Opt-In Junk Fax Law Survives Court Challenge

An anonymous reader writes "From Privacy.org: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has upheld (PDF) the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 against a First Amendment challenge. In the case, Missouri v. American Blast Fax, junk fax company Fax.com and Wal-Mart argued that the law violated the First Amendment because it imposes fines upon companies that send fax advertisements without the consent of the recipient. The case is the latest court victory for opt-in privacy laws." I hope the same logic is applied to spam.

Comments

Not as big as you think

[cyberlemoor]

Sure, an email doesn't usually cost a lot to receive. But tens or even hundreds of emails a day, multiplied for instance by many employees in a business can add up to serious increases in a lot of costs.

And not just bandwidth costs. How about billing costs? You're a $300/hr consultant who has to spend half an hour a day sorting through your email trying to figure out what's spam and what's not. That's not an "intangible" cost. That's $750 a week. Sure you could find better ways to block it or sort it more efficiently or whatever, but that's another thing imposed on you by those sending the emails.

When such a large percentage of email is sent every day, I don't believe you can say the monetary cost is insignificant.

Re:Spam will never die =/

[jmauro]

There's no law against sending unsolicited postal mail, so far as I know. Why should there be against faxes and e-mails?

In the case of postal mail, the sender pays. If a company wants to waste their money sending stuff that's their business. In the case of Faxes and Email, the receiver pays. It means those sending the information don't pay but waste the money of people receiving the stuff. The economic difference is why an email box is full of spam, but your postal box may only get 3 to 4 items a week.

First Amendment doesn't guarantee to be heard

[nurb432]

Nor does it say *I* have to pay to hear you ( i.e.: resources to receive the fax.. and Spam too ).

It only guarantees your right to say it.. nothing more..

Funny how the retailers demand it, but if its bad press against them, they use the DMCA to squelch speech.