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No Federal Do-Not-Spam Registry For Now
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "The AP reports today that the U.S. government has no plans to create a do-not-spam registry in the immediate future. Why not? They argue that the proper technology is not yet in place. 'A national do-not-e-mail registry, without a system in place to authenticate the origin of e-mail messages, would fail to reduce the burden of spam and may even increase the amount of spam received by consumers,' said the commission." The moral of the story is: never try. See the FTC's press release or their report (pdf).
Homer: Trying is the first step towards failure.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I'm glad that they haven't jumped in headfirst, I can't imagine how they could enforce such a list right now with so much spam coming from outside of the United States and from unknowing zombie PCs within the US. If they did create a list it would place an expectation in the public eye that the US government can enforce it, when it obviously (to us slashdot readers) cannot.
Like it or not, we need to come up with more clever hardware or software solutions like Yahoo's "Domain Keys", Meng Weng Wong's SPF (Sender Policy Framework), or god forbid, Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I thought they had this now: Isn't it the "Opt-Out" thingy?
At least they are smart enough to realize that it is not technically feasible yet. Score 1 for the FTC.
The moral of the story is: never try.
Come now, michael. If it is most likely going to CAUSE more spam, its something that shouldn't be done.
Its a "damned if you do, damned if you don't by people with kneejerk reactions that normally hate everything you do anyway" thing, isn't it?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
A do-not-spam list right now would be a spam-me-now list. So many spammers are beyond the reach of the law at the moment that adding your address or domain to this list would be like adding it to WHOIS.
sulli
RTFJ.
Don't hand the spammers what would probably be the worlds largest distribution list on a silver platter.
They should have a do not spam list. It will kill off at least one segment of spam. Spam mails trying to sell you a list of valid email adresses.
Spammed if you do, spammed if you don't.
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Your message probably best sums up the response to this, and nothing else really needs to be said by anyone. If you create a list of email addresses and attach to it an American law governing their use, then someone from China isn't going to care one bit. The global nature of the Internet (which defies censorship) is also the same thing that allows for spam.
Personally, I'd get a little scared if they can legalize away spam. Although a different medium, if they go all-out for spam, it probably makes for a good sign/precident for 'other things' to be eliminated from the Internet. (Be it pirated files, porn, 'ideas that my citizens shouldn't be having', etc.)
But I still wish spam would go away, like everyone else.
No, Michael, it's not. What they said was
And quite frankly they're right. Additionally, it's not in the FTC's jusrisdiction, I don't believe, to change the SMTP protocol. As such, they do not have the ability to actually solve the problem.
Given the degree to which the FTC fought for the Do-not-call registry, I think they deserve more credit than Michael's snide editorial remarks. They also deserve credit for having the courage to admit that they can't solve the problem under the current situation and providing a damned good reason why, as well as leaving bad enough alone and not doing something simply for the sake of doing it. Sometimes, inaction is the best course, and it takes maturity to realize it.
Right now, setting up a do-not-email registry would be as smart as responding to the "Please remove me" addresses. In short, it would be absolutely stupid.
So let's leave the FTC alone, shall we?
The "solutions" we see posted from time to time rarely are as straightforward or effective. SPEWS type filtering blocks customers of ISPs regardless of whether they themselves are abusive or not. The DUL blocks by a criteria which has nothing, on the face of it, to do with spam, and simply makes things like configuration-free email an impossibility and roaming more difficult. ISP-lead outgoing port 25 blocking makes configuration-free email impossible and undermines user privacy. ISP-lead incoming port 25 blocking makes it impossible for knowledgable end users to deploy certain effective methods of spam block. The SPF, in an environment in which port 25 blocks and the DUL are active and in which ISPs rarely offer "authenticated SMTP" connections for external users will make roaming even more difficult.
And those are just the current methods taken seriously and proposed at every turn. Meanwhile, people propose all sorts of "solutions" like using encrypted authentication and even getting rid of SMTP which are about as easy as creating world peace ("All we have to do is stop fighting each other!"), and which open all sorts of new cans of worms.
In the case of this article, someone was seriously contemplating having the FTC create a Do-Not-Spam list, a list that wouldn't have applied to foreign owned businesses and one that would have, if anything, legitimized spam ("Hey, we're only posting to people off the list, leave us alone!")
When people stop proposing daft and damaging ideas, people on Slashdot will stop poking holes in them. Spam is a solvable problem, but an unholy alliance of BOFHs and zealots is causing immeasurable damage without actually making much of a dent, if any, in the volumes we're talking about. Interestingly, by-and-large, the solutions that work involve enfranchising the receiver, a principle the current anti-spam culture is reluctant to accept.
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