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Louisiana Tries Anti-Spam Law
chompyZ writes "The legislative battle against SPAMMING heats-up as a new law became effective yesterday in Louisiana. According to KPLC, the new law requires senders of sexually explicit e-mail to include a note in the subject line, "adv-adult," to let unsuspecting internet users know ahead of time. The Olympian reports that Louisiana officials actually think this will be effective... leaves you wondering if "officials" have any clue how SPAMMERS operate..."
and so I don't know the law you have there, but won't it just cause spammers to move outside Louisiana?
Most every porn type email I get can be traced back to servers in China or The Netherlands. I doubt those Cajuns will be going overseas anytime soon to prosecute.
Hmm, just got a new porn email, from Pythonvideo, up in Canada. Hope those guys have a large travel budget.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Spammers are already breaking laws; highjacking mail servers, using trojans such as 'jeem' and 'proxy-guzu' to make others send spam, etc. I doubt this law is going to be the one that finally makes them operate ethically.
Perhaps they need to also make it a crime for an individual in the state to purchase a product or service from a spammer...
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
It may be ineffective in getting spammers to stop their penis and lolita porn spams, but it does give the state a way of prosecuting spammers. Remember, going after a criminal is just a matter of technicality. After all, they got Al Capone for tax evasion of all things.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
As much as I hate spam, it really bothers me to see any laws which restrict my behavior online. I consider the Internet to be something futuristic, where individuals are free to choose their own code of ethics, rather than having one dictated to them in a larger society, and individuals are free to interpret others' actions as they want and defend themselves as they want. I know that's not very realistic, but the quasi-anarchy "back in the good old days" before the Internet was Serious Business, before the Web was Important was something amazingly freeing and fulfilling. I do not want other people just discovering the realm of computers and global communication to be shoved into just another restrictive, judgemental society like the one in which we all participate in Real Life.
Spam ruins the online experience in the same way that mass-marketed commercialism does, and I hate to see the Internet become a thing of money and corporate power and not of freedom and individual power, but imposing restrictions doesn't seem to address the issue. However, maybe the problem will always be impossible to solve, because with freedom comes greed, and with freedom comes abuse...
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--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The problem is getting spammers to honor the law. First of all, I assume (the article did not say) that the law can only affect spammers who are based in Louisiana. That will not even chip away at spammers. Even if it were nationwide, it would be very difficult to chase down even those spammers inside our borders, and impossible to affect those outside.
If it did work, it would make filtering "adult" spam very easy. And I would find it gratifying merely to see a few spammers behind bars, or at least fined out of their livelyhood, for inundating us with piles and piles of junk.
It's not a step in the right direction at all. It's a step toward what the spammers want - a legal backdrop to claim that what they're doing is ok. A step in the right direction would be to stop spamming, not to label their spam so they can then claim it's legal for them to steal.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Extremely unrealistic... The same case could be made for Slashdot itself. In the early days of /. there were no user accounts, there was no karma whoring because there wasn't a need for moderation at all. The "community" was small enough that you knew everyone and people could be trusted not to spoof other people. As /. grew, changes had to be made to the social structure in order to cope with scale.
This is true of any society. This is not anything new, as society changed from small family groups to tribes to cities to city states to nations, more laws and force had to be applied to keep things moving smoothly.
The challenge isn't keeping a state of "quasi-anarchy" at all costs, and whining about your rights. The challenge is taking responsibility and tutoring your elected officials on how law, technology and society intersect. Personally, I think there should be some regulation on unsolicited commercial email. Back in the good ole days I could actually use my email, now I get 20-25 spams a day vs about 1 or 2 actual useful e-mails. Personally, I find that a great restriction on my behavior and a burden to my resources.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Yeah, you're totally right. Spammers have a right to use up my mailbox space and my time. Is anyone crying over the illegality of junk faxes? Come on.
Making laws against spam is not censorship. Stop acting like it.
20-25 spams a day is nothing. Come back when your whole meaning of email is destroyed by spammers.
But on the restriction/behavior controll vs. freedom subject, and without going too much into the commercialism debate; I do belive that this could have a _limited_ effect within LA. (without knowing much about LA)
But what I don't understand is why they allow spam (as in unsolicted advertising via smtp) anyway.
I have yet to see any good arguments why they can not ban sending out *thousands* of emails.
I don't really belive in the "spam should be protected as freedom of speech". IMO you don't have the right to send a message to someone in a way that forks over the cost to the reciver.
You can send as much sendmail as you please and you can talk to a person as much as you wan't (within harrasment laws) but no one should have a right to send a advertising to someone.
As far as I know; baning unsolicted email actually works. Several European countries have done this and this reduces the spam sent from within the country to the country's innhabitants.
Yes, I know most of the spam is sent from another country, but independant of this the recived spam goes down for the population. With EU (probably ) banning spam within a couple of years the number of spam sent from EU to EU willl go down.
And I don't belive in "if we allow banning of spam the government may as well reduce our rights (to freedom of speech)". And I consider myself to be among the paranoid people here.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
If I send unsolicited porn through the USPS I can be arrested, why is email any different? You don't hear to many people screaming that not allowing porno junk mail is a violation of freedom of speech.
It's not a step in the right direction at all. It's a step toward what the spammers want - a legal backdrop to claim that what they're doing is ok. A step in the right direction would be to stop spamming, not to label their spam so they can then claim it's legal for them to steal.
One of the things it also may provide is a basis for prosecution. Most spammers will not comply because they know its easy to filter it out, and non-compliance is a reason to prosecute. Even though the prosecution may not be successful, one problem we have is a lack of legal precident.
First we thin the herd by creating a law that they will break (adding the tag in the subject line), making it harder to be a spammer, and thus, less spammers. Just the fear of possible prosecution will help, and some high profile cases that cost the spammers real money will eventually help more.
Next, create laws that allow companies to use email where it is appropriate such as current customers, genuine opt-in, critical announcements to ex-customers for security issues. A strict, but fair law that lets Sears, Walmartl, or your corner grocery store use email in a responsible way. This way they know where they stand, and legitimate companies will support it. To say one kind of email is unacceptable, you have to declare what kind of email is acceptable.
I believe that if you could reduce the noise by 70% by thinning the herd this way and legitimize use that is legitimate, it will be much easier to track down the real problem spammers. Its going to take years to deal with spam, but this law may be a worthwhile first step.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Now, I just need to sit back until my competition is fined out of existence. You didn't email it? Oh, well, you're the beneficiary, so we don't believe you.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
I guess it's that my fear of organized justice as being something exploitable, unfair, and inhuman... I would rather have a vengeful vigilante on my heels than to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and weeks of my life fighting for myself in court just to end up wasting years in jail, because some big corporation has more money and power than me and disagreed with me about something.
(But, I am rather surprised to see how everyday-normal slashdotters are... there seem to be almost no anarchists, extremists, or serious rebels here, which is unforunate because I hate it when cool places are filled with normality, decency, and everything that escapists and surrealists despise. Where am I supposed to find my fantasy world where I can escape from everything? If the Internet is not the place for small, free communities, then where *is* the right place? Or am I just not looking in the right spots online?)
But, see, my logical argument is: if there's restrictions places on e-mail, then what's to stop people from silencing me using these restrictions? Suppose I send out e-mails from time to time to various people I have not talked to before but have seen online because I think they might be interested in my band. Now, technically, this is probably "unsolicited commercial e-mail;" but, I feel it's reasonable because (a) it's not mass-mailing; (b) these people are probably interested; (c) I'm not rude or obnoxious about it; and (d) I'm not trying to sell them anything in particular. Now, if there are bans or restrictions on UCE/spam, they could be applied to me if someone decided they didn't like me. I might find myself in legal trouble for doing the online equivalent of finding cool-looking kids out on the street and asking them if they've heard of my band. Some would argue that seeking people to contact is the wrong approach; those people have probably never started a band (or, they had a big crowd of friends who were supportive and contacted their friends, their friends of friends... word-of-mouth advertising).
(P.S.: When did I whine about my "rights"? <g> Anarchy and a free Internet are not rights; they are incredibly priveleges that continue to amaze me every day with the things they can teach me about myself.)
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
>> leaves you wondering if "officials" have any clue how SPAMMERS operate..."
Actually it leaves me wondering if you have any idea how the law operates. As silly as this legislation may at first appear, you have to realize that (mostly) nothing is illegal unless there is a LAW to make it so. Yes, spam is already illegal in many states, but creating a law where spammers must insert adv-adult in their subject line is another point where would-be prosecutors can trip spammers up with, thus increasing penalties and even prison time. Its like when a murder is really heinous, prosecutors dont just try someone for murder 1, they get them on just about every count thats feasible to the case.
As much as I hate spam, it really bothers me to see any laws which restrict my behavior online.
Oh, come on. Does the requirement to honestly label the content of a -commercial- message really affect your freedom that much? Businesses -do not- deserve the same rights that private individuals do. As an individual, I believe I have a right to control what mail arrives in my mailbox. That right trumps your right to send me whatever spam you may wish to.
I think it's high time that more first-ammendment acivists (and I consider myself almost a first-ammendment radical) realize that along with freedom-of-speech comes an equally important right to "freedom not to be forced to listen to someone elses freedom of speech". Historically, there was no need for such a law, since you could always go elsewhere if someone was saying something you didn't chjose to listen to. As media becomes more & more closely intertwined with our lives, however, it's becoming impossible to ignore content that you want to. It's important to remember that the proposed law does not prevent you from sending me as much junk mail as you want, it just allows me to easily filter out any messages that I don't want to recieve before they reach my inbox. Laebling laws such as this one (along with adequately severe penalties to ensure compliance) are the ideal way of deailing with the problem. It allows your freedom-of-speech, and me my freedom-to-ignore.
So let's say you limit those in the US from sending you spam, what are you going to do when they start relaying from borked out servers abroad... Better yet what can you do. Waste taxpayer money tracking down spammers abroad... Let's see $5000 to track them, another $1000 to bring them down here to face the music, $100,000k miminum for some sort of farce trial for something you could have taken care of with spamassassin.
Boy oh boy I don't know who is dumber the politician who passed this law or the spammer I hit d on using mutt.
MoFscker
As a law-abiding spammer
I'm sorry, a what?!?!?! . There really is no such thing.
how am I supposed to send both spam complying with the Louisiana law (including "adv-adult") and the Michigan law (containing "ADV:" as the first four characters?)
Simple - you find out in which state the recipient lives, and use the appropriate subject.
Can't do that? then maybe you shouldn't be spamming.
I hope no new state laws are introduced, these are making it really tough to stay profitable.
I think that's the point.
There is no wondering here, we all know they don't have a clue in the world. But whats being done about that? I don't see any huge initiatives to educate our law makers into how these things really work. So what can Slashdot do to educate these people as to how spam really works?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Why is
"Great offer at Wal-Mart, 2 for 1 Washing powder"
more acceptable than
"Great offer at Sex-Mart, 2 for 1 Vibrators"
?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Spammers don't make any attempt to obey the rules we already have, why do you think a bunch of confused legislation would change that?
The people backing the idea of legislation on spam include the really big spammers, and this is the danger. Any national legislation is going to have nice big holes for 'legitimate' corporate spammers to continue to spam, while attempting to put their more entrepeneurial, less established competitors out of business. This is not acceptable at all.
This, too, is wrongheaded. There is no need for an 'opt-out' list, and only spammers want such a thing. People that run mailing lists of any sort need an 'opt-in' list and they need to retain evidence that every address on it did indeed opt-in, from what IP, in what manner, on what day, and they need to keep the confirmation email that was sent back to them before the name was added. Do that, and this 'opt-out' database is superfulous. All truly legitimate bulk emailers do that. The rest are spammers, whatever their corporate backing and regardless of how many congresscritters they own. There is no need to legitimize the spammers by letting them run a check against this 'opt-out' database and then happily spam everyone that isn't on it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The thing that allows spam to continue, is that num nuts, like most AOL users, keep buying into this crap. I think that a campaign that exposes, illustrates and informs the "newbie" crowd to what spam really is and its fraudulent nature, would make a difference.
I wish I could agree with you, but I can't. The reason is that the education campaign would have to have a success rate that is impossible to achieve. If a spammer reaches one million human recipients over a long weekend of spamming and manages to get ten orders, it's still profitable to the spammer. Imagine the incredible cost and massive coordination that it would take to mount an education campaign that would reduce the current take of 50-100 orders (or whatever it is, depending on "product" being hawked) to 10-20 per million. Even if it were successful, all the spammer has to do to counter the campaign is to send more spam.
Beating sense into the numbnuts who buy the crap is an effort of diminishing returns. I am totally with you on the desired goal, but it simply won't work. Passing some laws with teeth and using them to put physical barriers such as iron bars and concrete walls between spammers and computers with Internet connections is the only thing that'll actually prevent spammers from spamming.