Congress Sends Anti-Spam Bill To White House

sunbird writes "At just after 5 o'clock EST, the House concurred to the Senate's amendments to the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (or "CAN-SPAM") (bill in PDF format: here or here). Although the bill will prohibit certain tactics (such as hiding return addresses), critics state that the bill does not go far enough (see this press release). The bill will provide criminal penalties for violations of its provisions (up to five years behind bars), but will not allow private parties to sue spammers. News reports indicate (SF Gate or Forbes) that Bush intends to sign the bill. Prior Slashdot articles are here: 1 2 3."

Comments

This legalizes spam

[Animats]

We covered this. Spam becomes legal 120 days after this is signed, even in states where it wasn't legal before.

Re:This legalizes spam

[Vainglorious Coward]

That's why it's called the "CAN-SPAM" act. No trickery with naming there, nosir.

Re:This legalizes spam

[DickBreath]

Of course this legalizes spam.

Why do you think they call it the CAN-spam bill?

Why didn't they call it the

1. Anti-spam bill?
2. Stop-spam bill?
3. Castrate all spammers bill?

Re:This legalizes spam

[fermion]

And as much as we wish to make anything we find uncomfortable illigal, that is not the purpose of the government, or laws in general. I this case, unlike the post-9/11 laws that made the US look like another reactionary dictatorhship, the congress tried to define acceptable marketing using measurable enforcable terms.

The biggest problem with spam is the deception and confusion. This is also the biggest problem in all advertising, and something the US government tries hard to minimize. This bill speaks specifically two three issues on this. It requires that addresses be gathered overtly, and not harvested or guessed. It requires that the headers be true. It requires the content conform to current laws, and in particular requires adult content to be marked. This is similiar to existing laws. Such laws have been used to by the AG to punish direct mail and telemarketing firms.

It is unrealistic to assume that the Congress will ban commercial email. We would like something like confirmed opt-in and the like, but that may come later. Look at it this way. The drive to make telemarketers behave themselves has been going on for a very long time. As it has become clear that they do not and will not respect the wishes of the public, more aggresive laws have been passed to make them behave, until the most recent laws threaten to destroy the industry. This was the right and proper sequence of events. I think we can realiable expect the spammers to show the same disrespect and greed, and therefore can expect increasingly strict laws.

As far as the non-US mailer problems, that will can not really be solved by the congress.

Re:This legalizes spam

[Tony Hoyle]

The biggest problem with spam is the deception and confusion.

Absolutely untrue.

The biggest problem with spam is that it's theft of bandwidth, resources and time.

Even at home I get ~10,000 spams a month. You don't want to *know* what the figures are at work. Suffice to say we just upgraded the disk on the exchange servers to cope with it (and will the spammers be paying for that? Will they heck).

There is no 'acceptable' spam. If I didn't ask for it, I don't want it. I tolerate advertising on billboards and on TV because it (allegedly) keeps prices down and pays for other things. Spam has none of these benefits.

Another Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite popular opinion, a US law will only stop domestic spam, and the weaknesses of punishing the actual company hiring the spammer have been made clear before e.g. Hiring someone to spam your competitors product.
Why not continue working on more effective spam traps and stop legislating morality.

Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me.

Re:Another Law

[the_mad_poster]

Why is this modded Insightful and not Troll or Offtopic?

They're legislating the same bullshit any legislator of any party legislates - something that looks good to the ignorant public but really satisfies the desires of big shot campaign contributors.

They know damn well that the general public isn't going to take a closer look at this legislation. It will go into the paper and people will think "oh good, my elected officials are finally doing something". When spam doesn't die down, they'll just forget about it. Re-election material for the morons in Congress and a nod that legitamizes spamming for big business interests in the marketing sector. It's just a typical day on Capitol Hill. Doesn't matter which party's in charge.

The United States Anti-Spam Bill

[EinarH]

We the Congress of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect spam heaven, establish Protection, insure domestic Annoyance, provide for the miserable defence, promote the general Chaos, and secure the Blessings of Financial Freedom to ourself and our Contributors, do ordain and establish this Anti-Spam Bill for the United States of America.

So that's how you get the Repbulicans to go along!

[wrinkledshirt]

Phrase the bill in a way to let them think they're banning pornography! Genius!

just caught this on CNN

[edrugtrader]

supposedly the bill was placed on the president's desk a few hours ago, but he threw it out thinking it was garbage.

Re:just caught this on CNN

[Feztaa]

From: congress@congress.gov
To: gbush@whitehouse.gov
Subject: T1RED 0F SPAM? PASS THIS B1LL TODAY, YOU WON'T R3GRET IT!

WE PR0MISE A REDUCT1ON IN SPAM WITH1N 0NE WEEK, OR YOUR MONEY B4CK!

ALSO, GET LARGER PEN1S, FULLER LIPS, BIGGER BREA5T, BETTER ER3CTIONS, AND IMPROVE YOUR LOVE L1FE!

Spam Meets Junk Mail

[the_mad_poster]

... being written and passed solely through back-room compromises and with the input of the marketing industry and Internet Service Provider lobbies, but with scant regard for the interests of America's consumers and business Internet users.

First of all, why doesn't THAT surprise me in the least? In other words, "legitimate" marketers, like them or not, get free fun of your inbox the way they do your mailbox. Except, of course, it costs next to nothing to spam people so it will be like them jamming 1000 unwanted credit card apps, catalogs, and other miscellaneous garbage into your mailbox everyday.

Now, some of you might think that "legitimate" businesses won't try to abuse this. For you poor, naive fools, let me tell you that I work in a "legitimate" direct mail company and we junk mail the shit out of people. They ask us to stop? Ok - we stop selling their name and address and then we stop sending them stuff. Of course, if they do business with us again, the whole thing starts over. Yahoo!, in fact, appears to have already caught onto this idea within the realm of spam. Expect to see changes in "privacy policies" to be used more frequently as excuses to override requests not to spam.

In short, expect your spam count to rise. It will just be a little more "honest", as the CAUCE release notes, not a better situation in general. Go Congress. I'm just sooooooo proud of my government at times like this.

damn lame bill

[frovingslosh]

This bill will do absolutely nothing to help. It promotes opt-out, as if spam was only a U.S. problem. Put your e-mail address on the list and expect tons of spam from outside the US. Keep it off and the damn spammers will claim that as an excuse why they should spam you. And when this doomed-to-fail bill has no positive effect, the government will not admit they screwed up in the structure of the bill, rather they will use the failure to say you can't fight spam with bills.

The only hope I see now is that maybe the E.U. will get their act together and show up the corrupt U.S. idiots.

Spam them

[anthony_dipierro]

Here's a list of the email addresses of all your Congressman. Maybe someone can whip together a script to send them an email asking them to repeal this law, every day until they opt out or repeal the law. Extra karma points for randomizing the title among non-misleading possibilities. Then we just gotta get every single slashdotter to run the program.

contrived acronyms

[cabalamat2]

What we really need is a law to ban all laws with contrived acronyms.

Re:Spam them - if you want to waste your time

[silentbozo]

You honestly think that they would have voted for this bill if they actually used their e-mail?

Devote your resources to bringing them bad press in their home district. Remember, all politics is local. Getting e-mails that their staffers will just toss won't bother them a bit. Getting embarassing questions during fundraisers about how they legalized spam will. Remember, this is an election year. Make spam an issue, and they'll HAVE to defend (or reverse) their position.

How can a private party not sue?

[pyite]

I'm curious as how they can limit a private party from suing a spammer. Tell me if I'm reading this wrong:

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

(Emphasis mine)

"...Bush intends to sign the bill."

[IvyMike]

Bush hasn't vetoed anything yet...he's sure not going to make waves on something as insignificant as this.

Grover Clevland...now there's a guy who knew how to veto.

How to get Bush to take REAL action against spam

[still cynical]

Tell Cheney they've discovered oil where spammers are located. Watch the bombs start falling.

How about /.ing the White House?

[lax-goalie]

The President's come under some criticism of late because he hasn't vetoed any bills in this term. Maybe we can give him a reason to change that.

White House contact info is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ The most effective communication for this type of this thing is a real phone call and fax.

If you decide to fax a note, the general rules of thumb are to address the issue in the first sentence, to keep it short, be concise with your reasoning, and to note anything that gives you expertise relating to the issue.

These guys actually do keep track of the mail.

Concerns by a CEO who has sued spammers

[Joe Wagner]

I am the CEO of Hypertouch Inc, one of the few corporations in California to have brought suit against a spammer under the existing CA anti-spam laws, and the only person so far who has be able to get the local DA to take a criminal complaints against spammers under the criminal provision of CA law. (see http://press.hypertouch.com/) Some of the "minor changes" that the Senate made before sending it back to the House include changing the statutory damages from a flat $25 to "up to $25." Now small ISPs can't even count on the paltry $25/message when they decide to take a spammer on in Federal Court.

I should note one interesting wrinkle. Unlike what is common in other Federal laws, the act "supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of a State or political subdivision of a State " but says _nothing_ about the District of Columbia. Soooo, if people can rally the DC council to pass a California-like law, perhaps there may be a new place to host your mail servers.

A final copy of the act can be found on my website. http://www.hypertouch.com/legal/s877-eas.html
I'm pretty pessimistic about things right now. Here are my chief concerns about the bill.

1."I CAN SPAM " Act legalizes unlimited spam -- even after"opt-outs "
The "SEPARATE LINES OF BUSINESS OR DIVISIONS " clause in the act permits spammers to send repeatedly to you even after you've opted out as long as they change domain names, a.k.a. lines of business.

(B) SEPARATE LINES OF BUSINESS OR DIVISIONS- If an entity operates through separate lines of business or divisions and holds itself out to the recipient of the message, in complying with the requirement under section 5(a)(5)(B) [the opt out section], as that particular line of business or division rather than as the entity of which such line of business or division is a part, then the line of business or the division shall be treated as the sender of such message for purposes of this Act.

The impression we have is that the DMA asked for this so that one cannot opt out of spam from the Fortune 500 by giving notice to their corporate HQ, you have to track down each"Division. " But more to the glorious point from the Viagra spammers perspective, see what happens if I opt out of a spam for today's mail bin: (picked at random)

Easiest method to enlarge your $&#@%, stick on the patch, and forget about it! easy as 1-2-3. Find out how we can help your manhood [url in spam: www.prosize-health.biz/in.php?id=43&p_id=2 ]

By my sending email (or going to Prosize-Health.biz or whatever hoops they choose to put up for their process), I can"opt out. " However that spammer will be able to spam me LEGALLY from all of their other lines of business, e.g. Biggersize-health.biz, etc. Note that the spammer's email only represents itself as Prosize-Health.biz... All they have to do is spend $7 every couple of weeks for a new domain for their new"Line of Busines " (they might even bother to call it a new Division) and they are home free. There is NOTHING I can do to stop this. I can track down every big spammer and personally serve them with an opt-out, but that doesn't trickle down to their thousands of "Divisions. "
Let's be clear -- Spammers are already talking about this open license on their bulletin boards and mailing lists.

2."I CAN SPAM " punishes only the spammer, not the marketer
By rotating through US based spammers, or using untraceable overseas spammers, often in Russia or China, businesses will be allowed to advertise via spam with abandon. The great strength of the upcoming California law is that is target both the marketer and the spammer. That will be gone when California laws are made void. For example, we have been trying to get Discover Credit Card to stop sending spam to us for over 18 months. They literally just regularly rotate through new

Silver lining

[mark_space2001]

I don't if this will work or not, but remember how lawmakers fell all over themselves promoting the do-not-call list after 50 million Americans registered on it?

That's what might get Congress's attention. Put 50 million email addresses on their do-not-spam list. Put the fear of losing an election in your Congressman.

I wouldn't register my REAL email address on that list, of course. Heaven forbid that the spammers get ahold of it. But I have a couple of Hotmail addresses that I use for all dubious lists, postings, and web sign-in forms. (Hotmail because it amuses me to send the spam to Microsoft and make them pay for the bandwidth.) If we could all register 50 million addresses of ANY sort on that list I think there might be a chance to get real legislation passed.

Maybe it's not a fool proof plan (this is the US Congress we are talking about here) but it can't hurt. So sign up and sign your immaginary friends up too. I know I'll be making email accounts just to add to this list, in case I like suddenly need a new spam free email account.

Re:BZZZT! WRONG!

[jhylkema]

Quoth the poster:

So now they will send spam to you with a subject line of "Hi" about Mini RC Cars and Viagra and you can't do a thing about it under Federal or WA law.

Why not? Washington law specifically forbids "false or misleading information in the subject line." The Federal law specifically does not pre-empt any law dealing with falsity. The primary reason that spammers had in falsifying information in their headers was that many states had prohibitions on spam. WA (and MD, etc) put laws on their books prohibiting emails with such falsehoods which nicely side-stepped the problem of being content related.

And they still do. Friend, if you think the spammers are going to start putting their real IP addresses in the headers, you're smoking weed. If you think Washington's law has made a difference in this regard, you're on crack. No, I suspect that there will be plenty of grist for my mill for the foreseeable future.

So, tell me again what the problem is?