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FTC Recommends Bounty on Spammers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pay-to-play dept.

joke-boy writes "AP reports that as part of the CANSPAM legislation, the FTC has issued a report recommending placing taxpayer-funded 6-figure bounties on spammers, much like the bounties placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted."

4 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. that's hardly fair to the taxpayers by CAIMLAS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why make the taxpayers pay for cleaning up the internet of spam?

    Make the spammers pay out the bounty. There's absolutely no reason to make taxpayers (you know, citizens) suffer and go further in debt (via the nation) for the crimes to humanity that spammers have perpetrated.

    --
    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
  2. After thinking about it... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have, in the past, made a handful of comments w.r.t. the spam problem. After thinking about it for a bit, I've come to realize that the solution is not so much in applying new technology but applying new people.

    Think about it: Right now, almost everything that lands in the spammer's inbox is signal because right now, no one in their right mind responds to offers for the hottest young teens on the net and herbal viagra. Thus, it's trivial for them to send out a hundred million e-mails and it's also easy to sort through the maybe one thousand people dumb enough to respond: It's almost ALL signal.

    But, suppose that of those hundred million people, ten million clicked the link and a million responded. The S/N ratio goes from 10:1 to 1:1000 or 1:10000. It's no longer going to be economical for the spammer to sort through so much static. It should be possible to respond to, perhaps, 1/10 or 1/20 of the spam you get. It won't take much... Just something like "I'm very intrigued by your offer. Please tell me more." You can't use a computer script to generate responses, because they can easily be filtered out just like you filter 99% of spam. You'll maybe spend 30 minutes a day to respond to 60 spams.

    Before long, the bastards will spend so goddamn much time sorting through the static that they won't be able to send more! The only problem is, what do we do to reedcuate the millions of idiots (ie the ones who create the problem in the FIRST PLACE!!!) who are (mostly) trained to pound the delete key?

  3. California spammer running for Senate by dananderson · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's interesting the report was requested by Congress. California has a spammer, Bill Jones, running for Senate (Republican, BTW). So we can have a spammer deciding the laws for spammers. Sort of like the fox guarding the chicken house.

    California had a state law that was to go into effect where citizens can collect fines from spammers (at least in state). Unfortunately the so-called "CAN Spam Act," nullified the state law. So the CAN Spam Act actually encouraged, not discouraged SPAM. The members of Congress are no doubt technically ignorant and easily presuaded by lobbyists (especially the Direct Marketing Association) that I don't see much hope from the old geezers (no disrespect :-).

  4. Re:Innocent Spammers by dasunt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What a great idea! How wonderful! How utterly sensible! We all know nobody has a right to operate a computer unless they first verify all code running on it to be secure. It's not the vendor's fault. Just like people who die in airline crashes deserve it because they did not verify the plane would land safely.

    I'm not expected to know 100% about my car. But if I avoid doing safety basic precautions (replacing tires when they are bald) and get into trouble (sliding into another car on a rainy night) then a good lawyer is going to rightfully pin part of the blame on me.

    Legal precedents could apply in other ways, such as creating an attractive nuisence.