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First Lawsuits Filed under Missouri's No-Spam Law

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the told-ya-we'd-shoot dept.

darksoulz writes "The St. Louis Business Journal is reporting that Jay Nixon, Missouri's attorney general, has filed the first lawsuits under the new no-spam law against two Florida spammers. The law doesn't totally prohibit spam, it just requires that the subject line be tagged to let consumers know that it is an advertisement. One of the lawsuit recipients even managed to spam an address maintained by the attorney general's office."

5 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Struck down by the Appeals Court by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry, interstate commerce is not controlled by the states. The law cannot and does not apply to spammers who work out of the jurisdiction of Missouri.

    1. Re:Struck down by the Appeals Court by codewritinfool · · Score: 3, Informative

      This hasn't stopped Jay Nixon from suing many out-of-state telemarketers in violation of Missouri's "no-call" list - he's collected more than a million dollars so far.

    2. Re:Struck down by the Appeals Court by Courageous · · Score: 3, Informative

      I believe that it's been ruled somewhere that double ended transactions (such as a solicitation, originating in one state, and ending in another) can be said to have occurred in the destination.

      Anyway, jurisdictional disputes are complicated. Your "does not and cannot" assertion is pretty thin.

      C//

  2. It's about time... by ScooterBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The spam trade is possible because of one thing:

    Sending millions of emails is extremely inexpensive and like the old adage "ask a million girls for a date and no matter how ugly you are, you'll probably get a few takers"

    If it becomes expensive to spam, then the spam will stop and email advertising will become what it's good for, telling potential customers about products that they ARE interested in.

    I can't wait for the California law to take effect. It's way more restrictive. I pity the spammers.

    M

  3. It's too bad California is being so specific. by caferace · · Score: 4, Informative
    The volume of spam I get is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200+ a day. Granted, it's (nearly) all properly sorted and filtered with a combo of SA and Moz' filters. But... In order to report it to the Calif. AG, it has to adhere to the following guidelines:

    "1. You are the recipient of the spam and you are a resident of California.

    2. The spam was delivered via servers located in California (sender's, recipient's or intermediary server will suffice).

    3. There is some indication that the spammer is operating in California, such as a California telephone number or address for orders. If you can identify the spammer and have information from other sources showing that the spammer is in California, that will also work.

    4. The spam fails to comply with the statutory restrictions. To comply, the unsolicited advertising emails' subject line must begin with "ADV:", the first text in the message must offer a toll-free number or functioning email address for removal of the recipient from further unsolicited emails, and that statement must be in a type size as large as most of the other text.

    1,2 and 4 are pretty easy. Proving 3 can be a real PITA, and means if I really want to work this hard I have to do a lot of legwork. Granted, the end result may be worth it, but...

    ref: http://caag.state.ca.us/spam/index.htm