Slashdot Mirror
California Could Get $500/Offense Spam Law
Bud Higgins writes "CNN has a story about a law the California Senate passed which will allow people to sue spammers for $500 per unwanted email. This is one of the strictest anti-spam measures in the country and will set a precedent for other states to follow." This bill needs to pass the state assembly and the governor to become a law, though.
George W. Bush
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
W00t.
That is all.
I really wonder how they propose to prosecute this law. I mean, wouldn't it only work in CA-CA transactions, where none of the routing table was outside of CA? Otherwise you'd have that pesky rule about not prosecuting people outside your state under state law.
Do inform me if I'm wrong, though.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
The new get-rich-quick scheme:
1. Get a Hotmail/Yahoo account
2. Get rich.
Vonal Declosion
I hate spam but I'll fight for your right to send it. I don't want the government making laws about
Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do.
...filter spam out of the Trash folder and into the Money-Maker folder.
than elementary school...
"Congratulations Bill, You're a Law...."
It's certainly a step in the right direction, but as mentioned above, how will it be enforced? Is there going to be a new part of the California government dedicated to tracking spam? I don't think so. Anyway, like I said, it's a step in the right direction...but we could say they're walking blindly...
--<Mike>--
I wonder who lobbied for this. We all know politicians in general are not geeks, and don't care about stuff like this, or even understand any of it. (Again, as someone who deals with politicians day in and out.)
$500/spam... had to be someone important who just _really_ got sick of bestiality advertisements in their inbox or something. (Which, btw, some politicians tend to throw a fit about when they recieve it with inline HTML and pictures, and do things like force you to install half-functional anti-spam software so she doesn't see horse meat anymore.)
I guess I should remove the ignore list from my hotmail and yahoo accounts...
Currently, California law requires spammers to include "ADV" in the subject line of their e-mail so people will know it is an advertisement.
How often do you actually see this? I get occasional spam with ADV in the subject line, but the vast majority of my spam does not, and I know the spammers aren't targetting me by my location (I don't live in California, but they wouldn't have a way to know that). How much difference will this new law make?
Raising the dollar amount and making it easier to sue makes it much more attractive to go to the trouble of actually suing. Successful lawsuits make spamming much less attractive, thus cutting down on actual spam sent. This is a good thing. However, does anyone know how spam will be defined by this law if it passes? It sounds like this proposed law is simply an extension to an existing spam law; does it include a reasonable definition?
Oh, and to the people who are about to start yammering about how 1) whitelists, 2) Bayesian filtering, or 3) a replacement for SMTP are the only solutions to the spam problem and this law is a waste of time: shut up. The war against spam needs to be fought on many fronts simultaneously, one of which is legal. If done correctly, anti-spam laws do NOT endanger free speech.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Government making laws on content, which is the realm of censorship and free speech, is a whole lot different than for laws on where that content is sent, which crosses the line into rights to privacy and property ownership.
I'll support the right to post any content you want for all to see, but to send it to anyone using their bandwidth is something different.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I look at this as nothing more than a bill with good intentions and very little teeth. If one country is not able to force its laws over the internet (ex. DMCA sure doesn't stop illegal copies of everything to sit on servers in China), then one law saying no to spammers will basically have the same effect. You need some sort of internet standard or governing body, something that could be better equipped to handle and enforce these laws, but a central organization structure goes against the idea of the internet in the first place. You're left with the good, with some bad that will be extremely hard to get rid of, if possible at all.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Somehow I don't think this law will impress the people of Hong Kong when I show up to claim the keys of the city.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If this law passes, I bet a lot of people in California are going to turn their spam filter Off. I know for a fact I would. Hit those spammers harder and line my pocket at the same time!
As I barely answer real emails, I'm guessing that this is the evil bastard child of spam and troll.
Trollspam - gets you pissed by accusing you of sending email. So you open it and great! a web bug just confirmed your addy.
Ha. Yahoo mail blocks HTML.
I would be happy to chase those fuckers down for a ham sandwich, nevermind 5 bills.
Man oh, man! I can't wait!! With the amount of spam I recieve, I just may have found a get rich quick scheme that'll work.
Screw the spammers! Weeeeeee!
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2
Considering some of the poorly forged headers I have seen, wouldn't it be better to require some level of authentication by the mail relays in CA? A simple reverse lookup would filter the spam that I have been getting lately.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
This is not the first law that's had such a penalty and it has already proven to be a complete waste of time.
What lawyer is going to pursue a case where the fine is $500? To even find the identity of the spammer you have to serve subpeonas and all sorts of time and money intensive processes which make such a case impractical.
Add to that the fact that most spammers are small operators that float around from one ISP to another and are incredibly difficult to track. The amount of time to identify and take legal action against such losers makes the payoff a joke. And even if you could engage in some sort of class action suit, most of these spammers don't have any assets in the first place.
This is a total waste of time. I applaud any effort to recognize spam as an issue that needs to be dealt with, but this old idea of small fines has been tried and has proven to be totally ineffective.
The only true way to get rid of spam is to push not for new laws, but enforcement of existing criminal laws which spammers routinely violate, which include hijacking mail relays and third-party computer networks. The government refuses to pursue these cases and even if they nailed just a few spammers for computer break-ins, it would have ten times the effect that these spineless civil laws have in reducing spam.
Says quite clearly UNWANTED. Content is irrelevant, sending it without prior permission is the crime.
I can print all the leaflets I want. How about I use your envelopes and stamps (and return address) to send them out?
Infuriate left and right
To pay off that billion dollar Oracle order they made...
I'll start actually using my real email address for stuff on the web (appropriately unchecking the subscription buttons). Oh yeah, and I'll turn off that Slashdot SpamGuard(tm) thingy, and maybe put my real email there. Since I am a CA resident, I'll just keep a good record of which emails I receive which are unsolicited. Since I'm a nerd, I should have no problems creating a whitelist or similar to filter stuff out. Then I've got loads of evidence for the very large class action lawsuit which is sure to follow.
:P
"Court awards Graveyhead $500,000,000 for 1,000,000 offensive messages received"
Well, I can dream, can't I? Someone's gotta fund this video game I've been spending nights and weekends working on for the last two years! I gotta eat too!
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
What if I live in Ca., but the company hosting my domain/email happens to reside in another state? eg: co-located server etc?
Windows is not the answer.
Windows is the question.
The answer is "NO."
...because we're about to see a valid moral justification for lawyers in their droves getting rich!"
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Pose as an employee of your competitor, and hire a spamming company to promote them.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Bandwidth is not the realm of any existing government, it's not within their authority to regulate it.
We all know that if it ever gets to the govenors desk, he'll sign it.
He'll sign anything, no matter how bad it is.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Something tells me alot of people are suddenly going to make an exception to their personal "all spammers are scummbags" rule. I am not one of them.
What lawyer is going to pursue a case where the fine is $500?
Can you say class-action? Given that a spammer may pump out thousands, if not millions of pieces of spam, I'm sure sure that there are many lawyers who would be willing to settle for a small percentage cut of the gross.
However, lawyers really aren't the audience for this law. Spam bounty hunters and rabid anti-spammers like myself can take the tens of thousands of junk e-mails we've been saving against this day, and use those messages, as well as previous research into spammers, and the experience we've built up, tracking down the bastards, past false fronts, multiple layers of redirection, hijacked mailservers, fraudulent accounts, and nail em good.
And even if you could engage in some sort of class action suit, most of these spammers don't have any assets in the first place
We're already spending the time to nail these punks. Getting judgements that we can then sell to collection agencies only sweetens the feeling of satisfaction. Besides, at the very least we can claim the computer that they used to send the spam 8). Eventually, the bigger spammers (the ones with more to lose) will avoid California, and the spammers already living IN California will be forced to leave, lest they be served with a summons when they get sued.
You're right. Existing laws aren't being enforced. So why complain when we get a law that allows end users, rather than resource-constrained prosecutors, to enforce justice against these scum?
I'm surprised it's not a $500 tax per email.
Somebody teach this twit masturbation, then he'll be to busy to bother us.
Wow... you should probably tell that to pretty much all the phone companies in the world. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear it.
And their ssl cert for donations only uses 40 bit encryption.
http://www.georgewbush.com/Donate
Junk snail mail causes more damage to our natural resources than electronic mail. Yet, we see spam as more of a problem. This shouldn't be right, should it? We can simply delete email, but paper & cellophane piles up in our backyard.
Maybe email spam gets more attention because only spammers benefit from spam, where as the USPO & paper companies benefit from junk paper mail (besides the spammers).
I would like to charge people/companies who keep sending me junk mail $500, but I don't see that happening soon.
...but the only company I ever got SPAM from that was "sue-worthy" never sent me another mail after I quoted the local (up to) 70$ fine/spam law. Normal companies, advertising from their domain (this one did), simply don't do that kind of thing, because they have a reputation to think of.
Digging through fake headers that really came off a home DSL routed through an open relay in China won't be worth it no matter what, no matter what they set it to because you'll never collect it. And the "company" will claim they never sent it, that someone illegally spammed on their behalf. On a good-bad dimension of course stronger fines are good. But it's a cardboard fence against an avalanche.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Don't you mean http://www.gwbush.com/home.shtml?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
- they guess my address;
- they have screened my address from the web;
But how about to protect me from this spam:- I registered to the service, but I didn't want any related spam and the warning about upcoming spam was unclear in a very small font;
- I gave up my emaill address to one company, but they gave it up to another and so on;
- I have subsrcibed to the mail list, but something is broken and I cannot unsubscribe anymore;
No chance yet?Less is more !
I would be a millionaire now.
I hope this get this through where I live!!
Why the heck not??!! Might as well jump on the sue-happy bandwagon, everyone else is...
but it ain't gonna pass Constitutional muster.
I notice the story has no definition of spam. What are they calling spam? Any e-mail with a price? Any e-mail where the sender is unknown to the recipient? How shall people introduce themselves?
Spam is:
1) Bulk (yes, more than several)
2) Commercial (a direct solicitation to purchase a product or service WITH A PRICE)
3) Unsolicited (obvious)
Any e-mail that does not SPECIFICALLY meet ALL THREE of those definitions IS NOT SPAM. Don't believe it? Fine. First guy that gets fined $500 for sending a "hello, I'd like to make an appointment with your VP of marketing" e-mail is going to drag this law to the Supreme Court and beat the shit out of it with a gavel.
Ambiguous restrictions on speech based on the hearer's reaction are flat-out unconstitutional. This and most other anti-spam laws will be struck down 9-0 unless they define spam properly and even then, they'll probably go down 6-3 if the anti-spam assholes overuse it.
Get a filter and QUIT BITCHING ABOUT SPAM.
That, or just call it spamdot, because that's all you fucking talk about any more.
I like the SpamAssassin picture. Those little rubber ninjas will be this year's hottest Christmas toy!
Weather or not the bill passes depends on who pays Gov. Davis most.
Sig? What Sig?
Will I retire or break 10K?
and you think this is real?
You forget that they are talking about California, which GWB has no interest in.
It's obvious you're not a lawyer. Good luck finding a lawyer who's going to spend a ton of time and money to track down some broke looser who last week was selling Herbalife, and this week is spamming.
Assuming you can find a lawyer to take this case, which will likely prove more difficult than Andrew Dice Clay getting a date at an Indigo Girls concert, the fun will just be beginning.
After spending several thousand dollars on legal fees, you can slap him with a class action lawsuit, IF you can find him, and that's a huge IF because in some of the larger cases, you'll need to get computer records from other states, other countries, etc., then find out if you could even take action. Even then if everything went well, you'd find out the guy has approximately $347.22 to his name, not including his 1988 Toyota Corolla with a bad valve cover gasket leak that makes the car smoke every time he stops at a traffic light. But definitely get a lien on that Corolla because that'll cover 1/1000th of your legal bills.
So you nail his ass. After approximately 1-2 years worth of legal action after which he declares bankruptcy and you and your lawyer walk away with the satisfaction that you've gotten back at this poor dorf for daring to not put "ADV" in the subject of his penis-enlargement product solicitation, you have zero money from the perpetrator, and you also haven't discouraged anyone else to stop spamming.
Congrats! You are now qualified to run for Congress!
Forget politics for a second. You get your news from the inquirer? And you believe it? Trusting tabloids is not a wise move. But of course, believe what you like.
This may be redundant but...
The obvious solution isn't to penalize the spammer, but the beneficiary of the spam is obvious because an email contact or a phone number or something, eventually, at some point, they have to charge your card to get your money.
The one who benefits from the spam should be penalized since they are the one's paying for the spam and instigating it.
Thanks,
Leabre
#1 - When I was talking class action, usually it's been my experience that the lawyers who go looking for plaintiffs, not the other way around. So I wouldn't have to pay a thing - I'd just wait until some enterprising lawyer went after Ralsky and other spam gangs. and just sign up.
#2 - You don't need to hire a lawyer to claim damages under a civil statute. In California, you can file small claims for any amount less than $5000, which entails a minor filing fee ($22).
Obviously a lawyer isn't going to take a time-consuming case unless there's a definite payoff at the end (like taking down Ralsky and all the property he owns, or getting a piece of all that Viagra money.) So big deal - for all the other scum, we'll just use small claims.
Until this is a federal law it won't hold water.
Since all you need is a mail server in Idaho instead of california to spam californians, good luck stopping it.
Even a federal law wouldn't work because then all you need is a mail server in toronto (or anywhere in a foreign country).
That is the whole point of the internet. The ability to communicate.
If anyone really want's to stop spam all that is needed is a new protocol that is backward compatable for a time period and eventually leaves smtp out in the cold. The POP/IMAP doesn't seem to be the problem. Unauthenticated SMTP seems to be the spam king.
The people at asdf would get rich so fast, there asdf@asdf adress is filled with junk and is used by loads of people that don't want to use there address.
You're right. Existing laws aren't being enforced. So why complain when we get a law that allows end users, rather than resource-constrained prosecutors, to enforce justice against these scum?
You need a lawyer to take action. You have to subpeona records in order to even identify who the spammer is. It's a very time consuming process. Look at the situation where the MPAA tried to get the identity of the Verizon user who was doing the P2P violations... they had to take that case to the state supreme court before they could even get the records to identify who the perp was to sue him! They probably spent more than $100k in legal fees before they even knew who to sue.
I'm complaining because the law is misleading. It won't do anything to reduce spam. And realistically it does not give users any practical way to fight spammers. If anything, it's only likely to more closely regulate legitimate companies who are already engaging in responsible mailing tactics. It has no teeth. It would ultimately punish the wrong people.
This was already tried on a national level in 1999 and was hotly debated in the community and dismissed as ineffective. The Murkowski bill proposed the same punitive structure.
In addition to this, there are a plethora of bills that have this lame penalty for unsolicited telemarketing and faxes. They have proven to be ineffective even though it's exponentially easier to take action against these people. Still these perpetrators operate with no fear of legal action and have found ways to get around the laws by subcontracting their services among large groups of ever-mobile independent contractors. Spammers have elevated this evasive tactic to an art form, bouncing their junk e-mail across multiple continents/nations/jurisdictions that make it unbelievably difficult to track.
As a step for the state to recognize that UCE is something that needs to be dealt with, the effort is a good sign. As any sort of solution, it is not.
Given that most of the people involved in the writing and support of these bills are lawyers themselves, I'd bet good money not a single one of them would ever be inclined to pursue such civil action as dictated therein.
>> people to sue spammers for $500 per unwanted email
:P
Does that mean if I get my Visa bill by e-mail I can sue?
Don't be stupid. Do a little bit of fsckin research before you make bold statements like that. The fact is that the inquirer that the article came from and the supermarket tabloid inquirer are two completely different and seperate things. My god I am ashamed to even be stupid enough to respond to your ignorant uninformed post. Please RTFA before you talk shit next time. You'll save us all a lot of trouble.
well, california's electoral votes are guaranteed democratic (unless gray davis is their nominee...), but that doesn't mean the bush campaign doesn't want conservative californians to donate money.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Slashdot is a cluster of machines, some serve static content, some serve dynamic content.
The default view (1, threaded) is always a static, cached version (updated every xx seconds). I think for stories with greater than 500 comments, the default is 2, threaded.
If you use a different view (like -1, nested), the static cache can't be used, so it does use up more cycles on the backend.
The front page is also static if you're not logged in. If you're logged in, it has to do some dynamic content to display your name, and have a link to the stories.
Also, in the old days, banner ads payed for just views. Now, they pay based on click-through. So if you reload a page multiple times, but never click a banner, it increases slashdot bandwidth without increasing revenue (their is none). The only downside is that slashdot may appear more popular in neilson net ratings, or such.
Thanks for the article, though. Your ideas are very good.
...I hope the law firms that file the suits, as well as the courts hearing them, actually have the technical expertise to make sure they're suing the right people. I periodically get complaints from people thinking I or one of my users sent spam, when it was clearly forged, and a friend is caught in the middle of a dispute where the "spammer" claims they only use an opt-in list and the recipient is clammering "death to the spammer or you're one of them".
I desparately want to see spammers nailed to the wall, but not at the expense of a lot of "collateral damage", and even having a suit filed against you can be a major hit before it even gets to court.
but in the grand scheme of things, it's irrelevant.
.1% that are gullible and have low self-esteem or self confidence and think "wow, 3 extra inches in 2 weeks will get me any woman I want", or "wow, I want to work from home so I can make $10000 a week".
Well if you want to carry it that far then everyones lives and accomplishments are pretty irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. Two centuries from now Bill Gates will be just a name in an encyclopedia with a three line description, as will 9/11, George Bush jr. will be just a picture amongst dozens of presidents, and you and I will be completely forgotten except for the times our great-great-great-grandkids do their family tree.
But in the day-to-day events of my 75 years of life on this planet those 2-3 minutes per day are very relevent, important, and precious to me and I have better things to do than spend an hour a week or 50 hours a year deleting email for garbage that I did not request, would never request, and will never buy.
The problem with spam is that it interferes with your entire day. Junk snail mail is only a once a day problem since you get your mail once a day, and you can immediately recognize the fliers from your actual mail and get rid of the crap. But most of those fliers are useful to many people because they advertise events, announce upcoming sales, and somtimes introduce you to activities that you did not know existed in your area. Imagine how annoying junk snail mail would be if each piece arrived every 50 minutes and you were interrupted from what you were doing and had to answer your door to get the junk mail.
Spam on the other hand is getting more difficult to recognize and you often have to read the message to know it is spam. Send out a million messages with "Hi from Barbara" or "Hey dude it's John" and invaribly they will make their way to someone who is expecting an email for Barbara or John, so they think it is an NB msg but instead waste their time to open it up. If all spam occured just once a day like snail junk email it would not be so annoying, but it's something ppl have to deal with all day long.
Also spam is always selling useless crap that 99.9% of the population never would use and takes advantage of the
PS - isn't it ironic that the 'code' format won't actually let you post code....
March 4, the NV state assemply voted unanimously for a bill that allows for up to $500 per offense as well. Here's a link. The article aslo states that the current law, which has a maximum of $10 in damages has never been enforced. If I can find out a way to capitalize on this, I'm going to send out emails to everyone telling them how to get rich.... Oh, wait.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
What a load of delusional road apples. Here in Washington State, we've been able to sue spammers for $500 a pop for years. And y'know what? It does NOTHING. The attorney general's office isn't interested in pursuing any spammers on their own, the courts have had to have been browbeaten into even letting citizens sue, you can't collect even when you win, and the amount of spam flooding into the state continues to increase at exactly the same rate as it floods into the Internet as a whole.
The $500 joke could become federal law and it still won't make a bit of difference. Laws against spam won't make a difference until they're criminal laws and enforced. As long as anonymous SMTP relay hijacking is a civil matter, it will continue to be practiced by spammers.
the California Senate passed which will allow people to sue spammers for $500 per unwanted email
Washington State has had this requirement for some time now... It's good that stricter spam laws are being passed, but it's not like it's setting a precedent.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
- All commercial email must have an "unsubscribe" option (that actually works).
- If you opt out and are spammed by the same company again within 3 years, your ISP (but not you) can sue for $10/email, up to $500,000. Triple damages if it's "willful".
- It would be illegal to send commercial email to addresses scanned from web sites. (But how would they know where a spammer got the address?)
- Forged headers would be punishable by a fine up to $3,000,000. (It doesn't say if this applies to commercial email only, or all email.)
- It would be illegal to send commercial email with sexual content unless you follow FTC guidelines. (This one is bit scary.)
- There would be no requirement for ADV: in the subject line, unlike some competing bills.
LauraCrap... at $500 per spam, I'd be a freakin' bajillionaire by now.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm sure they would ;) Just becaue they do regulate these things, don't mean they have a right to.
Check this out:
[8:58pm] 31 [/usr/local/bin]:jezebel% sudo spam-stats
spam: 2219
clean: 555
skipped: 0
total: 2774
processed: 2774
[9:09pm] 32 [/usr/local/bin]:jezebel%
Out of 2774 emails, 2219 were SPAM.
The machine has SpamAssassin, is using several RBL lists, and pretty tight Postfix anti-UCE settings. Spam is *still* getting through.
At $500 a message? Great. I can pay a lot of bills even if I win against 2 spammers a month.
I don't care if they're relaying it through an open relay somewhere. Most of them are hawking a porno website, and that cashflow has to go *somewhere*
My now unemployed ass (Fuck you, Spherion!) has *plenty* of time to chase spammers down.
Geez, 4 payments a month, and I'm beating out my old salary.
Sounds worth it to me.
It should also be $500 for each message that claims I "opted in" - don't want to pay? PROVE that I opted in. SHOW ME that I opted in and you *verified* my opt-in.
Lying ass spammers.
And the poster is a troll.
Bizare
Firstoff, I've NEVER seen an "ADV" tag on spam.
Second, as I said in the last spam discussion -- I wouldn't mind so much if each spammer just sent ONE copy of each offer, and if the recipient didn't respond, remove their address off that list, better yet from that entire topic category. (I don't need 40 copies a week of Herbal Viagra ads, I heard 'em the first time.)
After a while only those people who DO respond to spam offers would be left -- a more valuable target market (ie. people who actually BUY) for spammers, while leaving the rest of us out of it, other than the occasional new offer (easily ignored when you only get a few a week).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There is a difference between lying and puffery.
Fight Spammers!
Well if this law passes We are all millionares
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
You get your news from the inquirer?
Depends on your defention of news. I don't think there is any new in the Inquirer just entertainment. BTW thats a diffrent Inquirer.
I don't want to recieve them my public account has over 600 msg and none of them are even worth deleting.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
This law, and laws like it, are a waste of government time and money. State laws will only make the spammers operate from other states. Federal laws will only make the spammers operate from other countries.
Sure, we read news stories about "Joe Schmo sues a spammer and wins", and we see supposed multi-million dollar awards to the likes of AOL and Earthlink. And it does not stem the tide of spam one damned bit. When one spammer stops, 5 more scumba^H^H^H^H^H^Hspammers rise up to take their place.
In the good old days, you could trust people on the internet to not lie about who they were or what they were doing. The good old days are long gone. What's needed now is not more useless legislation, but a fundemental change in the infrastructure itself. Mail servers need to be set up and software needs to be adjusted so that mail servers simply will not allow the header to be forged. And they need to be set up to refuse any and all mail coming from servers using older non-secured software.
Until that time, anti-spam legislation is a waste and a lie.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
lets just hope gray "I love kickbacks^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions" davis just signs it in or I may have to shove TOSCO up his arse :p
This law will have three main effects. First, it will stop so called "mainsleaze" spam. Second, it can be used to get rid of pink contracts. With spam being illegal, a pink contract that allows a spammer to continue spamming would be invalid. This would make it easier for an ISP to terminate a spammer even though the spammer holds a pink contract. The contract would be as legal as a contract for murder for hire. Third, it will prevent people who make filtering systems from being sued. Would you like mozilla to be forced to remove their new spam filtering system because some spammer sued them and got an injunction forcing it to be removed? The main benefit of anti-spam laws is the fact that a contract to perform an illegal act is invalid, therefore pink contracts are invalid.
OK, I'm moving to california! Given the amount of spam I receive, I can earn more a day than I currently earn all year!
1) On the surface, this looks fantastic! If it is more than just CA-CA transactions, then it can set a great precedence for all the other states.
2) I want to know if Hotmail accounts are included in this. Because if they are, I could probably retire off the suit money when I'm 25.
3) However, given that Gray Davis is a bonehead and should have been kicked out of office years ago, this may not make it past his desk. He'll probably be paid off by some pro-spam group to not sign it, or figure out a way to stall it forever in court.
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
1) Sue over spam
2) Become millionares
3) Use millions to buy X10 cameras and penis mightiers
4) Repeat
If I thought that tough spam laws would simply end with tough spam laws, I could support it. But history has proven that anytime you open the door to government regulation, the government will generally take a mile when the original intent was only an inch.
Most laws are well intended, but many end up either too broad or get passed with sneaky "riders" attached to them. We have enough laws in America already. I'm sure I break quite a few of them every day.
I think people should think long and hard before they start supporting these anti-spam laws, we might end up with more attempts at regulation on the Internet (and other technology-related things) than we bargained for. And we definitely don't need any of this stuff passing with DMCA-like riders attached to them.
Spam sucks. No doubt about it. But I have ways of dealing with it. Just keep the government out of my Internet. Please!
See here
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Hers links about how to do it. Some people think $500 is not enough to get an attorney to do it, but you dont need one (in fact you cant even use one if you go to trial the right way)!
2 op winman_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/19/02042
http://purplecow.com/vaspam/
http://news.com.com/2010-1080-281494.html
AND THE BEST SITE:
http://smallclaim.info/media/playboy.php
Now get to it!
With a $30 billion plus deficit, kindly explain where they are going to get the money to provide the resouces to support spam prosecutions.
Dawn of the Dead
Wrong. Making laws on how content is distributed is every bit a free speech issue as what is in the content itself. Institutions for more than 150 years in the US have tried a variety of institutional means to keep publications from distributing their work, using laws on litter and such nuisances. SCOTUS threw each on out on its ear and justifiably so. This anti-spam measure will die a horrible SCOTUS death if there is any jstice in the world. The measure is PURE censorship.
Dawn of the Dead
What about thousands of web sites where you enter your email address to be given information? price quotes? etc?
Person A puts person B's address in there. The web site (Amazon for example) sends person B an "unsolicited" email. Now person B has the right so sue Amazon because of person A's prank?
Excuse me?
Flawed law, but, when it comes to the Internet, that is Standard Operating Procedure for Government.
>Firstoff, I've NEVER seen an "ADV" tag on spam.
That is because you, or one of your upstream providers, added a one line filter to insta-delete any email with "ADV:" in the subject. See, it works.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Do you think that people that take the wrong approach to JOBHUNTING OVER THE INTERNET (i.e. form letters to 100's of recipients with an attached resume) might also get prosecuted once they send a resume to someone that didn't specifically ask for it?
I mean, this could get REALLY confusing. There are laws that say that any company that receives a resume MUST hold onto it for X number of days/months/years (not sure of the time, I don't work in HR). BUT, what if it's one of those people that decide to gather EVERY headhunter/company email address that appears on HOTJOBS.COM/MONSTER.COM/DICE.COM and BLAST a "here's my resume, get me a job" email.
I had a roomate that did this all the time, and people frequently replied hostily. With this bill and a leg to stand on, however, they may just reply with a subpoena.
Imagine? Send a resume, and if they like you, they hire you. If they don't, they sue you. Either way, they make out.
All of these laws seem to ULTIMATELY have the corporations in mind. Sure sure, this might not happen, but what ifs sometimes can get crazy.
Thoughts???
You forgot
0. Move to California, so changes in California law matter to you.
Of course, you may have taken this step previously.
California is deep in deficit now and it looks like taxes are going up. Instead: Why not just pass this law and let the state government set up a bunch of spammer honeypots, then start suing them to fill the gov't coffers? Budget crisis solved!
For the record I also propose deputizing motorcycle riders and bicyclists to hand out $500 tickets per double-parked vehicle in San Francisco.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
One could make the argument that by having a public e-mail, you are accepting emails from anyone, including a spammer. And I agree about not making laws about this. It really is not the governments place to say what people can and cannot send in email, regardless of how annoying spam is.
According to the parent's link, the law applies to email sent to CA residents with a CA ISP. If this has any effect at all, we may be seeing a bunch of colocated email servers popping up in CA.
Note: IANAL. At first, I thought that it might be enough to have switching equipment in the state, but looking down at their reasons for the commerce clause not applying, switching equipment is not sufficient. Further, if AOL accepts mail in NY and then relays it to their CA server for delivery, as I understand it, AOL would be liable for that, not the spammer. One of the linchpins of the decision is that one can determine the geographic location of the email server. If they send to an email server outside of CA, then that fails. Of course, if you reply to the email telling them that you are in CA (and so is your email server) and they send you more email, that might be enough to establish the geographic location (even if they don't receive the email--if the law is properly worded, it's their responsibility to offer you a contact method).
Let's be frank: the real value of the law is to make it too expensive and cumbersome for spammers to operate. They want to scream that they can't tell where the recipient is located, therefore the law shouldn't apply to them. California replies (I think) that that is their problem. The law is explicit, they have to follow it - the details are the problem of the spammers. They have the choices of making all spam comform to the California statute, to aggressively seek to determine which email addresses are in California and to stop spamming those, or give up spamming altogether. (Note: I didn't write the law: my opinions are not those of the legislature of California and can't be construed as such. Spammer attorneys who cite my opinion here as evidence of the intent of the law do so at the peril of their clients: that opens the door for a lot more of my opinions.) It is possible to adhere to the requirements of the law: the courts will not (I hope) give any great credence to the protestations of the spammers that it is too hard. It is not up to the government nor the ISPs nor the customers of the ISPs to make it easy for spammers to spam. A spammer who wants to get out a message is always free to buy newspaper or TV advertising - his right of commercial speech is not impaired. The spammer has no right of access to individual email mailboxes, no right to an unfettered ability to send spam wherever, whenever, in in whatever volume the spammer chooses. That right is fictional and exists only in the weak and twisted mind of the spammer. He can whine all he wants, neither that whine nor the expression of that whine in lawsuits or in legal defenses against laws such as the California law are going to grant the spammer rights he doesn't have, never did have. He's been pulling a scam. If that ends it is a good thing, not a bad thing - spammer whines of protestation notwithstanding.
I agree; end users should deal with the spammers. Basically, hunt 'em down and kill 'em. Show no mercy, take no prisoners. Just toast their sorry asses. - Alph
Subject: A Message from President George W. Bush
...
May 16, 2003
Dear David,
I am honored to be your President during this time of opportunity and challenge for our country.
But I probably recieved it because I'm on the RNC mailing list. I'm on the DNC mailing list too. I just like to watch them fight back and forth in my inbox.
Possible that it gets filtered before it even hits your ISP, and if you are running your own mail host ... well come to think of it I haven't seen one with 'ADV:' in a while but I think I have set up filters on all my email accounts long, long ago.
Then again maybe the spammers quit putting it in their titles. Given how bad they mangle the text of their emails with hidden tags to break up the words that might be getting filtered, wouldn't startle me.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
In California there is the 9th district Court, now they are responsible for every off the wall claim bill, amendments to the californian constituents and of course the supreme court squashes these A.P.T claims, On the otherhand they mean well in alerting the public and commercial entities that they will try to crack down on reoccuring debat issues. dont get your hopes up to earn quick cash..........
I'm so sorry that your penis advertisements won't be allowed under the law. This has nothing to do with censorship. It has to do with my right to say "No, I don't want that asshole shoving his penis advertisements into my mailbox on my dime."
But spam lovers like you will never get that.
It's harder to get the relay-abusers, but most of the people paying spammers to advertise their stuff are reachable, because that's usually necessary to actually get money from the system. And if the law lets you ding the people selling the products, without having to specifically track down the people doing the mailing, that'll sting most of them hard enough they'll at least use much more careful spammers and possibly stop, because they'r e in this to make money, and you can't make money if every successful $500 scamware sale also got two $500 small claims court charges biting you in the wallet.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
... but amateurs in small claims court can do well enough to slow down their spam rates and whack the jurisdictionally-vulnerable spammers. (And these days, since high-tech lawyers in Silicon Valley are also often out of work, they'll probably be pickign up a few bucks this way.) So for instance, that spammer in Nigeria who's using a Korean relay is probably out of reach, but the porn spammer who's hosted in one of the many overbuilt hosting centers in Silicon Valley could be in trouble even if his cameras are in Nevada or Kansas somewhere.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks