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Anti-Spam Legislation In Effect

Posted by timothy on from the will-su-u-ok-ppl? dept.

MikeyMars writes "CNN is reporting that the FCC has put out a list of domain names that could potentially be fined $11,000 dollars if they continue to send unsolicited text messages to cell phone users."

10 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. misleading by over_exposed · · Score: 4, Informative

    They could be fined $11,000 per offense, not total.

    --
    "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
  2. Not sure if I'm reading this right... by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But those look like cellular providers to me. They're going to start fining the providers for spam sent by their consumers? And if they aren't providers, Are they all hosted in the US? Or will they be, once the FCC starts cracking down?

    --
    "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
  3. Good cause by IBeatUpNerds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree that unsolicited text messages are annoying as hell. That's why I disabled text messages from all users except those I specified. This is using verizon. Sure, it'd be great if companies/advertisers/evil spammers stopped sending that crap all together, but in the mean time, you might as well just disable it if you can.

    It's not like that 11,000 a pop is going for a good cause, anyhow...

    1. Re:Good cause by gregmac · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not like that 11,000 a pop is going for a good cause, anyhow...

      Who cares? The point is, it's coming FROM a BAD cause.

      Plus, it makes it worthwhile from the perspective that a bunch of people spent a bunch of time on taxpayer dollars towards coming up with and enforcing these rules -- now that money is getting paid back, and then some.

      --
      Speak before you think
  4. unclear by darthpenguin · · Score: 2, Informative

    The article is rather unclear. The main paragraph is:

    The Federal Communications Commission on Monday published a list of domain names to which telemarketers may not send e-mail without permission from cell phone subscribers.

    So, this would make it illegal for people to spam phonenumber@cingular.com (or whatever), it appears, which makes a lot of sense, as many cellular providers are on that list of domains.

    Then it goes on to say "The Federal Communications Commission on Monday published a list of domain names to which telemarketers may not send e-mail without permission from cell phone subscribers.", which implies that cingular.com (as well as all the other listed sites are the ones doing the spamming. So, which is it?

    1. Re:unclear by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 3, Informative

      I went to the FCC website to find out. It is clear that this is a list of domains to which SPAM must not be sent. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/policy/DomainNameDownload.h tml

  5. What's going on AND Hotmail Spammers by Refrozen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This thread is moving VERY slowly, what's going on /.? Anyways, I believe this is a good thing, however, I don't see HOTMAIL on that list. :-) I honestly believe free mail providers should be 100% responsible for what their users do so they'd so something to stop the ub3rsp4m that comes out of HMail.

  6. Brilliant, txt format! update your hosts file!!111 by tod_miller · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just copy and past into your hosts file and replace '02-07-2005^' with '127.0.0.1 '

    If everyone did that, then... well... yey! bye bye spammers, off the face of DNS.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  7. you have it totally wrong. by Ajmuller · · Score: 2, Informative

    the list of domain names is a list of domains that spammers can't send email to not a list of spammer domain names. Look at this.
    If spammers send email TO these domains they will get fined 11k, not if they send them from those domains.
    Blah, yet another story slashdot mangled, does noone proofread stories before they go out, or are all the moderators too busy tripping over each other to get the moderator equivlent of "first post".

  8. Lets clear this up by Facekhan · · Score: 2

    This is a list of domain names whose email addresses are actually cell phones. Emails sent to those domains become text msgs on people's phones. Its illegal to spam txt msgs at least in part because you pay to recieve them.

    I have yet to recieve a spam text message and I have had a verizon txt account for a few years now.

    The FTC is basically making a do-not-spam list to protect email linked txt message systems on mobile phone provider networks.

    Frankly, the scum that would actually spam someone's phone deserve to be tracked down and executed.

    Spam, one more reason to hate Floridians.