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Can A Bounty System Cure Spam?

Posted by timothy on from the cure-is-a-strong-word dept.

dankinit writes "The FTC is considering a proposal made popular by Lawrence Lessig which would offer a bounty to people who help catch spammers. The proposal looks to harness the power of volunteers online who might want a piece of the multimillion dollar fines spammers could incur. Spamhaus founder Steve Linford doesn't like the idea though, explaining '...the FTC already has so much information on their identities that to get anymore would be useless.'"

2 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Random thoughts by LaserLyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can A Bounty System Cure Spam?

    Unlikely. But, if the law actually get's off it's ass and actually hands out fines, spammers might be more inclined to stick the equivalent of "this is spam" (the opt-out message, etc.), which could make filtering more effective.

    Perhaps we should be fining the ISPs who happily let spam-servers loose on their network?

    "It would promote vigilantism on the Net and it probably would not catch any bad guys," said Louis Mastria, spokesman for the Direct Mail Association

    There are plenty of technically-skilled knowledgable people out there who might otherwise not have bothered, but who could probably track a few people down.

    'the FCC has so much information on their identities that to get anymore would be useless.'

    We don't care whether they're known or not. We just want to bankrupt them and get the money we have lost* due to spam.

    --
    * Most end-users don't lose money, but the amount of stress and anger caused to me by spam has probably shortened my lifespan, and can you put a price on that?

  2. Yes, it would work! by lunarscape · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As someone who has personally sued a spammer, I can attest to the fact that the only way to make spammers stop is to hit them in their pocket books.

    We would need an organized way of combining suits against spammers. Otherwise, those millions of individual suits would clog the courts. A bounty system is the perfect solution. People who collect information on their spammers would organize and report that information to a centralized organization which would handle the actual law suits. Then this organization could pick its targets by employing a pseudo-random, RIAA-style method of picking out random spammers with a boatload of complaints. Any money won would be distributed evenly to those who provided reports on the spammer.