French Legislators Vote to Ban Spam

mlawmlaw writes "The Herald is reporting that France's National Assembly has voted 'in favor of banning unsolicited e-mail sales messages.' This is an admendment to a law to 'increase confidence in the digital economy.' This would ban 'direct marketing, notably advertising, via electronic messages' to individuals who had not given consent. The article is light on details, but it's nice to see France taking a step to reduce spam."

Comments

Re:The Irony

[DroppedPacket]

How is spam different than bulk mail?

Let me count the ways... And you did itemize some of them.

Bulk mail (i.e. junk mail) is sender paid

I get more Spam than junk mail

Junk mail isn't always trying to sell me sex. Er, ignore the Victoria's Secret catalog for a minute. That's literature

I can always find out who sent me junk mail

I get junk mail once a day. I get Spam throughout the day.

Spam clogs the internet and slows down the transfer of useful pr0n

Faked headers and bounces, etc., can lead to a lot of wasted disk space and admin time, overflow of legitimate mailboxes, etc.