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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 $500 per unwanted email. This is one of the strictest anti-spam measures in the country and will set a precedent for other states to follow." This bill needs to pass the state assembly and the governor to become a law, though.
Government making laws on content, which is the realm of censorship and free speech, is a whole lot different than for laws on where that content is sent, which crosses the line into rights to privacy and property ownership.
I'll support the right to post any content you want for all to see, but to send it to anyone using their bandwidth is something different.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
"I hate spam but I'll fight for your right to send it. I don't want the government making laws about Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do. "
People will mod up anything that smells of anti-law or anti-government. Frankly I'm glad the state of Michigan has laws to stop people from using my fax paper to spam me. Or from people calling me at 2:00am with an auto-dialer.
The government made laws for telephone and fax use and somehow I pulled through this age of the apocalypse. I think the Internet will survive the oppressiveness of the government.
I hate spam but I'll fight for your right to send it. I don't want the government making laws about
Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do.
Are you also against truth-in-advertising laws that make it illegal for companies to lie about their products in TV commercials? That's a restriction of speech too - of commercial speech - and laws like that are essential for a capitalistic economy to function properly.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'm a little uncomfortable with the government passing laws specifically against spam--not because I think spamming is something to defend, I'm just worried about government getting on a roll and meddling in other Internet areas that they have no place being.
Spam should be prosecuted under existing laws regarding theft of service and computing resources. I wouldn't mind a federal law that specifically restates that so there is no doubt and I'd like to see existing laws enforced against spammers, but I'm a little worried about government trying to regulate Internet. They have a hard enough time trying to regulate things they understand let alone things they don't.
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
Why? Spam is assault, not speach. Would I protect the right of skinheads to scream racial epithets at people? No. Would I protect those skinheads right to hold their views on white racial superiority? Yes, although their beliefs are digusting and offensive they have the right to hold them and even communicate them to others.
So spammers can send their messages to people who are willing to receive them. No restriction on the message, just the means used to deliver it.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
I hate spam as well, and don't want unecessary laws - I don't smoke and yet I voted against the law in Florida which banned smoking in restaurants - because a person can choose not to go to a restaurant with smoking. BUT its a lot different with spammers - no one gave me a choice of whether I wanted the stuff in the first place. The proposed law requires people to opt-in or choose to get the spam - its not regulating Internet content, its protecting MY rights to privacy. Its a pretty good start at fixing the problem.
.
I hate spam but I'll fight for your right to send it.
A perversion of "I disagree with what you say but I'll fight for your right to say it." Spam is commercial speech and as such is undeserving of such allegiance. This has been well established by court precedent in the USA- commercial speech does not enjoy the same First Amendment protections as noncommercial (political) speech. Even if it were political speech, the way it's delivered can matter as well. You can't run around with a can of spray paint before an election and put political graffiti all over buildings, for example.
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.
There are two conflicting memes I see a lot concerning crime, legislation, and the Internet:
- Crimes involving the Internet are extra serious and require additional punishment and more savage sentences.
- Anything done on the Internet should be completely legal and unrestricted no matter what.
The first is fueled by simple post-9/11-style ignorance and fear. The second is based on an understandable fear of technically illiterate Senators introducing legislation written by corporate lobbyists. Yet in principle both are equally invalid because they fail to recognize that the Internet is a part of the real world and not some sort of alternate universe that requires a completely separate framework of crazy rules.
Another related meme, common in industry, and illustrative of the same point:
- Introducing the Internet into a business process renders it patentable.
Why does the Internet have this strange effect on people? There is nothing magical about the Internet that makes our ordinary common sense suddenly inapplicable. (You need a little bit of education, more than the average lawmaker has, but that should be it.) Some people simply cannot behave themselves. There is no valid reason that the social and legal principles we've developed for dealing with criminals in the real world shouldn't also work well on the Internet- which after all is merely a part of the real world. There are technical issues involved with catching troublemakers on the Internet that have no counterpart in "real life", but real life has its own set of technical issues that don't exist on the Internet.
If you can't behave yourself and screw things up for the general public, you should be punished. The fact that you're using TCP/IP at some point is irrelevant. It doesn't mean your activities should be branded as "cyberterrorism" deserving a doubled or tripled sentence, nor does it mean that anything goes.
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.
As mentioned in the blurb, the consumer sues for the money, no state-tracking down involved.
While this will put a big burden on the civil courts for a while if everyone starts suing all their spammers, I'm sure it'll settle down once it becomes clear that spamming is no longer profitable, no matter how difficult tracking the spammer down is.
You're wrong. States routinely assert "long arm" jurisdiction. Defendants try to use your defense, don't often get states supreme courts (e.g., CA's) to agree that CA laws have no force.
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.
>>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.
No one is forcing you to have a house. Also, no one is forcing you to have a house on a street.
Fixed.
Here's an analogy: they're sending all their junk mail with postage due. Also, the paper they used cost them nothing, but the ink did cost just a little bit. Better?
(Postage due = your bandwidth bill, paper = email (free), ink = a computer, for the analogy impared.)
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
I run a honeypot. If the spammer didn't use abuse to send his email I'd never touch it.
I touch a fair amount of spam. There is no, zero, zilch consitutional issue for that touching. Same for all the others who do the touching using honeypots - if the spammer wants to assert his consitutional right then he can send directly to the recipient. He has no constitutional right to use my equipment or anyone else's equipment in his spam scheme. The spammers who scream "constitutional right" conveniently forget to mention how they send their spam.
Scelscon's testimony in Washington was that ISPs should be forced to deliver the spam. That's not asserting a constitutional right, that's trying to escape ISPs having the right to control their own networks.
Just because I have an email mailbox there is not created a right for anyone who wishes to send email to that mailbox nor any right to require its delivery. The email mailbox exists for my convenience and is not the spammers nor TrustE's nor Microsoft's nor anyone else's to authorize as a spam destination. I've not granted any such right to TrustE, etc. and I will not grant such a right. "trusted sender" is hogwash, and that's a polite term in place of what it really is.
Of course there's also a court decision that says the ISP is not obligated to accept the spam.
Well, if there was a law that said you had to use ADV in the subject and spammers were forced to comply with such a simple rule then I certainly wouldn't have any more complaints with them. I'd just add it to my filters and live happily ever after. Afterall, the spammers use the argument that you can opt out of their mailing lists right? Why not just clearly identify that your mail is an advertisement and let the users filter it themselves? Oh right, because everyone would filter your spam and you'd be out of business. So I guess it really is a bullshit opt-out argument.
Hmmm... Let's say it takes just 1 second to delete 1 spam, which is not unreasonable if you actually look at the subject to determine it's not spam. Let's say the spammer sent that advertisement to 30 million email addresses, which isn't unreasonable either. So a single spam session to 30 million people, the spammer caused humanity to lose 30 million seconds. That's 8333 hours which is just shy of a year. Or let's say that we call our time worth about $5/hr--less than minimum wage. That spam session that cost the spammer a few dollars at best cost humanity $41,000.
And that's just one spam! How many individual spams do you think are sent per day? By some estimates, spam will cost the American economy nearly $10 billion this year (I've also seen $8.9 billion mentioned).
Let's look at it more personally. Last month I received 2171 spams. This month I'm on track to receive 3022. So call it 2800 per month. That's 33,600 spams per year. Again, assuming 1 second per spam that's 9 hours of my time that will be wasted on spam this year. That's one work-day, or a nice Saturday afternoon.
Those that say "Who cares? Just click delete. How long does it really take?" are quite clueless. Spam robs time from others and it DOES add up personally, economically, and at the societal level.
That said, I don't worry about spam much. Using some good filters and Bayesian statistics I'm seeing just a few spam per month even though I'm receiving about 3000 per month. What a relief.
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!
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
But those people _chose_ to watch American Idol, as opposed to being forced to experience the spam.
I get really annoyed with people who claim that their time is incredibly valuable
It's *my* time. Your annoyance is irrelevant. You don't have any business wasting my time - because I say so. Don't like it? Too damn bad.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
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.
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