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Virginia Anti-Spam Law; FTC Forum on Spam
kiwimate writes "According to this press release, the state of Virginia has just passed a statute making 'the worst, most egregious and fraudulent kinds of spam' legally actionable. And yes, this includes header forging. The article reads like a big AOL PR piece in some places -- the VA governor led the signing at the AOL HQ in Dulles. The story also states this comes on the eve of the first-ever FTC forum on spam in Washington D.C." The FTC also made the insightful discovery that most spam is fraudulent in some fashion.
This is the one that's always gotten me. It's obviously one of the worst possible things in spam. But how do you then track down who happens to be sending it and punish them for it?
This may be good for Spam originating in the US, for the residents of VA, however Spamers from other countries could still fill our inboxes.
OK, so were they planning to sample more than 3 typical e-mail accounts worth of daily spam?
I hope there can be a war on spam that is as effective as the war on drugs or the war on terrorism or the war on poverty.
This wont put even a tiny dent in spam. In Virginia or any where else. What it will do is set a precedent. This is one huge step in the right direction. Now you can write your local representative with "If Virginia can do it, why can't State X?" Lets take this spam victory and run with it.
I hate to say it, but if AOL can throw their weight around to rid me of spam then I'll stop bitching every time I get an AOL cd in the mail :)
:)
I wonder though- is there a place that we could report spam to the virginia prosecutors? Perhaps our state attorney general could setup a spam email and state residents could forward their spam there for the prosecutors to go after
Virginia has had an anti-spam law since 1997, which is part of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act (VA Code 18.2-152). It makes spam with forged headers illegal: http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html
AOL, Verizon, and other large ISPs based in VA have been suing under this law for years (though they almost always go to federal court, pursuant to U.S.C. 85 1332). I have burninated a few spammers in small claims court under this law as well (I was actually in court today suing etracks.com). The law allows the recipient to seek civil relief for the lesser of $10/message or $25,000/day. For ISPs, it's the greater of the two.
To qualify for the felony provisions the sender must:
consciously (with intent) alter either e-mail header or other routing information (a technical characteristics common to most unsolicited bulk mail, but not present in normal e-mail messages); and
attempt to send either 10,000 messages within a 24/hr period or 100,000 in a 30-day period OR the sender must generate $1,000 in revenue from a specific transmission, or $50,000 from total transmissions.
Its a clear definition. Alter the headers and send over 10,000 emails in day and its illegal.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I am a voting resident of Virginia. I am quite happy with this law. You know, the people on /. spend so much of their time whining about how we must stop the spammers, and someone finnally comes along and passes a law that will help curb the worst types of spam, and suddenly it is a horrible trangretion.
You cannot have both sides of this argument. Any restriction the government places on things like this can be interpreted by some people as too broad. Either you take your government in small doses and shy away from government regulation, or you allow the government to regulate. You cannot be wishy-washy and take whichever side of the argument you feel like supporting that day.
Spam with forged headers is bad. I dont pretend to think that this will elimnate the mass amount of email i recieve, but I can only hope.
-Dan
spam is in no way fraud. i make $50,000 a day posting to slashdot from home. you can too, email me back at ahk235hk2@yahoo.com. if that doesn't work, try my work email at 235hlj235hl2@hotmail.com.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
If any spammers are reading this, let me tell you about the Virginia correctional system. If you are lucky you will go to the big house. If they put you on the farm you are fucked. Most penal farms in Va grow their own food and cut their own fire wood, etc. You will come out tan and fit, my friend. I taught literacy in Wise County at the facility there. No slack for misdemeanors and light felonies. They also operate road gangs (no chains. Work is time off from your sentence with good behavior) with the Boss standing over you with a 12-gauge full of rocksalt if you decide to make like Cool Hand Luke. Also, the Virginia State Police are ruthlessly efficient and will get you. This was the best state to implement anti-spam legislation if we want spammers to hurt.
PS. It is "The Commonwealth of Virginia" not the "State of Virginia." I didn't get my hands whacked with a ruler by Mrs. Underwood to have y'all malign my beloved home with the lowly name of "state."
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
There's also "joe jobs" where a spammer intentionally advertises a website of an enemy or competitor in an attempt to get the site yanked by the ISP.
I've also gotten "newsletter spam" where there are dozens of websites with different owners, none of whom are related to the spammer, nor given permission to have their website advertised in such a manner. I got one for a bunch of casinos - none of whom were thrilled at the attention. Since my complaint was CC'd to all of them, they had a handy mailing list to band together and take the spammer to court for defamation of character in a class action suit...