about stuff you like while you are at it.
my sig
Perhaps this could be the next get rich quick scheme?
First off, let's assume that DNC lists work for phone and paper direct marketing. (We all know that they don't, but let's pretend.)
DNE lists *can't* work, for several reasons:
* There's not a one-to-one correlation between people and email addresses. Many (most?) people have several addresses: Even AOL members get up to eight. So do those people have to "unsubscribe" eight times? What about those of us who invent new email addresses for different uses? It's not unusual for someone to have dozens or even hundreds of addresses.
* Let's not forget role addresses: root, webmaster, postmaster, etc. Someone would have to put those on the DNE list.
* What about the poor schmuck who gets "fallback", i.e. [anything]@domain.com? That's the default in many systems.
* Some email addresses have several people connected to them -- for example, mailing lists. Who unsubscribes those?
* Some email addresses have *no* people connected to them -- for example, those controlling processes. Would anyone even know to add them to the DNE?
Some proposals have included a provision that allows one to add entire domains to a DNE list. These are somewhat better, but they have several problems with them. For one, it would trump the individual preferences of those using the domain.
But ultimately, the main problem is that *the burden shouldn't be on the recipient*. Unlike phone (a common carrier) or postal mailboxes (government property), email boxes are private property, requiring private funds. Access without permission is trespass.
BTW, see law.spamcon.org for a list of states with current antispam laws. I live in one with an opt-in law: California Business and Professions Code 17538.45.
--Tom Geller
Founder, SpamCon Foundation
Tom Geller
I'm not from the US. I live in NZ and maybe the spam situation is different there, but at least 1/2 of my spam comes from outside the US. Most of it from african and asian spammers trying to sell me porn sites or give me $42 000 000.
While a law like this may stop a few honest (if they exist) american spammers, the scumbag majority will probably just plunder these lists for addresses.
Cheers Koz
If spammers were really under the control of a jurisdiction, it does not take a "do not spam" list to stop them.
If I were a spammer, the do-not-spam list sounds like an ideal source for qualified, good email addresses to spam. What a completely stupid concept.
This won't have any real effect, I'm sorry to say.
First of all (as I understand it), this is done at the local level (not even federal) so the odds that loop holes exist is much greater. I can see this being as effective as the state laws regarding fireworks and/or alcohol. In Utah, for example, they only have 3.2% beer, but you can just hop to Wyoming to get the real thing. Same thing goes for bottle rockets--you get the idea.
Also, the law says that if you win the case you get you court fees back plus $10 per message. This is more or less worthless to Joe User. A $10 pay-off isn't worth the time and risk.
And you also have to consider foreign companies--good luck trying to haul in some German firm and hold them to this law.
Sorry, but state-level regulations aren't going to do a THING.
I have been enormously pleased with how well the No-Call list has worked. But I'm not so sure how well a No-Email list will work, for the simple fact that, although telemarketing firms are generally businesses with valid addresses and contactable management, spammers are slimy invertebrates who've learned to work a mass-mailer on their basement computer. I'm willing to give it a go, though. I wouldn't even mind if the state takes a cut of any settlement I reach. I'd let 'em have a grand out of the $5k, give my lawyer another $3k, and keep a measly thou for myself.
Why so much trouble posting comments on this article?
Did somebody apply the "do not post" registry to this article?
I didn't see anything on whether this would be an opt-in, or opt-out...Could make all the difference.
-=fshalor
What guarantee do I have that some hacker isn't going to break into that database of "don't email me please" addresses, and not spam the living snot out of them, all while re-writing the original database and claiming that my address was never on the list???
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
CAUCE argues that junk e-mail should be treated like junk faxes: banned altogether except in cases where the sender and recipient have an established business relationship.
:/
What defines an 'established business relationship'? I can see with faxes that maybe they mean I bought a product from Company X. But with the Internet, couldn't a shady business say that I have an 'established relationship' with them because I visted thier webpage, saw thier banner ad, ordered from an affiliate, etc? The law sounds really good but I'm afraid it could be gotten around with some creativity
,
faeryman
Works! Now, if I could just get the people who want me to give them money as opposed to those who were trying to sell me something to stop calling me, all would be peaceful.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Think about it. Anybody who would take the time to get on a do not email list isnt gonna buy anything form them anyway, so why would they care about this?
Mess Stuff Up
do not send me crappy old jokes list?
I mean, most of the spammers won't care about this list, and most of them are already using techniques to make them "anonymous"... ie. that nigerian guy who have some of my money will really care about that law, right?
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
From the article: "But few cases have been successfully prosecuted under state laws, partly because spammers hide their identities -- by forging e-mail headers and routing information or by relaying spam through an unsuspecting host. That makes it hard to pinpoint the humans responsible for sending out the illegal missives."
So, get the database, harvest those real, live addys, and spam away using your layers of obfuscation...
I'd rather keep my addy on the down-low, rather than submitting it to a publicly-accessible database, regardless of the db's purpose. I've learned to be very, very wary of publicizing addys.
Doh.
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
... which is the availability of easy to create email accounts, like Hotmail or Yahoo. They create an account, mass mail from it once, and abandon it. I'd say that 90% of the crap in my filtered mail folder is from those two providers.
I don't know if this is doing something or giving up, from the legislative point of view... not the dumbest solution I've ever seen.
"At this point, I think the technical approach has more promise than the legal one," said Sorkin. "Filters have done more to block unsolicited e-mail than any piece of legislation."
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
until they can ISPs on the liability hook for relaying spam from outside sources, I don't see the teeth. After all, ISPs have the geographic presence that connect with the end user or, in this case, receiver. Suing a spammer in Bulgaria or Korea is a waste of legal resources, as the net reult will be an unenforceable injunction.
are we going to reach the long arm of US govt to get them?
:)
ya, right...
At unspam.com we're working on a patent pending technology that will help states implement these sort of do-not-email lists. Stay tuned! We'll be making a public announcement with details in the next few weeks.
Considering the very illegal nature of a lot of spam already (beastiality, pyramid schemes, stock scams, etc.), what exactly makes people think that some new legislation is going to make it stop this time around? Spam's already hard to trace, what with the ephemeral nature of dial-up accounts and the sometimes difficult-to-trace mail sent through open relays in God-knows-where, Asia.
--sdem
Just my 2 cents.
The only way a law would ever stop spam is if it is legally enforceable across the entire globe. That is more offensive than spam, and certainly scarier.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
1) rather than making the sender liable, make the business/person/entity the ad is for liable, this way there is no problem tracking down where the email came from (which seems to be the biggest problem right now with spam). this will also solve the problem of overseas junk mail, since most spam is sent from overseas, but the ad is for US businesses. 2) enforce the words SPAM or JUNK in the subject of the email, then servers, routers, and hubs can filter out these messages if domains don't want them. spam must be enforced by the government at the federal level, if just the states do it, there will some stupid state that doesn't pass it and spam will prevail. it is a huge internet resource hog, and the senders do not largely pay for resources they use, we do everytime we download it through our ISP. one thing i really don't understand is that EVERYONE HATES SPAM, so why the hell is it so hard to pass legislation to make it illegal overnight??????
This will:
- make opt-out lists smaller and manageable
- cluster users who want spam into a small number of ISPs
- help opted-out ISPs file lawsuits
- reduce risk to individual privacy
Server admins are much more irritated by spam than are end-users.Speaking of which, would mail admins please ensure their outbound HELO is valid and matches reverse DNS on the outbound IP? This is a quick, decentralized improvement.
Rich
to see what use is made of these "opt-out" lists by foreign spammers.
I don't think anyone will hire a lawyer for $10 to go against a spammer? I had to spend $300 just to get a lawyer to look over my employment agreement. If you loose the case, then you are out your time and a lot of money.
So in effect this is a nice way to let everyone know your e-mail in my opinion.
my $0.02
There seems no need for an op-out list. There is already a federal law that prohibits spamming fax machines, and it has been enforced. My state even has an anti-spam e-mail law, but you can't get the lazy government employees in the consumer protection department to enforce it. What we really need is to recognize that spam wastes/(steals) a lot of money in time and resources in many ways and to pass laws against unsloicited spam without making people publish their e-mail addresses that they don't want spammed.
An ISP who passes tens of millions pieces of unwanted messages each day for penis pills and pr0n and "make money fast" and "I need your help to sneak 14 gazillion US dollars out of my country" shouldn't be spared delivery of only the 1% who are willing to sign up on an opt-out list, they should be spared all of this bullshit by the strength of an anti-spam law that is enforced.
Enforcement should be a snap too. Put a nice dead-or-alive bounty on the spammers heads and watch how fast they are tracked down and put out of action. The lazy bastards at the consumer protection department wouldn't have to lift a finger.
A national do-not-e-mail list might be nice icing on the cake; it would be great to have that too, once there was already an enforced law on spamming me, so the someone couldn't claim they had a business ralationship that didn't really exist (like when Microsoft sells them all of the Passport information). But it's not the right answer as a first step against spam. I'm even disgusted that /. would discuss and promote it; this in some ways gives ligitimacy to the lying "click here to opt out" crap common in lots of spam. We need to "opt out" the spammers, not our own private e-mail addresses.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Is that anywhere near Colorado?
Sing While You May!!
Maybe it's just me, but I think neither state law (Colorado or Missouri) quite fits the bill. I like the fact Colorado charges for access to registry. Without that, what's to stop overseas spammers from using the registry to generate an active email address list. After all, so what if the spammers get sued (and lose). They're overseas so you'll never collect. Having to pony up $500 just to see the list is at least a little deterrent to that. Also, this could help pay for maintaining the list, keeping registration free (hopefully).
However, getting only $10 in damages (plus lawyer's fees) isn't going to encourage much punishment of those who do break the law (and can be found). Here, Missouri's damages of $5000 are a bit more reasonable. This much will encourage more people to go after those violators. Laws without enforcement are worthless.
Of course, both are still opt-out, and opt-in is much preferred. However, if this opt-out compromise reduces the number of spam messages I have to filter out, then I say it is doing some good. There is no one easy solution to the spam problem. If there were, someone would have found it by now (although just extenting the junk fax ban would go a long way toward that solution).
This has been on the front page for a while and I see no posts.
Just wondering if this is going to get through.
"In Missouri, companies would have free access to the list, but residents would be able to sue marketers for up to $5,000 for violating it."
Yeah, I'm sure the average AOL user is more than capable of tracking down the actual spammer. Nothing to see here, please move along.
Dammit people, is it that difficult? Spelt like it sounds...
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
This is a little off topic, but on my mind so fuck it. I'm posting it anyway. On a telephone system, those three successive tones (the ones you get when you dial a wrong number) signal non-completion of a call. The Tele-zapper, sold in Radio Shack and other electronics stores, I believe emit these tones, effectively removing the receiver of the call from the call lists of the automated dialers of call centers. Assuming (weakly) that spammers emailed using a valid return address, wouldn't it be nice to have a similar device bouncing spam mails automatically? Years ago, Albert Yale wrote a program called BSM -- Bounce Spam Mail, for Windows. Seems like it worked like twice out of twenty for me. You can still find it on the net with a Google search and a little digging. Would it be possible to have an automated plugin similar to this? I'm not saying such a program would stop spam, but it would certainly be a nice counterpart to Baysean filtering, SpamNet-like utilities, and progressive and intelligent legislation.
<:
This would probably be easier to put through than the telephone opt-in system. Most spammers are (slimy) individuals, without the lobbying clout of the Direct Marketing Association behind them - and as everyone knows, laws are made (or not made) because of lobbyists, not out of any sense of whats right. =)
Here's hoping I'm completely wrong.
Is it fascism yet?
I mean - it's not like the people sending me "increase your dick size 8" now" / nigerian king emails are actually selling legit products, and I really doubt they care about any laws or regulations.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
That the customers have opted in, or that they have an existing business relationship with them. It's what they already do...
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Have you ever received spam from a foreign country? Probably. Why? Because it's no more expensive than domestic spam.
This idea will not get rid of spam coming from foreign countries. And note, I'm not talking about foreign language spam. I mean spam originating from a source outside your country. The people who are coming up with these dumb ideas about how to combat spam obviously have no practical knowledge actually trying to deal with spam. But, wait! It get's better. Even if this manages to deal with domestic spam, what's to stop someone from (illegally) selling the list to a foreign spammer outside the jurisdiction of the US?
If you're a foreign spammer, I bet this sounds like a great idea... Now, the well-meaning, but let's face it ... stupid ... US government will be collecting valid and up-to-date email addresses for you. Even if they don't publish the entire list, there will have to be some way to check if an address is in the list and spammers could use that to verify that addresses are valid without needing to connect to millions of SMTP servers.
Any way you slice it, this idea does not seem workable to me. (e-mail does not equal telephone.)
Spammers are slimier and harder to track down than telemarketers. Somehow I think they'll just treat the "do-not-spam" registry as just another spam list.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Universal 'Remove' lists have been tried. They've all failed because there's always going to be some spammer who thinks they can get away with not using it.
Don't even get me started on the fact that spammers, for the most part, go to great lengths to hide their real identities and addresses. Can't serve court papers if you can't find the person (and I use the term loosely in reference to spammers) to be served.
Part of the solution has always been there, staring legislators in the face. It's just that nobody seems to have the cojones to do it; Specifically, expand the existing Junk FAX law (47 USC 227(b)) to cover spam. It might not have an immediate effect, but at least it would be a good start.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Uh... Ok. Spam's bad. Sorry for being off-topic, but what's up with slashdot? I seriously doubt that I'm the first post on this message, as I've alreadly re-loaded it twice on a friday night... \. isn't acting like it usually does...
Anyhow... anti-spam = good. spam = bad.
Sign me up please!
It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people. - clinko
That'll stop those Korean spammers good.
/. on a friday night?
Maybe it'll help though since, on some accounts I work with, I've noticed that ALL the spam going to them are definitely American in origin.
Consider this: they normally get an average of 40+ spam per day and there were ZERO the friday after Thanksgiving! It seems that even spammers take THAT day off for holiday.
Jeez, what the hell am I doing on
This is not my sig.
The list will have to be readable to spammers, and whats to stop one spammer in the us selling the list to another in korea?
The article says that the law will allow "consumers to sue marketers who ignore their wishes [not to be spammed]" I'm curious over how the law would treat individual spammers. Would it allow people to sue Hot_Cindy9876@yahoo.com? or would it be the supplier of the product that Cindy was advertising that is held responsible. This might be especially difficult if the product (or website) is foreign, eg CrazyAsianPron.tw
It also seems a bit negative for anti-spam groups to criticise the laws before they are enacted.
I would have thought they would be all for this kind of thing, even if it doesn't work, at least it is a start and shows that some States are trying to do the right thing.
Just because they haven't done it perfectly first time is no reason to complain. Wait and see what happens, it might work out ok, and if it doesn't then start pushing for it to be reworked.
Quoth the article: "Almost all of the current state laws are completely useless and counterproductive," Sorkin said. "The state laws go after the symptoms of the spam, but don't address the central problem...."
(nodding head knowingly) Yup. Spam cannot be dealt with on a state-by-state basis. First, there's the problem of prosecuting someone who isn't even in the country and secondly, how does a prosecutor prove that the spammer knew that the email recipient lived in this or that state of the U.S.?
Legislators have this huge urge to "do something" about every problem that plagues man, and I admire them for their Good Intentions. But when it comes to something like this, they might as well try to outlaw bad weather during the State Fair.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
This is strange. Does no one care about this subject?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Unfortunately, for those that can't stand SPAM the only solution is to keep an account for junk mail and change it once and while. The burden still lies on the end user but if there are enough people willing to respond to the ads they receive there will always be companies ready to answer those responses.
I think an opt out list is the way to go but it would have to require a lot of international agreements.
I know an opt out list is controversial idea but here is my reasoning. First off it is necessary to look at the alternative. This is that you have to prove that you have no previous business arrangement with the company/person sending you the junk email. This is time consuming and is not guaranteed to work in a lot of cases.
However if you consider that in you sign up to an opt out list that signifies that you DO NOT want any spam email then the case is easier to prove if you ever receive spam from a company/person. In this case you can take the spam, show you are on the list and easily prove you have opted out of any spam.
This same opt out method works well in the UK for advertising phone calls. Basically any company that wants to phone you up to sell you something has to check your number is not on the list. If a company calls you up to sell you something and you are registered then the company gets a fine. This service is free and backed by law.
I know people say that they want to automatically be opted out of all spam however this allows a tenuous point to be stretched for the reason explained above.
From a proof point of view it is much easier to point to something that says you are definitely opted out. With the register to opt out method the onus is on the company to check and not on you to prove.
However the legislation needs to take in to account where the company is based. Not where the email is being sent from. If America agrees to this legislation and requires businesses to check before having spam being sent out then this will stop a lot of the spam email. Importantly the legislation needs to target the company even if they use a third party company to distribute the emails.
Martin Piper
Owner - ReplicaNet and RNLobby
It's great to see legislation of this type appear on the scene, however I'm not sure which state's stategy is going to be most effective. Charging spammers for access to a do-not-email list which could potentially protect them from lawsuits is a good thing, but there has to be an incentive for the consumer, other than to screw over the spammers, for them to sue the offenders. Personally, $10/UBE message for at least two days effort on my part (with a lawyer, and in court), which translates into at least $1200 of my time (at a reasonable rate of $75/hour) doesn't make it worth my while to spend my time sueing a spammer in Colorado.
Payment of $5,000 per violation in Missouri on the other hand, makes it worth while for consumers to sue spammers. FOr this reason, it seems to me that the Colorado law is designed as a state regenue generation mechanism, rather than legislation designed to compensate the victims of spammers.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Get your own domain ($35/year), get someone to forward mail to that domain (eg. these guys) and give everyone who needs your address a different one. If you receive spam you (1) know who sent it to you and (2) can delete it.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
with failed first posts.
15 minutes and I still get first post!!!!!
qz
Given that most of the unwanted mail I get nowadays is the Klez worm and some asshole named "Big Boss", I doubt this legislature will accomplish any meaningful solution to the spam problem. The answer ultimately has to come from the technological front.
Ñ'
I can't believe they allow ads for Spam on TV!!
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
I wonder if this will work, as most spammers do not even have a real base of operations, so there is no way to fine them or do anything that the do not call lists can. That for the most part will cause this fail, as most of the respectable (if they can be called that) spammers will stop sending mail if you unsubscribe. The people that this list would be aimed at would not care if you are on a list or not, they just pound out messages and move on.
So how do they intend to enforce it on spammers whose machines are in Libya or Togo?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Is there any established network that only forwards encrypted, signed mail, with sender identity verified by the ISP? I want to switch and encourage my friends to participate.
...but there's just no practical way to enforce these laws.
In the meantime, some solutions that actually work (or at least hold back the tide) are SpamNet, a collaborative spam filtering network, and of course the ever-unpopular PGP.
There are already several companies that run "affiliate programs", whereby they avoid the liabilities associated with spamming by paying any Joe Public willing to do the job to "advertise" for them (this generally means spamming). When someome complains, they say "Oh my! We don't endorse spamming! we'll cancel that affiliate's account immediately!". Of course it's pretty obvious that they do condome spam.
Now, what if your 'affiliates' are overseas, and outside the reach of this legislation? Already over half my spam comes to me courtesy of China.
It would be difficult to hold the company responsible, since they can just claim that their affiliates are running amok, and it's not their fault. You can't prosecute the affiliates because they're not in the USA. So. Back to square one.
Congress has failed to pass any of the 19 national antispam bills introduced since 1999, thanks in part to lobbying efforts of the business community.
Yes the fines may be somewhat of a deterant but when politics is involved I agree that a technical solution is still the brightest hope of reducing the spam problem.
Actually, current harassment laws could deal with Spammers effictively. A "No Spam" list would more likely than not create an ineffective set of beauracratic rules that the states would have to spend millions of dollars protecting, because Spam companies would sue under the grounds that their right to free enterprise was being harmed.
That said, there are ways to get around spam. You can have an email that you give out to organizations you know you'll get spam from, and another that you've spider-proofed on your webpage. I began doing this last summer, and I've only recieved two pieces of spam mail in over six months. Also, once you click on the "opt-out" button, keep a copy, if the same company sends mail to you again, you can get them under current laws.
I think that's great. And after it's been made an example, it will scare others away from machine-gunned spam.
Now if only it was law in Canada.
If you can still be sued for emailing someone on the list if you're outside the US this should be a good thing. However my first thought is that what will end up happening is this list will simply become a convenient repository of addresses for spammers not affected by the law. Does anyone know how this law would apply to spammers outside the US?
I stole this Sig
It's about time...
... or did somebody turn down the internet over here? this story has been up for an hour and a half, and i'm still seeing no comments. i need something to read, i'm bored at work, helllp.
I fail to see the example of the working concept being implemented. The article itself suggests that it isn't fair to compare do-not-call lists with do-not-email lists.
This wont stop spam from outside the country. This wont stop the abuse of open relays. It might be a step in the right direction, but it's not going to do much good putting our thumb in the tiny crack in the damn when the water is flooding over the top.
-Jhon
How would this be enforced? When you are telemarketed (phone call from business) but are on a do-not-call list, you can ask the business for their name, etc and they'll generally be honest with you. Then you file a complaint with consumer protection (or pick your state agency) and it can be handled.
;)
But do you really think if someone violates this "do-not-email" registry that they could successfully be tracked down? Forged mail headers, relaying... Even if you do track them down, there's burden of proof. Get the sendmail logs -- oh, but those could be forged or whatever by an "insider" to wipe them clean... I mean, how do you possibly enforce this?
I'd be more than happy to be informed that I'm mistaken, that it'd be no problem. Please, someone speak up.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
spammers place themselves on this list ?
Does that mean no one can email them to tell them not to spam ?
As a network administrator who lives in Colorado and deals with the daily deluge of SPAM that floods my corporate email server I raise my glass in salute to the lawmakers who are diligent enough to carry on the Colorado No Call tradition and carry it to SPAM email.
Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.
I posted something but can't see it - yet it appears after posting that there are 244 comments. All attempted FP's? WTF?
sulli
RTFJ.
If they could impliment this along the lines of a DNS lookup server then it would be trivial for email servers to look up addresses.
Otherwise it sounds really cumbersome.
Oh wait I don't live in either or those states. Oh well, no protection for me. My state can't even get the DNC list working right, so why should I ever expect them to even undertake soemthing like this and have it work.
test (fp?)
But will it actually do any good? Washington State has an anti-spam law and it hasn't stopped most people... althought I did hear of one guy who successfully sued using it.
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
Prior to signing up for the Missouri "Do Not Call" list about a year ago, we would get 1-2 telemarketing calls each evening, usually during dinner. Now we get none.
I'm not sure if a "Do-Not-Email" list would be as effective, but if they were, I'd be the first person to sign up. I'm now getting close to 75 spam emails each day. Fortunately for tools like Spamassassin and the new Mozilla email client with built in junk email filtering, at least I don't have to look at them!
...because there would have to be teeth to make sure that marketers abided by the list. But at least this sounds like a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately I find that do not call lists generally fail. At the very least telemarketing isn't as bad as e-mail spam because you can take out your personal problems on a telemarketer and ask them why in the name of good, christian decency they've taken up such an ignoble profession.
I doubt that there is really a way to deal with the email spam problem other than passing legislation which allows for the seizure of computer equipment of businesses which use the practice. Until we have some way of actually putting a penalty for doing so, it will continue.
Two, actually. They're called, "delete" and "filter."
sig not found
Good idea, but you gotta figure that a lot (most?) spam comes from places and people who are just going to laugh at any kind of list like this.
I bet that if this does get implemented the registries get swamped with requests just like the do-not-call ones.
On a clear disk you can seek forever
The problem is that there would be hardly any way to enforce this because millions may put their email addresses on the list just so that hundreds of spammers can get a fresh batch to add to their spam lists.
I'd be too scared to put my email address on any do-not-spam me list as it would probably cause more trouble than it would solve. I prefer my method - email of 10000 forwards.
So let me get this straight. For $500 any spammer can get a huge lists of e-mail addresses from Colorado, and Missouri is going to give their list away for free. This might actually be effective if all spam was sent from Missouri and Colorado. But since laws like this can't be applied and enforced globally, the end result will be more spam for people who add their names to the list, not less.
This would probably help cut down on spam from a lot of larger American companies, however, most spammers are shady and try to get around laws and hide their identities as it is. I'm sure the law will dictate that the spam cannot originate from a mail server physically located in the States, so the spammers will just originate (or bounce) messages from a server located outside of U.S. turf. Not to mention the relative ease of forging email headers.
I don't think they could enforce the law on anyone outside of the States, and I'm sure most spammers won't care.
So I kind of doubt it would be all that effective.
-due to inflation this is now only my $0.0006
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
I've always wondered why there wasn't something like this... Of course its only a matter of time before most of the spam moves itself out of the U.S.A. and we're right back where we are now.
Why try new ways of breaking things when the old work so well?
Does anyone think this will have the slightest impact on the amount of spam they receive?
--
Its a damn pity this wont help the rest of us net users outside of the jurisdiction of this bill. Spam is seriously getting out of control. But i cant see it being dealt with worldwide properly anytime soon.
"Legislation introduced in Colorado and Missouri would create a central database of residents who don't want to receive unsolicited e-mail and would allow consumers to sue marketers who ignore their wishes."
This is a nice idea, but most of the spam I get is forged so knowing who to sue would be hard. Plus, I'd worry that spammers would just use the do not email list as a source of email addresses. With phone calls, at least, you can trace who called if you need to. Trying to trackdown hijacked-account@foreign-isp.com will be much harder.
What happens if the person generating the spam is located overseas? For telemarketing, international calls carries a large price, but emailing from outside the US can be done without much effort. This would just move all spam offshore. Might help for spam filter purposes!
About the only real hope would be to turn it into a class-action suit, and go after them for a few million dollars (plus punitive damages).
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
After seeing the treatment Alan Ralsky got just throw the spammers to the vultures at /.
I happen to live in Missouri, so I am hoping this goes through. I have heard rumors in the past about such legislation being proposed. One thing I want to know is what are the exceptions. Missouri currently has a no-call list, but there are certain exceptions to this (like alma maters calling you and hitting you up for money). However, I really can't see the majority of people actually taking up violations in court. Hell, a lot of times the spam just gets bounced through some unsuspecting person's insecure mail server. What happens in this case?
Project Steve
Well, due to all slashdotters trustworthyness, i'm posting my personal info, I'm not worried that it will be missused cuz i'm on this new do-not-call list. Heywood Jablowme 208-452-2397 34th ST, Apt B. Chicago, IL 60052 heyblowme@spamme.com SSN 269-32-9979 CC: 3295 3930 3320 6598 Visa-02/05 Mothers Maiden Name: McCrevis Checking Account Number: 5903239 USBank PIN Number: 403990 Best Time to Call: between 8pm and 9pm Favorite Hobby: Buying stuff on tha late night TV show CVS. I've purchased many useful items, Ronco food dehydrator, Handy Stitch (sewing machine), Titanium Knife set (the one you can use to cut up a leather shoe and slice a tomato) etc...
What about email relays in India? What are they doing about THAT?
this is a test of the emergency messaging system. This story has been posted for over half an hour, and yet I don't see any comments. If this message is successful, feel free to mod me down, and it is only related to me testing to see if /. is broken or my browser.
On a semi-related to the story note: I'm on the missouri no call list, and it works great. I recieve way fewer telemarketing calls than a did a year ago.
I am in Indiana, USA, and Indiana passed and put into action a 'Do Not Call' list a year ago. And the great thing is, this one really works for keeping out the telemarketing calls. I used to be annoyed by them very frequently, and often in the dinner hour. But it has gone completely quiet since I signed up for the list.
One downside is that local businesses that used to be able to call around town locally, can't do that anymore. They need some kind of lead in by the customer before thay can make contact. So, while I think its great, their business is hurt somewhat.
is going on?
I'd be first to sign up for this one.
sfsdfsdfsdf sdkj hied aeika fi.
I wonder how it will handle things like amazon's email marketing and the like. Is everyone who runs a mailing list going to have use these things to look up 'do-not-mail' address?
OTOH, if they allow 'existing bussness relationship' we'll all still get tons of spam from people who think that paying $10,000 for a list of email address is the same as me 'opting-in' for a 'partner' site.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
this will never happen
Freaky Schitt always happens to me... WHY God WHY!!
I want a do not spam here in California, but not one with a loophole for politicians an charities.
Hell, I don't even like most of the elected talking heads here, anyway.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Now Mr Numbatu from Nigeria will have a new list of verified 'trusted associates' to help him get his $50 Million worth of gold out of the country!
--
Seriously though - doesn't the international nature of spam and the 'net preclude this sort of thing from working in real life? And don't compare it to offshore telemarketers - they generally have goods or services that they want to sell you right here in the USA, so whomever would benefit from that transaction can be pursued and found at fault for voilating a DNC list.
Spammers on the other hand could be promoting a Swedish porn site, a Jamaican on-line casino, or a UK based match.com rip-off, all without any fear of reprisal...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
but the larger more IT literate states have not? Don't get me wrong, i'm right next door to missouri and would love to see this in my state, but why haven't the cali's and texas's done this yet?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Michael, pray tell, what, exactly, about providing a machine-readable, easily-parseable list of valid, active e-mail addresses - in order to STOP spam - is a working concept?
This sounds like the do not call registries which seem always to be postponed to a place just past the horizon?
I live in Colorado, and I tell you, you would not BELIEVE the effect the no-call lists had here. In the days leading up to the law taking effect we were getting a dozen telemarketing calls a day...now, none :-)
:-)
Granted, I'm currently not getting any spam, either, since I just changed email addresses...but that isn't something you want to do every day
Twenties Retirement
"here, this is a list of people who do not want to recieve spam from you".
since most of the spam i've recieved lately has come through open relays in asia, how id the state of colorado going to help?
Sitting Walrus Blog
In Washington state, we have a do-not-email list that Washington residents can sign up on. Does it work? Sorta. I have heard about people using the law to sue spammers, and actually generate a decent income. This wasn't the intent of the law however.... it's supposed to cut down on the crap in my inbox. The main problem is that most of the spam I get these days comes from other countries. For some reason, I doubt the spammers are losing much sleep over our anti-spam laws.
So the acknowledge the problem, and hopefully if this fails, they'll be more receptive to something that might work
Quack!Quack!.....QUACK!!
You will be SPAMed, resistance is futile.
It works for phones, because phones cost money, especially if you are from overseas... Email costs nothing, so having a big long list of VALID email addresses is just asking to be abused by off-shore spammers.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
A user in a foreign country does not care if they violate the law and spam a user on a 'do not email' list. In fact, they are very likely to use that list as a source of addresses linked to real people. The proposal is misguided.
The net will eventually be a confederation of people sending mail to people on their whitelists and blocking everything else.
-ez
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I hate SPAM good for the government!!!!
W00t! first post!!!
Odd. Well...At least I don't see any replies.
Ya.. Maybe in a perfect world you could stop spam.. Pffht. While you're at it you better turn off your TV.
R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
As a colorado resident that recieves more than 100 unsolicited emails per day, I'd have to say that this is a godsend.
the actual bill link is here.
Although it says we have to hunt down the spammers and take them to court for the $10 per message, for those of us that are willing to go through the trouble, that's like, over a hundred bucks a day!
It's better than having a full time job! I love it!
America - Home of the scapegoat, land of the Corporation
Are a great idea, as is this. DNC lists aren't as effective as we'd love for them to be, but that's all right.
:(
The real benefit here is the possibility to sue for damages. If your email is on a "do not email" list, then, perhaps you could sue...
The unfortunate part is that with so many states, this will end up being a patchwork of different laws that may not end up have that much impact.
justen.
Even though I'm not in the US, I'm gonna be signing up for these!
But who would enforce it?
I thought there was lots of resistance against Do-not-email list.....
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
It's been nearly an hour, and slashdot's still saying that there aren't any posts to this article...
I'm sure I posted nearly an hour ago on this topic.
Testing... 1, 2, 3...
Testing...
(1) Consult do-not-email list ...
(2) find open relay outside of law's juristriction
(3)
(4) Profit!
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
sure, a company in the usa might not want to risk being sued, but im sure Spamhaus Corp in Asia won't mind paying five grand for addresses that surely work.
Spammers based in other countries would love this, they'd get a huge list for little ($500) or no cost, and since they're not in this country, face no penalty's. Where do I sign up?
"At this point, I think the technical approach has more promise than the legal one," said Sorkin. "Filters have done more to block unsolicited e-mail than any piece of legislation."
I hate to see conclusions like that. I mean, if we all wore bullet-proof vests, would we need laws against shooting people? It's this kind of thinking that gets us into situations like having to deal with the 2.3 billion spams per day. And, no mention of what that's doing to the world's bandwidth....
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
Alright, First post.......don't have anything else to say besides that. heh
They dishonor e-mail removal request by send more SPAM instead
They have been very elusive in being tracked down
When they abuse foreign countries, they will end up being beyond the reach of Colorado and Missouri
I have one e-mail address which I don't use except for domain name registrations since the addresses are required. I get deluged with 80 spam messages each day. It is a pain ion the ass having to unload that e-mail box each day. In their arrogance, they mentioned that I opted i to receive their commercial messages. I don't think so. They are well known for being assholes on the Internet and thank to SPAMMER's, they are making e-mail pretty much useless as a communication medium.
I have been on it since it started. I could only hope that the No Email List passes. That would be so sweeet....
Paranoid tinfoil hat crowd say Y here, everyone else say N.
Most spam goes through so many remailers and comes from so many different sources it would be impossible to ever enforce this. The people who should be sued are the companies who advertise. If business dries up for the spammers it would no longer be so profitable for them. This is something that needs to be done on the federal level not the state level.
Great, we'll stop the spammers by building a huge central repository of working email addresses, and then give access to the lists to spammers worldwide. How could THAT backfire?
scott
This is probably just a sneaky way to collect more email addresses. I can see the new stuff now....
"Tired of spam! Buy SpamFilter Plus!"
It might be a welcome change of pace from the nude webcams, penis enlargers, and instant-Ph.D.s, though.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
$10 per spam, and legal fees covered, still wouldn't be worth my time. It might for someone who gets about 20 spam from just ONE spammer, but finding out if it came from ONE person would be a big 'ol pain.
Unsubscribe from this idea by clicking here.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Finally, an idea that sounds logical. Of course, with forged packet headers, open relays, and a global internet, can any of it actually be enforced!?
'Legitimate' spammers will actually adhere to this. On the other hand, spammers who do not care for the rules have a nicely prepared list of real email accounts.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Some problems are that many UCE messages come from unprotected relays/proxies, and dedicated spamhausen are often located offshore, having been booted from local ISPs. There is also the requirement of proving the origin of said messages. I suspect that legislating anti-spam rules won't be as effective at reducing this annoyance as lawmakers hope. When I look at the number of messages our mailserver blocks using rules from DNSBL servers, I am amazed at the amount of junk spammers are trying to send through open relays and directly from spam houses. Blocking helps somewhat reduce the amount of spam, but still there is a lot of junk that gets through.
==
I'd like nothing less than each spammer must seek my personal permission before being allowed to solicit me. And nothing as much a lie as the disclaimer I see in much spam 'you get this email because you visited one of our sites and asked to be added to our mailing list.'
"heck, I didn't even know there was such a site as Malda's House of rare and exotic used keyboards..."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What are these plans going to do about all the spammers operating off-shore, or even just in the next state ?
Thank God! It took long enough to get telemarketers off our backs (more or less), and maybe (hopefully) we'll finally get an inbox without three hundred SPAM messages sifting through the junk filters. It's good to see an equal view on SPAM, be it telemarketing or inbox.
The Political Programmer
I wonder how long it'll take this sort of legislation to filter around to the other states and up to the Federal level. Hopefully these laws will pass quickly, be effective and set a precedent that will bring spam down to a tolerable level everywhere.
Meanwhile, back to hitting the delete key...
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Colorado has pretty progressive privacy laws for a mostly Republican state. The do-not-call list for telemarketers here is working famously...I have not received a single telemarketer call since it was implemented, and very few from the "permissible" organizations. (i.e. charities and politicians looking for handouts, which I dont mind as much anyway)
Aside from the Denver Police Department spying on peaceful protestors and sending the information they collect to the FBI as well as keeping their own records, they tend to respect the privacy of their citizens.
I can see an anti-spam law passed here easily...the hard part will be enforcing it, especially with overseas spammers. Aside from a state firewall that null-routes traffic from China (this is sarcasm, laugh) I don't see it being nearly as effective as the telemarketing ban.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Can I register all the user IDs on my domains with a wildcard entry?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
As the article points out, there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. Not all spamers are in the US. A large amount of spam is forged. And the Colorado law sounds like it will draw in fakes that are just out for money, and thus, waist the courts time. And whats in place to protect those lists? What if they get hacked? Now we have illegal spam from forged addresses comming from outside our jurisdiction causing conjestion in our courts from gready people out to make a buck.
I think they need a new plan... Untill someone gets an international plan set, it will be difficult to crack down on any spam. I'll stick to my filters, thanks.
Let's just all talk at once, then we can read eveyone else's comments.
and what's going to stop some spammer in Korea (or behind a korean open proxy... that's where most open proxies on my block list are) from using the do not spam list to get addresses? really we dont have enough of a worldwide government to control this to make legislation on this actually work.
jsmith@yahoo.com
They failed in one month due to pressure from the antispam community.
The spammers in short are not going to listen to a list.
This sig no verb.
It would award consumers $10 for each unwanted message that they receive, assuming they are willing to take the spammer to court. If they win the case, their attorney's fees would be reimbursed.
Once again, the burden is put upon the consumer. How many of us have the time to prepare and actually got to court, just to win about $100 (if you got 10 emails)? My time is more valuable than that.
Why don't State (and the Feds) governements get it? As long as the 'process' is a burden on the consumer, it won't work in the long run...
What we need is for some severe penalties and possibly jailtime as a result of sending unsolicited spam. Get the consumer out of the loop. Heck, in many cases, the consumer is too busy cleaning out their inbox than having to deal with going to court, etc...
Okay obvious question. What happens if this 'do not e-mail' registry gets into the hands of spamers? I wouldn't want my e-mail sitting in some giant database waiting to be hacked into. I think better enforcement would be more efficient in dealing with the problem.
First post...
2 1/2 hours after the story was shown? I feel strangely alone.
...then what will prevent spammers from taking and exporting the list to where they aren't affected by any consequences, like Asia? And if it's not avalible easily, then how will the spammers know not to send email's to a specific address? Seems like a catch-22.
All this does is create a very lucritive database that the spammers will want to get hold of. Sad but probably true.
I'm also really confused how the State of Colorado believes that companies will pay to find out who they can't contact, when they can just ignore the list and contact lots of people. A spammer really isn't likely to fork out money to find out who not to email - because if they accidentally email people on the list it reduces their defence in court.
Sounds like a great idea. The do not call registry has almost made the unsolicited telemarketing calls a thing of the past at my house.
My point is that it may still be profitable to spammers to email those people on the DNE list anyway, if the percentage of recipients who take legal action is low enough.
Next!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Could they really successfully track down all offenders? Do they have the resources to do so, and are they willing to use them?
I should start one...
Greetings, friends. Do you wish to look as unspammed as me? Well, you've
got the power inside you right now. So, use it, and send one dollar to
DontSpamMe Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Don't delay, eternal
spamlessness is just a dollar away!
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
...spam companies just use this like their existing opt-out options, in which what your really doing is just verifying that yes, this email address does exist, and essentially just signing up to get more spam?
Out of Cheese Error:
Please reboot universe
...how would you actually track down the source of the e-mails? With telemarketers, they at least identify who they are. With spam, it could be coming from anybody!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Will this cover e-mail sent to any address belonging to a resident of Missouri?
So, if I give a collaborater at Missouri State an account on one of the computers in my lab, and it gets spammed, Missouri has jurisdiction? I'm in New York, by the way.
If not, how can Missouri have jurisdiction over AOL or hotmail?
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I think the only way to reduce the growth of spam is to make email have an absolute, unavoidable cost to the sender, unless the sender is already known to the recipient.
The postal service would be the likely agency to administer and enforce this rule.
Before you fling rotten fruit, think about it. Would you pay $1 per month to avoid having your mailbox fill up with mortgage refinance offers and porn?
Most of the spam I get originates from overseas relays and point to servers in other countries (usually mainland China). How is are these state laws going to help me?
I'm going to register
.*@.*
The day my state becomes the leader of the tech revolution is the day hell freezes over.
(goes to find a coat)
-Brett
I want to be able to track down the fuckers who send me the kiddie porn HTML spam (complete with pictures of 13 year olds with all their stuff on display) and kick their teeth in.
What the hell did I do to opt into that list? (rhetorical question. the answer is nothing)
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
will it work for people outside the US?
What would Brian Boitano do?
Own your own domain and sub-let email boxes: dell@domain.com , MS@domain.com and the like.
When "spam" comes, you know who sent it to you.
Surely an opt-out list is *exactly* what the spammers want. That way they have a list of sure email addresses that they know people read.
If you don't put yourself on the list, spammers feel justified in harassing you and there'd be no sympathy from the court system. if you *do* put yourself on the list, you're an even better target because you've just verified your mail address for them.
Sure I'm going to take the 30-40 people who spam me daily from other countries to court for a slim chance at a measly $10.
- MugginsM
$500 to access a db? Shouldn't they at least offer free download of a flat file with the addresses?
Course if they do that, does anyone else see international spammers using the "opt-out" list as a db of known good emails?
http://metapundit.net
sdfbd
As a resident of Missouri myself, I think this law will largely be pointless. Not that I'm at all against getting rid of the spam - but the usual problem is in finding the origin of the email.
Sure, if you put in enough effort, you can usually get it tracked down -- but who has the free time to chase after this stuff, when it takes 1 or 2 seconds to hit "delete" and move on?
At least with the "no call" anti-telemarketing lists, you have such tools as caller ID at your disposal. (Not to mention, anyone trying to sell you a service or goods via phone pretty much has to give out some sort of valid contact info. Otherwise, how would you complete a business transaction with them? With email spam, they don't care if you're able to contact them with an email reply. They just want to get a generic message sent your way, or send you to some largely unrelated destination to buy the product or service they're pushing.)
Even if you do trace the original of a spam mail, these days, there's a good likelihood it came from a foreign country that isn't going to help prosecute the spammer.
someone here unequivocally prove it to be a Very Bad Thing(TM).
everything in moderation
Um. Hello?
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
The only solution for spamming is that which has been posted previously to this forum - charge the advertisers!
They are the ultimate cause of the spammer's actions, after all, the spammers aren't spamming for the good of their health - they are doing it as a service for their clients.
This should be prosecutable in much the same way that if I try to hire someone to break your legs I am just as responsible for any leg-breaking as the one that actually does it, or if I advertised my product by hiring someone to burn it into the Whitehouse lawn with acid. Since the businesses that are advertised have to be contactable or have some ultimate front that they present to their clients - be it a pr0n page, dodgy surgery or credit enhancing service, there is an enitiy that can be targeted and sued. This has to be easier than trying to chase and prosecute the spam agency that sent spam via some remote server in timbuctoo via a proxy out beyond the black stump.
untz untz untz
what the fuck is up with this shit?
If this begins to go the same way that do-not-call lists do, I doubt it will be very useful. However, I think it would be great if the government could actually implement one of these. I am the webmaster of the college I go to, and I get roughly 30 spam messages a day. However, I don't want to use a spam-filtering program like SpamPal because I can't take the risk of having it delete a false positive. I think this would be wonderful. It might even give spammers the message that we hate what they do (for some reason, they haven't figured this out yet).
"Flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing." - Douglas Adams
I think we all know that these will be great sources of confirmed addresses for offshore operations.
Whats to prevent these spammers from spamming you still? Couldn't they bounce the email off a couple proxies and cover up the real email address it was sent from?
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
"At this point, I think the technical approach has more promise than the legal one," said Sorkin. "Filters have done more to block unsolicited e-mail than any piece of legislation."
And that's how it'll be till the end of time, or until the entire world comes under 1 rule, which then passes a law carrying ungodly massive penalties for sending spam.
Laws regulating the Internet just don't work. Too much real estate for anyyone to work out of.
Spammers from other states/countries will claim that there is no jurisdiction.
Spammers will claim that their e-mails are not spam. One of the colloraries of the rules of spam (I believe that it's a collary of the rule that spammers always lie) is that spammers try to redefine spamming in such a way that they are not doing it.
Spammers are, without exception, immoral thieving scumbags. They won't care about the law, they just care about hawking their shoddy and questionable goods/services by annoying everyone they can and stealing as many resources as possible.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Do-Not-Call lists work because calls can be traced, people have caller-id and most outbound call centers are reputable. If you are on a DNC list and you get called you can actually find the company that called you and sue.
Spammers are not traceable. Every open relay needs to be closed before we can trace.
Spammers forge From and Recieved headers so we have no 'caller-id'.
Spammers are not reputable, they know what they are doing is wrong and they don't care.
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
Has nobody posted replies? this must be some sort of error.
but how effective will this be when third party companies contract out their marketing to rouge spam operations hiding behind masked addresses.
Could they just claim ignorance?
What good does that do to spammers who just go to a different state/country? And how much good does it do to spammers who spam as annonmously as they can? Am I going to get sued because some spammer spoofed my email address?
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
About 2 seconds? And how will you sue them? Which court? And if you win, how do you get the assets of a company run by some chickenboner that hijacked said insecure proxy and left no logs?
Nope. This bill will be part of the problem. False sense of security and a target for those that oppose The Lumber Cartel (tinlc).
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I'm going to bitch-slap anyone who tries to claim that spamming is a free-speech issue..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As far as I can see (and forgive me if I am wrong) this means that a resident in Missouri or Colorado can sue a Spammer if they Spam. Now what happens if the Spammers business is not a Missouri or Colorado registered company, can the Spam recipient still sue? If they can, what happens when the Spammer lives in a country where Spam is not illegal?
Considering most of my Spam originates from Korea, China, and other Asian countries, and an increasing amount from South America, is this law (or any future laws) really going to stop this?
We really need, as a start, a consortium of countries, hopefully including some asian and south america countries, to band together and make some global laws. Once these have proved successful there should be increasing pressure on other countries in join this consortium. Until then, I think users and ISPs just need to take more steps in developing Spam blocking techniques and precedures.
Footnote : Is really making spam illegal even going to stop Spam? If Spam was totally outlawed, each time you receive a Spam, are you going to Sue the Spammer? What happens if the spammer is hard to trace? How do you go about Sueing a Chineese Spammer? Maybe changing laws is not the way to stop spam, but what is?
Hello,
I am a Junk emailer, but I really do not wish to annoy any of you that don't want to see my client's messages. Please add your email address to a very large, very public, and very visible internet database and I will be sure to not send you spam.
Thanks!
testing
But someone's going to figure out how to extract addresses from it, and spam from China.
I had a sucky sig.
This makes me think of the case the RIAA/MPAA have going against Sharman networks (developers of KaZaa) in a CA court. So, if you can win damages (or, the states impose a fine), how do you collect from the spam companies outside of your jurisdiction?
I get 15 spams a day in Chinese. I can't read Chinese. How am I going to buy their product/report them for violating my state's no-spam list? How can I collect?
The telemarketer no-call list is a great, I've had almost no phone solicitations since the law went into effect (still get one every now and again from my phone company). If the new anti-spam laws are even a quarter as effective it will be wonderful.
Do not email registries, huh?
How about do not post stories...
I see those are a raving success on Slashdot.
A nice example of a government perpetuating a working concept instead of trying inventing new ways to break things.
Exactly. Mean, stupid old Uncle Sam can occasionally do something right. Occasionally.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
FP!
:P
Nothing better to add
Does this sound like a bad idea to anyone else? For $500 the illicit "Enlarge your penis" spam we all hate most of all can get a probably large list of valid e-mail addresses - and the companies will still be untraceable as they are now. They'll just have to pay a lot less for a list of e-mail addresses. What about "legal" companies outside Colorado or Missouri? Would the be prosecuted? Where?
This sounds like one of those great, feel-good laws that would be unenforcable and (as much as I hate to say it) just cost legit businesses money to cover their butts.
Wouldn't this make it easier for spammer to get a huge list of email addresses?
So you give the spammer a huge list of do-not-email addresses? Wouldn't that be exactly what they want? Fresh emails? I'm already trying to keep my email address offline, I don't need it in a nationally readable list. Thanks, but no thanks
-LittleBrother
Little Brother, watching the watchers
So you give the spammer a huge list of do-not-email addresses? Wouldn't that be exactly what they want? Fresh emails? I'm already trying to keep my email address offline, I don't need it in a nationally readable list. Thanks, but no thanks
So to summarize. Win your court case: ten spot. Lose: pay out the DMA attorney's $300/hr. fees. Gee, where do I sign up?
Spammers want to stay in buisness. They'll think of something. Be it going overseas or doing something else to hide their identity they'll find a way to send crap to you. It's a good way to cut down on the smaller spamming companies but the hardcore guys want to keep the cash rolling in. On the otherhand, companies that advertise through spammers might not want to get fined to hell so it may be effective.
More government?
www.brainclone.com
has a cheese idea... but you need to sign a damn NDA to see deatils.
Why?
Three hours and no replies? Did I miss a memo?
ShoutingMan.com
I dunno, as the article states:
FIRST POST!!!!!
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Let me get this strait, The gov. is making a list for the spam companies? I'm confused...
When did I slip through the rift? What strange world am I in where the government of the USA does great things like this? More power to them, I hope they succeede.
wow...government actually did something in consumers' interest? That's odd.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Although I know a lot of people will claim that this is a gross restriction of freedom of speech and that it won't prevent other countries from spamming us, this could set a precedent for a nationwide ban on spam, much like the EU currently has. As more countries pass bans like this, it will place pressure on other countries to do the same.
is tracking and catching violaters. How is the state govt going to find enough people to trace each spammer through his various overseas links?
As a Coloradoan, I can say that the state Do Not Call list has been quite successful, and I'll happily put my address on a Do Not Spam list as well. Yes, it probably won't be that effective, because spamming is a lot easier and cheaper than telemarketing, but every little bit helps. Most of the objections seem to fall into two categories:
... add enough of these things that make life at least a little inconvenient for spammers, and sooner or later we'll reach a "critical mass" where taken altogether, spamming just won't be worth it for a lot of them.
"This won't solve the problem." Well, by itself, of course not. Speed limits don't keep people from speeding, either, but it's a start. You have to be willing to try multiple approaches, I think. Better spam filtering, opt-out lists, whatever
"It's not my responsibility to tell people not to spam me." In a perfect world, this would be true. (Actually, in a perfect world, no one would ever have sent one spam, ever.) But since we live in the real world -- well, what the hell. You do what you can. Sometimes you shouldn't have to do anything, but if you do, go ahead and do it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
wouldn't those lists be the best place for off-shore spam companies (say in korea or china) to look for email addresses to spam to?
.. Which means those addresses are probably in use and valid.. I wouldn't want my email address on that list.
Our laws mean nothing in those countries, and to top it off, they are getting a list of email addresses of people who have gone through the trouble of putting their email addys on 'do not spam lists'
- Tempestdata
Why is nobody posting?
This and the next story are both showing zero comments and they've been up for awhile. This post is partly just to test whether a post can even be made.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
I usually don't like the government getting involved in things like this, but in the case of SPAM, I just might make an exception...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
there no comments on these articles?
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
How is this any different from other legislation against spam? It states that I can sue spammers for infringement. Big fucking deal. Give me a law where the police or other law enforcement agency will handle it for me. If someone lifts my wallet or robs my house, I don't have to prosecute the case myself. The police do it for me. All I may have to do is testify against the perp.
Give me a law that allows me to simply report the infringement and let the proper agency deal with it, and then I'll agree that we have a law "with teeth".
Oh, and while you're at it, get rid of those stipulations in other anti-spam/anti-telemarketer legislation that exempts political campaigns and charities. I will decide when I want to know more about a candidate for election or which charities I give my money to.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
How does this work, when there seems to be no physical boundaries for Internet companies? That would mean that all the companies that deliver bulk e-mail would move out of the state. When a new state creates laws that are expensive, it's time to move out. It's like any other company. Once it's too expensive to do in the states, they'll move it overseas.
Plus, isn't most of the spam received forged anyway? How is a state going to stop people from sending through open relays?
But how is it going to work? I mean people change ISP's and some people change them as often as underwear. So how are you going to keep people from emailing the residents of your states? if they keep changing ISP's your gonna have to have a nice big database where people can sign in and change their information....and are you going to charge money?? I just wish SPAM would stop..
---
Three hours later and no posts?
Spam sucks. Woot.
I don't know. Phone numbers are much easier to trace. Enforcement would be nearly impossible.
-Sean
Bad execution. This is a great idea in theory, but you look at reality and it falls through. Look at where the Do- Not- Call lists are now: In court. Besides, how many spammers are really worried about the legality of their spam, so long as it GETS to you. Many of them have virtual immunity, as they may send the command to mail from their base here in the US, but the actual e-mail is sent from servers outside the United States.
When it comes down to it, there's only one way to defeat spammers: Not buying into their advertising. Unfortunately, far too many people don't understand what a bad idea it is to actually pay attention to Spam.
What does this mean? We, my friends, need to find an alternative method to fight Spam. My guess? We do it by being just as annoying to the spammers as they are to us. There are any number of ways to do this, but what it comes down to is, use good spam intercepting software, and junk mail accounts. MS can afford the space, why not make them use it?
they want to collect together the email addresses of lots of people so spammers know who "not" to email? why didn't they just outlaw unsolicited email outright?
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
FP?
where is everybody?
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I like the intent, it's noble and all but one big downside: enforcement.
I live in Colorado, this last year I was Joe-Jobbed by a spammer for reporting him. What legal recourse and resources did I have from the state of Colorado to tracking him down so I could financially sodomize him with a laywer? *None* *Zilch* *Zero* *Nada* The attorney general couldn't offer any help whatsoever.
So what makes them think they'll be able to track any of the spammers down? It takes a LOT of work and a LOT of research to bust these asswipes.
That list has one other big negative - what's to stop a spammer from using it for the opposite of what it should be? If/when they do, what do they propose to do about it?
IMHO we definitely need some sort of legal tools we can use but this isn't it.
"In the losing battle against spam..."
I did not think that we were losing anything. There have been software add-ons/pluggins that limit what spam we see. Legislators have taken an active role to limit/penalize spammers. ISPs have taken spam seriously as it costs them both directly and indirectly. I dont see spam as being as much of a problem in the next 2 or 3 years.
We can conquer spam quicker by emailing our representatives our feelings toward spam.
later,
epicstruggle
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
'nuff said.
HAHAHAHA! Okay, I couldn't have put this better myself. This IS indeed classic government in action. They can always be trusted to wade in too late, and then do exactly the least useful thing. Who here thinks that publishing their e-mail address to spammers is the best way not to get spammed? This is a bill written by people who have no idea how spam works.
Spam is THEFT. Is is theft at the SMTP server which is relay raped, theft of the bandwidth required by the victim to send out the millions of e-mails, theft of the bandwidth and disk space of the ISP storing this junk, and theft of my bandwidth and storage space to receive it. These are measurable expenses which are costing people billions a year, making a few hundred spammers enough to finally move out of the trailer park.
Spam is exactly like junk faxing, burning through other people's ink, paper, and telephone time to send them junk ads. This has been illegal forever. Commercial speach (advertising) is NOT free speach and is NOT a 1st amendment issue. Even the DMA has dropped their previous support for regulation free spam. What's the big deal here?
Here's the link to the Missouri House Bill 228
See my journal for more information.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I proposed a complete system to the state of Missouri that would allow spammers to upload their list and receive a list in return of all the addresses that weren't registered.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Sounds like a great idea...but....
with a forged packet headers, open relays, and a global internet not subject to any one state or country's laws..is this in any way enforceable?
See this post
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The do-not-call lists work well because overseas calls are prohibitvely expensive for telemarketers. Not so for spammers. This will require some over seas assistance. But perhaps the fees will outweigh the payoffs, and it will all work out in the end? I can only hope. It should cut down on domestic spam however. Now to get it implemeted in my state (Oregon).
Well, I'm against it, but not because I feel that a different type of legislation would be appropriate, as CAUCE does. Rather, I think that banning or mandating labels on spam violates the First Amendment for a trivial reason and would fail to actually accomplish anything in any event. That said, I hate all advertising everywhere, I just don't see that it's appropriate to actually ban speech.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Junk snail mail subsidizes the cost of postage for everyone.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
He's 100% right.
How do you write the law to block unsolicited bulk email but not valid business to business email?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have yet to see one that is easy to get into. Do consider the fact that I have nearly an infinite number of email addresses, including several domains where any username part always gets the mail to me.
And what about email addresses that don't even have an existing mailbox? There are a few hundred email addresses in a few domains I have which have no mailbox or user, yet spammers are sending them mail (which gets rejected for no such user). This still costs money because it uses up the capacity of my mail server. Opt-out registries won't work if they require verifying the email address exists.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I would agree that banning particular content would be a violation of the US First Amendment. But I would disagree about being truthful in labeling, and the requirement being connected with behaviour (specifically, that the mailing is unsolicited, which has nothing to do with First Amendment). As for the "do not mail me" registry, I see no Constitutional issue with it, but I don't think it will actually work.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Labeling is serving as a proxy for content. I for one am objecting to ads not because of any specific product that they're trying to sell me, but because they bear advertising content of any kind. There is a common message to buy goods or services, and that's your content. You may be thinking of the slightly different matter of viewpoint discrimination.
Since the intended effect of the labeling is to get rid of spam altogether by means of everyone filtering the spam, the true intent of labeling provisions is to silence both a wide class of speakers (commercial speakers) and content (commercial messages), such that they will no longer even be sent.
And of course, the means are so crudely tailored to the intent that I think there's even a question per a rational basis analysis, much less the no-brainer against regulation under a strict scrutiny test.
The registry is pretty similar... it might be equated to a 'no tresspassing' sign on one's door (which is allowed), but OTOH mailboxes are IIRC held to be inherently somewhat open to the public regardless of the recipient's wishes, because it's so trivial a matter to get rid of mail that is unwanted, and the burdens to speech would be so high.
As for the unsolicited nature of the communication, I would regard it as being insufficient to hang one's hat on. All discussions HAVE to begin with an unsolicited comment.
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, commerical free speech has grown to be nearly the equal of private free speech. Labeling requirements, truth requirements, and TPM restrictions are about all that's left of note. False headers, content, or addresses might be something you could try to ban, but again it's almost entirely unenforcible.
Private filters are the way to go -- it may be a little bit more burdensome, but it's better than the relatively short trip junk mail takes from mailbox to trash can.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
With a Do Not Call list, one single entry covers all my phone extensions. Since the teleslimers will be comparing only the basic phone number, and not the number with its extension, against the list, by simply having my number without any extension in the list, a proper lookup will match and they can skip that number. None of my extensions will be called.
The issue is how to do this for email addresses. Many mail servers allow for "extensions" by having a certain special character such as "-" or "+" or "." followed by an "extension". By simply having the email account of the part before the separator, you automatically have every possible extension. Some people call this tagged email. And example would be jsmith-foobar@example.net where only jsmith@example.net would be in the list.
Many people even have their own vanity domain names, and regardless of what username is used before the @-sign character, they get the mail like the whole username were the extension.
For a registry to work, for at least those who are required to use it, it must meet at least these two requirements:
I looked at the registry run by the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers and found that the verification process only works one at a time. This makes their registry virtually useless. Of course, distributing the addresses in the raw will be worse, as it will get in the hands of spammers out of the country, and everyone will just get more spam because now spammers will have a list of address that are even more likely to have someone reading. And some will be mass mailing to such a list just to destroy the effectiveness of registering.
One option is to distribute an SHA1 checksum of each address. Then all that needs to be done on the mailer's end is to test each address by generating the checksum and looking that up in the database.
But even that has a risk, and I'm wondering if even that should be allowed. That risk is that spammers will run all their millions of email addresses through the process, and produce a subset of those who are registered, and then from out of the country ... they will spam the hell out of just those.
In the end I think the only real solution is for a law that establishes two distinct networks (same address assignment base, but disjoint routing), one where spamming is allowed, and one where it is entirely prohibited under threat of jail time (for the executives in the case of corporations, LLCs, etc). Each ISP can then choose to service one or the other or set up dual but separate facilities to serve both. Wanna bet which network most will choose?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I've got a legitimate business. There are only about 80,000 organizations on earth that might want my firm's software. Many of those 80,000 would not mind getting an email, because they need some solution and wouldn't mind comparing what they have with what my company offers. The email addresses are hard to dredge up, and I have not tried to market by email at all so far. I get about one email per week from competitors who somehow have me on their email lists. No big deal. And, I might consider it not nearly as bad as sending unsolicited ads for porn for me to send a couple of dozen, or a couple of hundred, or even one polite and informative email trying to attract a sale. But now, because of all the smut and scams, it might make me a criminal to try to promote my business. Jeez.
This is not silencing the speakers. As long as people have the right to not filter out the messages, and thus read them, then those that care will, and those that don't, won't.
Compare this to how free speech was done in the days the Constitution was written. Most speech was in the form of coffee/tea house discussion, public speeches at the center of town, debates in Congress or the legislatures of the states, and printing up your comments in a newspaper. If someone who had an important message (their opinion) for you were to barge into your home to deliver it, and the constable came and dragged them back out and threw them into the middle of the street, would this be called silencing? No. They could speak their mind from the street. In fact there are laws limiting even when that could be done (e.g. disturbing the peace). Most towns did have a central podium just for things like people making their speeches.
The issue is not what is said (that is protected) but rather, how they impose on us to deliver it (that is not protected).
Comparing a snailmail box to an email box is a bit more complex. As long as I do not have to pay to receive the mail, that is, the sender pays all costs, then I can just as easily throw it away. Of course I do have a minor cost in doing that, but the major cost is on the sender, and that is a limiting factor. But email is quite different. This is not a case of a single entity handling all the delivery. Instead, email is a peering setup with a sender agent and a receiver agent (e.g. the ISPs). Email can be scaled up high on the sending end with extremely small cost, while the recipient has higher costs for each message received (even if it is refused). The issue is not about what is being sent, but rather, the costs that are imposed upon me (and in particular, that my costs are higher than the sender's costs).
Unless I say otherwise, this very Slashdot posting can be considered a solicitation to email me privately, but only for something related to it, basically a reply. So it would not be unsolicited for you to email me privately for that purpose. The implication is that it would not be for other purposes initially. Of course there is a content tie-in with that, but it's no longer public speech when addressed to a single person. It's certainly not bulk to reply to me privately once.
But I do agree that private filters are (still) the best way to go. Different people have different preferences on how agressive that can be. A business might not want to filter very much for fear of not receiving mail from a prospective customer. And if their mail volume is high, the spam might be a drop in the bucket in comparison. An individual, however, may find it best to be especially aggressive and filtering, including filtering whole ISPs that harbor spammers (and yes, that means "collateral damage"). It should be the choice of the recipient.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
There are a number of organizations which are exempt from telemarketing laws: banks/credit card companies, phone companies, non-profit organizations (including and especially political parties), and buisinesses which have established a "prior relationship" with you.
IMHO, demonstrating the futility of legislative measures where a technological one would suffice. (Like those legendary phone-phreaking boxes that supposedly destroyed modems)
I love the smell of an auto-dialer catching fire in the morning.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
If there's an email address I can respond to I'll go find an open relay host and forward through that email to them consisting of a nice letter saying that I was glad to get their mail and that they may have goofed a bit. Along with it I'll usually send a large (say 2000 by 2000) tiff (or xcf) file with a picture of a can of spam and a text message "Go Away" written on it. If they've really pissed me off I'll send a dozen or so.
More often they give no usable email, but do give http urls. Since they've solicited my response, I respond to these with a couple thousand curl url fetches. I make sure that there are reasonable delays in between so it is not a DOS attack - though if they really manage to get me pissed off I'll shorten the delay and up the count. In these I always encode my feelings (my favorite is "spam spam spam..." repeated ten thousand or so times) in the UA, in the referrer and in the url itself - more or less randomly mixed up on each fetch.
Does this do anything? Probably not, but if their webmaster is responsible they'll at least see the message and with a bit of luck it will also drive their bandwidth costs up. Yah, I know, they'll probably report this back to the spam purchaser as a "hit".
They did ask me to visit their web pages after all. So I do. I don't look at the response, but so what.
Rather, I think that banning or mandating labels on spam violates the First Amendment for a trivial reason and would fail to actually accomplish anything in any event
God DAMN IT, not that same old fucking canard about free speech AGAIN!
A spammer's right to speak does not confer a license to use MY property to do so. Spamming is a property-rights issue, not a free speech issue.
A spammer can say whatever the hell he wants at his OWN expense, not at MINE.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Happened to me as well - the front page of Slashdot was showing it with no comments under it (wow, FP when I've actually got something to say :-), and when it accepted my posting the page said ~192, but then the front page and the item page both showed nothing there. I guess it was one of those Bad Slashdot Days, but stuff's here now.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, no problem, just send mail to all those "unsubscribe" addresses and "remove me" web pages and you'll be all set.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
And then of course there are the Nigerian spammers.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This won't work -- many people have already mentioned the jurisdiction problems of overseas spammers, and the forged headers and open relays that make it very hard to track people down anyway.
Other techniques such as filtering are doomed as well -- it might change the ratio a little bit, so they need to send out 10 million emails for it to be profitable. But it's still going to be profitable. It's a fundamental facet of email that it's cheap to send, so even if only one in a million reads the spam and buys the product (or whatever), it still makes them money.
IMHO, the only way to get rid of spam is to change the economics of email -- to end the receiver-pays system as we know it. One way would be for SMTP to require payment before accepting an email for relay or delivery.
Normal users wouldn't be effected much by this b/c they don't send a whole lot of email, and the fees ISPs would collect for receiving email would offset the fees they incurred in sending the user's normal-load email. But it would drastically alter the landscape for all commercial email -- shifting the burden back to the advertisers like it should be.
-Esme
Look, this is how it has worked:
Oh, so that failed. New approach: The agency keeps the opt-out list, spammers never see it. Here's how it works.
Uh, so that failed too! Wow. OK, next thing, we have laws. If spammers do this after having had their lists washed we will throw them in jail! Yep, sure. OK, here's how it works:
Now, you can't touch them, and even if you could, you would still have to prove that the transaction took place, and even if you could do that, the spammer sending e-mail could say "uh, I didn't know, I was defrauded" and the spammer selling the addresses could say "hey, I didn't spam, did I?"
Entering your address on a spam-opt-out-list is going to get you more spam, not less.
Anybody remember Murkowski? Nice try.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I personally think business to business unsolicited non-bulk email is a Good Thing(TM).
I don't mind receiving email when people take the time to write me. Often, I am able to turn those solicitations around and actually gain clients either directly or indirectly.
Plus, then you get into nasty situations such as what's considered unsolicited? If I put my email address on my company web page and another company wants to email me, is that unsolicted?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
So everytime I give out my email address to someone that I am willing to receive email from, I have to get their email address and enter it into my address book before I can receive their email. And if I have someone who I exchange email with and they change email addresses, we can no longer communicate via email.
Press 5 if you think that technology is improving the quality of your life.
I will do what I always do, change my email address when I start getting too much spam (through the filters.)
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
This would be cool if every spam received by a person on this list would lead to the destruction of the spammer and his property by the USAF. It would be more useful to have the USAF bomb spammers into oblivion, or use them as training targets with live ammo. Without the risk that a guy spamming someone on this list gets killed, the list is more a "do-spam-me" list.
Global opt out lists has been done before, and they've all failed.
Now, don't get me wrong, a law against spam is very much needed, only it has to do a little bit better than this one.
The common denominator for all the useless spam laws is, that they put too much work on the shoulders of the end user. In a perfect world, the end user wouldn't have to worry about spam if they didn't request it.
If you'll allow me for a moment to blow my own horn, let me introduce you to a law that actually works. It's nation wide, and prohibits spam. Yes - the anti-spam law in Denmark is quite precise, and the ombudsman goes right in the throat of those who violates it. Basically, the law says: Do not send commercial email to people without their consent. Of course there's more to it that that, but the bare bones of the law is, that the only valid way of sending commercial email is by opt-in. Since the burden of proof is on the sender, confirmed opt-in goes without saying.
If they are going to try to legislate an answer, why not a simple one? Like, all unsolicited email with the intent to sell or create traffic (insert some definition of spam here) has to contain a header that states it's unsolicited, sales meterial, etc...
Then filtering it out is simple. Then it's easier to bring spammers to court also (if that's the intent) because you gather people that recieved email without the proper header... Clearer case.
This all leads back to a particular favourite of mine: Targetted advertising.
Advertisers in general do not care how many people see their advert, but rather how many potential clients see their advert. Sending 50000 spams is no good if no-one buys anything from them, while sending 100 which generate 20 sales is a huge return (at the moment only about 1 spam / month gets past spamassassin, so I don't see the majority of them). While it doesn't cost much to send an email, it does cost something. I would like there to be a central registry of items individuals are interested in, so I can register and gt targetted adverts. I have no interest in penis enlargement, breast enhancement, sanitary towels, buying a new car (at the moment) so anyone who advertises these things at me irritates me, and receives no return. Any company that wastes my time prejudices me against them if I ever do want to buy a product they offer. Right now, I'm thinking of buyng a new dual-head graphics card, so anyone advertising a low cost Radeon 8500 would be providing me with information I want, outcome: I don't have to hunt for prices as much, companies can spend less on advertising but generate more sales, I can watch an hour of TV without having 15 minutes of adverts. I'm happy, commercial enterprise is happy. People who send untargeted advertising are laughed at for being so crude. The solution to spam is not to block it, not to legislate against it, simply to show that it doesn't work. Let commercial Darwinism will take care of the problem
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
- Take a course on marketing. Buy a book. Hire a *good* marketing firm (most are wannabees (or even grifters) unable to document success or failure).
- Advertise in trade journals and other places where chunks of your estimated 80k hang out.
- Attend, Sponsor, etc. trade shows. Get your name out there.
- Create brochures, white papers, etc.
- Create a marketing presence via a well-done website, with substance.
- Buy access to a relevant, well-established list that has a good chance of carpet-bombing your intended market. I don't mean spammers. I mean the 'daily update' opt-on list run by your trade magazines. In my case, that's eweek, computerworld, etc.
- ...etc. In short, conventional marketing.
- DO NOT COMPLAIN THAT THESE COST MONEY. Spam is a something-for-nothing proposition ONLY from your perspective and we're tired of carrying your lazy ass.
- Entice sign-ups on an email list at your website, your brochures, trade journal ads, trade shows, local chamber activity, trade association meetings, or whatever fits. This is a critical step in building your own free mailing list for future contacts of opt-in email recipients.
- Use the email list wisely. Send something periodically that is both newsworthy and interesting and valuable to your recipients (oh, and relevant to the offer they signed up for, obviously). In every one of those mailings, spend a few seconds top and bottom selling your product.
- It is critical that you make the news/gift part of your emails useful enough to generate what is called viral marketing. Let your customers find you and stick with you until they need your product.
- Presto, you're not spamming. What's more, if you do the above steps well, you'll have 40k of your known customers and another 20k of complete strangers and undiscovered markets, clammering for your advice, and remembering you when they need your product/services.
- DO NOT COMPLAIN THAT THESE TAKE A LOT OF EFFORT. That's why a good marketing firm costs a lot... marketing is time/labor/talent expensive.
Now, go away and leave me alone. This is kindergarten level net marketing stuff. I'm not even getting into the other obvious ideas like becoming a known expert on usenet or web discussions, etc. No, you don't get to send me email unsolicitedly. If I care about your topic, I sign up 9 out of 10 times. I sign up for work-relevant newsletters I see friends/colleagues getting. I'll make it easy for you in that regard... but if you don't get my consent first, I'll never forgive you for it.Navigate to ...
u rr entVersion\Internet Settings\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\C
create: StringValue=DieSpammersDie
Alternatively: StringValue=FsckOffYouFsckingFscks
or: StringValue=SpamMeAndDie
oughta do the trick
[standard spammer excuses]
Wow, your post title is a textbook example of truth in advertising.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I dabble at kernel development. This generally means trying to get the the things I need to work in say the development kernel to work for me. Sometimes this comes down to me firing off an e-mail to the maintainer or others mentioned as contributors to see if a patch is available, report an oops, results from applying a patch, etc. This slows to a crawl if everybody involved has to go through some protocol for making sure that I didn't somehow harvest these e-mail addresses from the source files so I could spam the recipients. Likewise, I either have to pre-add all of the people who might reply to me or put them through the same hassle to send a response to me.
I don't think so.
I live in Colorado. We got on the "do not call" list as soon as we could. We haven't had a commercial telemarketing call since (we still get them from charities and politicians so I guess the phone still works). The local newspapers run a regular article listing the companies that have gotten a friendly reminder from the attorney general reminding them not to call people on the do not call list and a much smaller subset that the AG is going after because they didn't take the hint.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Not the ratio. That is, it doesn't matter if half my emails get sent into a big black hole. I only care about the .01% of them that reply to my website saying they're interested in getting more infromation, who are interested in getting out of debt free fast.
So the solution isn't to verify, but to keep adding more and more potential addersses until the number of hits goes up.
It's easy to send, and let them positively verify. Every once in a while you might audit your list, which usually means just throw out the old ones that didn't give you a positive reply.
BTW, it is easy to set up your own mail server, and use bandwidth limiting so that you don't trip your ISPs upstream alarm. Naughty people sell $100 packages for Windows that do exactly that.
Finally, spammers aren't intelligent enough to realize when they aren't making any progress because they are wasting their own bandwidth needlessly. Because once they stop doing it, some other poor disillusioned sap dreaming of "Putting his computer to work and making $40,000 a year" will pick up the email list right where the last one left off. But if there was a penalty for being WRONG, wouldn't that next person think twice about his strategy?
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Nuf said.
Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative
I will read over that document tonight.
Looks very promising.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
1. The per message fine has to be enough to make it worth pursuing. MO has the right idea: $5000 per message.
2. It has to allow for individual enforcement (i.e., small claims court). Law enforcement, frankly, should be frying bigger fish.
3. It should be a felony to promote anything with SPAM without permission of the entity being promoted.
4. In addition to the spammer, the fine should apply any entity being promoted by SPAM unless they are willing to file a criminal complaint against the spammer (for violating rule number 3). Note that filing a false criminal complaint is also very illegal; so, this would not be likely t be misused.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Easy solution for spam and taxing the net.
Put a tax on spam.
As it's relitivly hard to track spam tax it on the 2,000 rule. Assume each spammer is sending out 2,000 spams a day and tax acordingly.
Then spammers prepay for the days weeks or months they plan to spam.
Then they must include a valid spammers tax code in every spam and we can look it up and see who they are etc.
To misuse, reliccens, abuse or forge a spam liccens results in a stiff fine or jail time.
The taxes go to the state the spammer is operating from.
Spam liccenses are like sales permits if you present simbody elses expect some jail time.
I don't actually exist.
As soon as they've sent me email they've solicited my response.
What I want is a legal opinion.
I have a webserver and a mail server. The webserver clearly states in public form that none of the e-mail addresses on this server wish to be contacted for advertising purposes.
I would like to create a page offering to do instant security audits. To have your machine tested, simply send an e-mail to the address offered on the page. My script will then find the sending IP address, ping it to make sure it's live, then test it with every known network attack against a Windows machine. Afterwards, send it a ping, and report back whether or not the machine is still working.
Of course, spammers won't send e-mail to it, since the e-mail address is very specifically something like "your_computer_will_crash_if_you_send_mail_to_this _address@domain.com", and therefore will have no reason to complain about such a philanthropically-offered security testing system.
Legal counsel please?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.