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Maryland Declares Anti-Spam Law Unconstitutional
acidradio writes "The Maryland Supreme Court has ruled that fining a spam mailer in New York is unconstitutional as it tries to control commerce outside Maryland's borders."
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It is a state law, not a federal one. This is the problem with state anti-spam laws, they're only really good when dealing with in-state spam.
I'm in Maryland, but my server is in New Jersey, and the spam could be from anywhere.
However, I was very careful to not take on high-profile companies or do anything that might get me noticed because I knew that something like this might happen and the law would be thrown out. Thank you, person who doesn't even live in Maryland, for ruining it for the rest of us.
So when are the federal laws going to show up and be functional? I know the CAN-SPAM act is in place but I'm still getting tons of spoofed reply-to headers. What are the chances that federal anti-spam law will be passed without including 500 addendums like the formation of an internet policing bureau with mandatory unions (a la Patriot Act) or some sort of internet tax in order to fund the effort. Ever since what's-his-face said the internet is a "wild west that will eventually have to come under government supervision" I've been waiting for some laws to show to get them deeper into the net.
I think that these spam laws are a little silly. We're getting closer and closer to a technical solution to the problem but people want a law to stop it "now!" It's the internet. Do you really want it governed like that? There are rules for the transmission of information. There are rules for flow control, protocols with RFCs, and a basic set of standards. Worms don't infect us, we let them in. Spam is and will be a problem up until the authentication services are in place to filter out the cruft, and those are already being put in place. Laws may help alleviate it all, but they're unnatural and don't do anything to fix the vulnerabilities. The net is still primitive and survival of the fittest. Laws come much later.
Direct away from face when opening.
Menhart set up a corporation in Maryland to fight spam and pays Maryland taxes, but he lives in Washington.
The judge concluded that the law unconstitutionally attempts to regulate commerce that may never enter Maryland.
So if the suadi president issued a death-threat to America's president while he was visiting Saudi Arabia, that wouldn't be a crime? I mean, obviously American law couldn't apply in this case, because he wouldn't be in America!
That law must be unconstitutional because the location of the president was left vague.
Changa hates change.
When I made that my sig, they were doing construction on it, which pretty much doubled my commute. Hence the frustration. It's actually not so bad most mornings right now, I just haven't come up with anything wittier to make my new sig.
FYI, people tend to call them "Cross Island", "Southern State", and "Belt". The part that people call Belt is actually labelled such on the signs. I have no idea why Southern gets called Southern State (same thing happens to Northern) when other state parkways (like Wantagh or Meadowbrook) in the area don't get "state" added to the end.
Nobody really calls Laurelton anything special. It either gets lumped in with Cross Island or Belt.
I often joke that when people around the country want to build new roads, they look at NYC & LI, and then they know what NOT to do.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Originally, the Southern State and the Southern Parkway were two different parkways. The state parkways were the Southern State Parkway, Northern State Parkway, Meadowbrook State Parkway, Wantagh state parkway, Bethpage State Parkway, Heckscher State Parkway, Sagtikos State Parkway and Sunken Meadow State Parkway.
People started dropping the 'state' name from the
parkway names in the early 60's. The signs started changing in the 80's and 90's to reflect the new names, but on paper, they remain the State Parkways.
The whole mess leads back to Robert Moses, who designed these parkways, again, just for park traffic. The original Meadowbrook and Wantagh didn't go past Sunrise highway. They were eventually extended to the Southern State and later the Northern State, to reduce traffic on local streets, but NEVER to the Long Island Expressway, as that would make the road a commuter road.
Robert Moses was in some ways a genius, and in other ways a total maniac.
I've often thought that as the Bayshore/Brightwaters/West Islip area gets more populated, the fact that Robert Moses Pkwy (or is it a causeway?) doesn't connect directly to Sagtikos will be a major source of traffic.
That was helpfully informative. Thank you.
I have to wonder though why we haven't extended Meadowbrook and/or Wantagh up to LIE now that Robert Moses is a goner. I guess there's too much property in between now.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.