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Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California
Craig Newmark (craigslist) writes "In California, we had a pretty good antispam bill proposed by Sen. Debra Bowen, which was killed yesterday.
A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee.
Here's a quick round up.
We're considering a big feedback campaign, based on conversation with staffers on what works for them, since they want to hear from constituents, as opposed to spam.
More to come ..."
The summary is misleading. If you read one of the articles, you'll see that the measure that was passed was not in support of spam - it, too, was an anti-spam measure. It just wasn't quite as strict as the Bowen measure.
Furthermore, I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it "pro-spammer"; it still calls for fines to be levied. It just appears more "pro-spammer" than the consumer-backed bill.
Didn't read the article, ej? The other bill was also considered to be sort of an anti-spam bill by those who introduced it, and Microsoft, well ...
Bowen contended that Microsoft backs the Murray bill because it wants to be in a position to charge spammers to send ads over its system and to continue to sell anti-spam blockers to their customers.
[1]
Of course Microsoft supports the weaker bill. They are a spammer (sorry, "opt-in email marketer") themselves. Not as dirty as the others, but by no means clean.
sulli
RTFJ.
You of course mean "Who's Bill?", short for "Who is Bill?" "Whose Bill" indicates you're wondering which slave-owner Bill belongs to.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The earliest I can find on the net was 25 years ago (1978) as the first recorded, but wasn't called spam. It wasn't callecd spam until 1993 the first to be called spam happend on usenet. I'm pretty sure that when somone today speaks of spam (or 10 years ago, when it was first coined) they were an are referring to usenet, and later to email spam, not any rinky-dink BBS.
check out Brad Templeton's site for a bit of history: http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html
"A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee."
from abc7news: "According to an Assembly analysis, the spammer could be fined $1,000 per unwanted e-mail or $1 million per incident, whichever was less, plus actual damages to the recipient. An incident is defined in the bill as "a single transmission of substantially similar content." But Givens complained the bill would allow a judge to reduce the penalties to actual damages and $100 per e-mail or $100,000 per incident, whichever was less, if the advertiser had taken "due care" to prevent the transmission of unsolicited ads. ", under the bill that passed. Doesn't sound very pro-spammer to me even under the reduced penalty.
Vote for Pedro
Bowen accuses Microsoft of having alterior motives for backing (in her opinion) a weaker anti-spam law. She might be right (weaker anti-spam laws might allow Microsoft to promote their own anti-spam software and/or deliver their own spam and/or sell mailing lists to others) but I can't entirely fault Microsoft's position on this one.
According to Microsoft, they're not backing the new bill because they want indemnity from spamming. Rather, it's because Bowen's bill apparently places greater responsibility and blame on ISP's for the conduct of spammers. I liken this to the classic arguments about suing the phone company for what happens over their phone systems, finding P2P software developers liable for the conduct of their users, or holding Google responsible for publishing search results.
I haven't seen the actual proposals to be sure, but if the articles accurately describe the competing bills, I don't see anything hypocritical about Microsoft's stance. I would much rather hold the spammers responsible than blame the ISP's (even Microsoft) for the conduct of their users. This is the kind of measure that further erodes our rights to privacy and further restricts our freedoms to use telecommunications infrastructure.
Of course, the bills should still have some provisions to encourage responsible ISP's and I would certainly be against provisions that would provide indemnity for "brand name spam", but I don't see any evidence of that in this case. Microsoft isn't automatically the enemy - this might just be a case of author's envy by Bowen.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/newcomframeset.asp? committee=129
Voted For:
Assemblymen Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood
Assemblymember.Koretz@assembly.ca.gov
Mark Leno, D-San Francisco;
Assemblymember.leno@assembly.ca.gov
Joe Nation, D-San Rafael;
Joe.Nation@asm.ca.gov
Juan Vargas, D-Chula Vista;
Assemblymember.Vargas@assembly.ca.gov
Leland Yee, D-San Francisco;
Assemblymember.yee@assembly.ca.gov
Voted against:
Assemblymen Greg Aghazarian, R-Turlock
Assemblymember.aghazarian@assembly.ca.gov
Bill Maze, R-Visalia
Assemblymember.maze@assembly.ca.gov
Voted against by abstaining:
Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana
Assemblymember.Correa@assembly.ca.gov
Rudy Bermudez, D-Bellflower
Assemblymember.bermudez@assembly.ca.gov
Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro
Assemblymember.Corbett@assembly.ca.gov
Shirley Horton, R-San Diego
Assemblymember.Shirley.Horton@assembly.ca.gov
Abel Maldonado, R-San Luis Obispo
Assemblymember.maldonado@assembly.ca.gov
Mark Wyland, R-Vista
Assemblymember.Wyland@assembly.ca.gov
People are right when they say technology will provide much better answers than law.
However, address harvesters attack our site and spam people, and this pisses me off. We've taken some measures to prevent this, with some luck.
Every coupla days or so, I get a spam report, though, that I can do something about. As a result, I've shut down around 165 spammers to this date, and it really helps to cite the existing California law.
I really could use a law which better defines spam, and which would allow me to go to small claims court and nail some more spammers, bigger game.
Also, I'm really disappointed to see legislators vote on something they know is wrong.