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California Could Get $500/Offense Spam Law

Posted by timothy on from the good-luck-collecting-any dept.

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.

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Offtopic? Or so ontopic it just looks that way? by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Trollspam - gets you pissed by accusing you of sending email. So you open it and great! a web bug just confirmed your addy.

    In OSX Mail: Uncheck "Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages" in Preferences/Viewing.

    In Mozilla: Check "Do not load remote images in Mail & Newsgroup messages" in Preferences/Privacy & Security/Images.

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  2. Re:Laws are bad by letxa2000 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I think you're a little confused. No one is forcing you to run an email server. Also, no one is forcing you to run an email server accessible to the internet.

    So you're saying that because I run an email server connected to the Internet that I am obligated to accept postage-due advertisements, which is what spam is? Because I have a mail server I am obligated to receive hundreds of fradulent advertisements every day on my dime and on my time? I am required to subsidize someone else's marketing campaign?

    The fact that I run an email server does not give you--or any spammer--the implicit right to abuse it or shift costs to me. Mail servers are accessible via the Internet because they have to me--it does not convey some automatic invitation to subsidize the costs of an advertising campaign much less a fradulent or pornographic one.

    While we're at it, why don't we go ahead and have some human refuse unloaded on your front lawn and charge you for delivery? After all, your front lawn is publically-accessible. No-one forced you to have a front lawn so everyone is free to unload whatever refuse they want there because we thought it "might be useful". And charge you, to boot.

  3. Re:Residence of person or residence of server? by minas-beede · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe this applies:

    Ferguson v. Friendfinder, Inc., Case No. A092653

    http://www.timothywalton.com/ferguson.html

    (Thank you, Mark Ferguson, for going to the trouble of following this case through. For that matter, thanks for starting it.)