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Massachusetts Atty. General Forces Spammer to Pay
Cildar writes "The Attorney General of Massachusetts has forced a Florida spammer to pay a $25,000 fine and enter into a cease and desist order. The original suit contained both state consumer protection theories as well as allegations of CAN-SPAM violations. Here is the Attorney General's press release.
We shall see.
Lex Talionis, the principle of an eye for an eye, is a morally bankrupt code of law we've been moving away from for the past few thousand years, thankfully. It can't deal with the complexities of the modern legal order, and it ignores all proper justifications for systems of punishment: rehabilitation, prophylaxis, etc. It makes an assertion of rigid judgment in an attempt to avoid judgment itself. We can't live in a world without judgment.
Ask yourself this: should we rape the rapist? If not, why not? (Ignore for a moment that we essentially do rape rapists by committing them to so-called "maximum security" prisons where they get systematically brutalized and raped by guards and other inmates.) It's not a morally tenable position to lower ourselves to the level of brutes just so we can vindicate some idea of retribution.
Therefore, ask yourself why we should be happy when the spammer gets spammed? No one should have to endure the pain and annoyance of spam: it's the scurge of the online world. Not even the spammer, who may be in his business because of factors outside his control like debt or bills for an illness in the family, etc. We should be outraged when anyone is spammed, and we should put the full force of the state and the law against the perpetrator no matter who the victim! Picking and choosing among which victims to protect is something the legal order of former barbaric times did. I'd be disgusted if our government returned to those days.
Spam == bad. Victimization == bad. Why do people conflate the two? What kind of giddy moral superiority to you get from seeing anyone hurt?
I'm sorry, but the CANSPAM act actually helps spammers. It over-rides much stronger laws at the state level, and the provision of "including an opt-out" and have a "legitimate description" and using a "valid email" address are trivial to circumvent.
Either purchase what is called a "pink contract" from your ISP, which allows you to spam, or simply use a series of throw-away sender accounts. Each is legitimate, but each is used to harvest the "opt-out" addresses and use them for the next spam for a slightly different product or for a distinct username with the same product. This kind of abuse is trivial, and already widely in practice.
What needs to be forbidden is the sending of unsolicited bulk communications: not "spam" as in "advertising", because that's too hard to decipher in court and gets into First Amendment issues. But outlaw unsolicited bulk communications of *any* sort: advertising, religious spew, political campaigning, etc. People can sign up to get email from you, but as soon as you start sending it unsolicited, face criminal penalties.
This kind of law has been in place for many years, successfully, for junk fax. The CANSPAM act is aimed at the wrong target: it's aimed at fraud, not at spam.
"An eye for an eye" is an advanced, progressive, touchy-feely principle made popular by Hammurabi about 6000 years ago.
> What's your excuse for getting spam?
The point isn't that WE aren't doing enough to protect ourselves from spam, but that we shouldn't HAVE to jump through hoops to avoid this shit.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Yes you will. Eventually, someone who has your address in their address book will be hit my a spam worm, which will send out spam both to and fronm your address, spreading it all over. Or a clueless friend will put it in a CC when sending a joke out to his friends. Or someone will dig it up in a list of addresses from your ISP. Etc, etc.
I think this would be very fitting punishment for a spammer.
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
This is good news. Although we can only hope that this is a start of things to come. With the high level of SPAM coming from the US (based on spamhaus stats http://www.spamhaus.org/ ) If more fines are to come for US based spam operators hopefully other countries will follow suit. (as seen with recent Australian legal developments).
The biggest issue here is this is only the tip of the ice berg. And a one off wont do enough to scare spammers. Its all about volume and consistancy.
If it is anything like most such companies I know, they'll either:
a) Try a somewhat different scam.
b) Try the same scam, but claim it is different while the actual results are much the same.
In most other cases, you can be barred from doing a particular business. It is kinda hard to bar a con man from doing cons.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings