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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 may be good for Spam originating in the US, for the residents of VA, however Spamers from other countries could still fill our inboxes.
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
Go after the site advertised in the spam. The spammer (or who paid the spammer) has to get replies about their ads somehow.
Michael Loves Me!
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
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...