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Spammers Pleased with 'Anti'-Spam Act
grung0r writes "A post at Ed Foster's Gripelog explains why the new anti-spam law that Congress is passing isn't a good idea: 'it's clear that only the Direct Marketing Association, Microsoft, AOL and a handful of others had any input into the law, because it's carefully crafted to allow the big marketers free reign. And the loopholes it provides them will be more than big enough to provide aid and comfort for the smallest and sleaziest of spammers as well.' More about the problems with the law can be found at cauce.org." The direct marketers are dancing in the streets over it.
The lack of the private remedy is bad (there's nothing more intimidating than looking down the barrel of a loaded lawyer), but at least the law requires the spam to be labeled. That will make it a lot easier to filter out - - provided, of course, that those anonymous sellers of penis lengtheners obey the law. If you can't trust someone like that to be a law-abiding citizen, who can you trust?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
But I love it when pleasers are spammed!
With the new bill, we have to rely on and trust the 'opt-out' option, something we've been trained NOT to do.
..just like the anti-virus industry. The laws have glaring loopholes through them but were worded well enough to calm down the masses. Now the anti-spam software industry will grow like mad as spam continues to flood inboxes. It's no coincidence that Microsoft was consulted on the spam laws, they have a vested interest in the after market antispam business.
Trolling is a art,
...end of story. The filthy assholes have NO sense of responsibility. They don't care that they're pissing people off every day or that spam traffic is choking the internet. Kill 'em all, and make 'em suffer.
Our government will shortly be saying that they can not regulate Spam unless they can watch all things moving across the wire. This includes the Net and Voice. The US government is slowly setting up the reason for why they have to monitor everything in our lives.
"My guess is the number of people willing to risk that amount of fines and jail time is not many," said William Nussey, chief executive of Atlanta e-mail service provider Silverpop.
Like that's stopped those spammers that trojan machines. They'll just keep going, and now add "legitimate" spam to the mix. Stuff is going to get a *lot* worse
I hate spammers, but this law is meaningless, as are ALL anti-spam laws:
1. Spammers will ignore the law. Which leads to the next point:
2. Laws are meaningless unless enforced. How will it be enforced? When I get hit with spam that violates this law, who do I complain to? Who will investigate my complaint and then pursue and punish the spammers?
3. Where will all the money and resources come from to enforce this law (see point #2 above) -- to actually enforce this law will take FAR more money and resources than anyone realizes or will admit.
And even if significant money and resources are allocated to enforce the law:
4. What about all the spam originating from servers outside the U.S.
Welcome to the true realization of human nature.
Your only friends here are cynicism and pragmatism.
It's not going to stop SPAM just make it honest. They have to provide a real address, label it as commercial, and provide an opt-out that really works. How does this keep me from getting SPAM? I don't give a rats ass about opt outs or addresses I don't want this crap in my in-box to begin with. I'm not even going to mention the bastards overseas who are under no obligation to follow these rules( like they would if they had to anyway).
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
The site has rather conservative advertisements. For example no pop-ups or animated adds in the middle of a text body. What would the site look like if it had the same advertising to content ratio direct marketeers create in their mediums?
The US government still hasn't clued in to the fact that The Internet is a global resource. As such, local entities such as governments are going to have very little power to control it.
The proper solution is to get off our butts and start migrating away from SMTP.
it's clear that only the Direct Marketing Association, Microsoft, AOL and a handful of others had any input into the law, because it's carefully crafted to allow the big marketers free reign. And the loopholes it provides them will be more than big enough to provide aid and comfort for the smallest and sleaziest of spammers as well.'
AOL and MSFT probably deal with more spam headaches than anyone else. I don't really notice them using spam, just trying to filter it in vain from their services.
"Under the federal law, consumers cannot sue og have sex at any given time."
"The bill bans harvesting of e-mail addresses from goatse.cx sites and breaking into computers to send spam."
Why did you add that junk to the article? Was it supposed to be funny or something?
Mod parent down.
GL
If you think about it, marketing as a whole is idiotic. Marketing doesn't produce anything. It's just about steering the masses toward one product at the expense of a competitor, whose product could actually be better.
How about a world where you simply submit your new product to a system of independent reviews, which then informs consumers of their options? I think it would be much better than the system we have now, where effective marketing tends to border illegality.
Marketing isn't needed. Marketing is an ongoing demonstration that mankind is unsophisticated. Get rid of marketing.
Why do I vote again? Oh yeah, I stopped voting since I realized it doesn't matter who wins
If you don't vote, then guess what? You don't get the right to bitch and moan when things don't go the way you want them to, plain and simple. It's fucked up, this political system we have, but at this point in time our only voice is by voting. I know you feel rebellious to say it, but understand that this is a very real case where if you aren't trying to be a part of the solution, you are, by default, a big part of the problem.
Post you politician's e-mail addresses everywhere you can
Politicians doubtfully are the first to read their email. More than likely you'd be targeting an intern, whose job is to wade through the inbox to pick out the handful of real emails. I don't think your point will get across to them, do you?
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Alright, I always thought Schumer was stupid weak minded liberal who thinks government can solve all of life's woes, but this proves it:
"It's not going to solve all the problems, but it's the first real step," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The public is demanding something. It's going to happen. We're going to get it done."
Okay, spam is not a government problem, it is a technical problem and no amount of praying or laws (Smart or dumb) are going to solve the problems of spam. Now here is the list why:
1) Most spam that ends up in U.S. mailboxes comes from overseas, so no US law is going to stop that.
2) Spam actually works on an economic level, if it did not, then no one would spam. Spammers spam, because spam works. Destroy the profitiblity of spamming and spam will go away.
3) Spamming is easy. Make it so addresses can not be spoofed, email headers can't be forged and MX records have to match up with A records (All those modem pool modems would not be able to send because no will accept mail from a machine that does not have an correct MX record). I think if you fixed this, then a lot of the spam would just go away.
Linux O Muerte!
Did you even bother to read the article? Yes, it has to be labeled as spam, but the label isn't defined. As a matter of fact, the label is up to the spammer to decide! The FTC is PROHIBITED by this law from defining the label. So how are you supposed to filter out mail based on an arbitrary label defined by the sender?
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
I know that we've been debating spam the effectiveness of Spam legislation here on slashdot for the last couple days. YES, it might momentarily stem the flow of spam, but really laws like this allow too much leeway! If you think this will stop spam you have another thing coming!
Technology on the other hand is the way to go. I recently got feed up with my hotmail account due to spam and I switched to another free site called Shadango.com. It allows me to check both my students address and hotmail thru one interface and it filters the spam out of my email, which is something this new law won't do.
I'm not saying that services like Shadango.com are the answer but they are definitely a step in the right direction! And that's my two cents!!!
Brian
I have to believe that Microsoft understands what spam is doing to the internet, and they must want it to continue working. They are the ones running hotmail after all. No one can buy them off, and any money they might make off spam wouldn't even be visible next to their other products.
From the text of the bill, the mail must provide
But what does that mean? Putting "[AD]" in the subject title? Adding a "is-spam: true" header? Ending the message with "BTW, this is spam"? Some of them? All of them? Any could be could be considered a valid indentification but the vast variety of methods and phrasings could make it very difficult to actually filter out based on these "clear" identifications.
Can:
1.c. Used to indicate possession of a specified capability or skill: I can tune the harpsichord as well as play it.
That's the can that got passed here.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Is that it doesn't do anything. The govvies weren't trying to help "we the people". They wrote and enacted a law that shelters spammers from "we the people".
How can you tell if a law is unjust? If it makes **ANY** provision at all preventing people from suing those who break the law.
We have been denied access to the third branch of government in order to protect the business interests of spammers.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Does the OP pay taxes? yes? well, yeah, then he's got a right to bitch.
While it may be a lagitimate creative business in the United States of America, in most parts of the world, that is called extortion.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Which is of course completely wrong. There to appear to service providers who are helping the spammers. These organizations will not respond to complaints. The organizations will say that it "is not our problem" even though it appears they receive compensation from the spammer. The organization seem to have a business model that depend on spammers. However, because they are only the conduit, they are not held responsible.
In some ways this is ok. Just like UCE would be much more palatable if the sender did not forge headers and use other deceptive practices. What i would like to see is the ability to prosecute service providers that do not enforce a minimally acceptable terms of service or have a pattern of behavior that aids the spammers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
While true, when the politician has to pay 8 interns to read their email instead of 1 intern, and they all complain about the amount of disgusting porn they are seeing, they might be more likely to do something about it.
Unfortunately, all the improvements to SMTP that I've heard proposed would still be rendered moot by the insecurity of Windows.
Strong authentication to a mail server that knows you personally? Unforgeable headers? Hash cash? Great ideas, but not ones that will have any effect on millions of compromised Windows systems each sending a small number of messages properly through their own mail servers.
Do you have some improvements in mind which would obviate the zombie-army problem? I'd love to hear them.
To stop spam, we must make it unprofitable for the spammers to continue sending it.