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Send Email to Utah, Go to Jail
Talaria writes "The Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy is reporting that two new laws in Utah and Michigan are going into effect next week, creating 'do not email' registries for children's email addresses. According to ISIPP, 'Email marketers who send unpermitted messages to email addresses or domains on the child protection registries in Michigan and Utah face stiff penalties including prison and fines.'" (Note that ISIPP has a vested interest in publicizing these laws, since they offer a service intended to establish that senders are in fact within the law.)
(5) The sending of a message described in subsection (1) is prohibited
only if it is otherwise a crime for the minor to purchase, view,
possess, participate in, or otherwise receive the product or service.
Does that mean that it disallows sending of adult e-mail only, while allowing everything else, or am I misunderstanding?
As a resident of the United States (but not Utah), I'd say that the claims are overexaggerated. Utah is known for its heavy affiliation with the Mormon religion, which might be considered backwards by some. However, truth be told, Utah just doesn't have that much influence. It's only a few major cities (or perhaps just one - Salt Lake City), and most of the region is desert and salt flats. There just isn't all that much there to influence the rest of the country.
Most of the backwardness you see is a result of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormon Church).
They are a strict church and have a very strong presence in Utah. However I think it is a bit of a stretch to say they are resposible "for a lot of the decay in the United States."
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Taiwan is NOT a part of People's Republic of China , despite of what PRoC government propaganda wants the rest of the planet to believe. Please make a note of it in the future.
But indeed, there still isn't a way to enforce any anti-spam law(s) across varies national borders. Frankly, considering that the existing laws could not even be enforced in the spamhole known as state of Florida (that is a part of the United States,) what chance is there that they're enforced anywhere else outside of United States?
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Utah actually just has more children than anywhere else in the US. If you look at the census info, Utah has the highest proportion of residents under the age of 18.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
FTFA:
In order to avoid running afoul of these new laws, email marketers have two choices:
1. They can ensure that they never send any email containing unpermitted materials, links to unpermitted materials, or even links to sites which have information about the unpermitted materials; or
2. They can match their mailing lists against the email registries maintained by Michigan and Utah, on a monthly basis. There is a fee associated with this list matching. Email lists are provided to the state in an encrypted fashion, and the email address registry is also encrypted.
Now, I would not mind filtering any commercial email list I might maintain against their "do not email" list: What I definitely DO mind is being CHARGED for the privilege!! It makes zero sense to reward the businesses who use Unsolicited Commercial Email within all apllicable laws and regulations with FEES charged in order to ensure that they *continue* to operate within the regs. The sad part is, even if your list is double opt-in, if one of the member addresses on that list is also on Utah's or Michigan's "Do not" list, *you*, as the provider of email, are the one punished. The double-opted in subscriber in question, in all likelihood an enforcement official involved in entrapment, faces no penalty whatsoever.
I try, I really do try, to keep my language within bounds of decency, but sometimes one just simply must say !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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they keep electing Orrin Hatch. That alone speaks volumes. Among other things, he's the proud author of the DMCA, the INDUCE act, the PIRATE act (Porno Is Really Awesome To Endorse, apparently), he advocated the destruction of PCs belonging to software pirates with some vaporware virus, and then was caught red handed using pirated software. He claimed that was a mistake made by his staff. When he was caught with stolen Democratic party memos, he claimed that (you guessed it) it was a mistake made by his staff. At best, he's a clueless old grandpa that has no business writing copyright legislation.
Well, I have the database. I downloaded it. That's a fact. In order to get permission to download the whole database, I had to claim that I was an exempt organization. According to the website, "Exempt Organizations include charities or non-profit organizations, organizations engaged in political solicitations or surveys, or Sellers or Telemarketers that call ONLY consumers with whom they have an established business relationship or from whom they have obtained the express written agreement to call." Also according to that website, exempt organizations are not required to pay for access to the database.
I applied as an exempt organization (I'm a Seller who only calls consumers with whom I have an established business relationship), was approved, and downloaded the full national list.
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Yes, I'm a Mormon, but I'm originally from the south (North Florida... basically an extension of Georgia with an Alabama twang) and I'd never been to Utah at all until I was 19, and not for any appreciable amount of time until I was 21 and was going to college. I have no blood relatives from Utah.
Here's what I can't stand about Utah - climate. Hate it. I'm from Florida and I like my oxygen soaking and mosquito infested thank you very much. I'm tired of going through a tube of Chapstick every four days and I hate having to put lotion on my hands every day or watch them crack and bleed. My wife wants to stay in Salt Lake for my career... and her skin breaks out around humidity... don't know how we're going to arrange this one.
Some portions of culture - as noted, yes, I'm a Mormon, but I'd never been to Utah before I grew up. Some portions of the population are amazingly zealous (a small town or two in Utah actually has declared itself a "UN free zone", whatever that may mean), but so long as you stay out of the geographical fringes and don't go attacking people for whatever reason, you're pretty much OK. There's a lot more anti-Mormon activity here than there was in the South (and that's saying something), which I'm not a big fan of. I've never stood outside of someone else's building to pamphlet it, blare at those who enter it with megaphones, or break up other people's wedding parties, but there's a lot of folks there that seem to like to do it to the Mormons.
As far as the state being the "reddest" in the nation, that's true, but take a look at the political affiliation of the mayor of Utah's biggest city - yup, Salt Lake's mayor is a Democrat.
Take a look at the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid. He's a Mormon, too. It would appear the democrats don't have that much of a problem with Mormons after all.
Also, should it really surprise people that a bunch of conservative minded people should vote for a (here's a shocker) conservative party? Or that people should vote for others in their peer groups? Sure, lots of Mormons get elected but guess what - the majority of the people in Utah are MORMONS. You could even look at it as a matter of probability - if you were to randomly select something from a bag and 75% of the objects in the bag were one color, which would you be most likely to select? Apply the dynamics of winner-take-all voting on there and you're bound to get more Mormons in government. You may also note that blacks are very often elected by majority black areas and Jews in majority Jewish areas. Is it really that surprising that a place with a population up to 90% Mormon in some areas would vote for a Mormon and would allow their religious beliefs to maybe come into their voting?
As far as Utah bringing down American society as we know it, I hardly think Utah's four or five electoral votes could have that effect. And the people you're largely thinking of are evangelicals - and many of those are out there burning Books of Mormon and causing the Mormons a lot of trouble.
Paranoid political theories aside, Mormons don't (or most certainly don't) discuss politics from the pulpit. No non-profit group can without risking its non-profit status. Ironically, this has been used against a lot of Anti-Mormon groups that attack Mormon candidates based on religion.
I'm actually a BYU student in Provo, the most Republican city in the most Republican state in the Union. BYU does have a large Democrats club that actually WON last year's debate against the Republican club (whooped 'em big time), and the debate was scored by a firm, straight party-line Republican professor (I know because I've talked with him about these issues privately from time to time).
However, it shouldn't be assumed that all of the professors share his views. Of the professors I know who have expressed political views, Democrats are at least even with Republicans, and there's even
"To me, there is no proof God(s) exist or don't exist."
That would make you an agnostic: gnostic (Gr.) one who knows; a (not) gnostic, one who doesn't know (whether God exists). See nacturation's post above re: atheist.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
This sounds freakishly like the old Do Not Call list. As in, it's a really stupid idea.
While I agree with your point in principle (that this list will not be effective), you've used a pretty bad example. I'm on the DNC list, as are many people I know. Once that list kicked in, we all had a period of about a month or so where the calls were tapering off and after that, dead silence. That thing works like a champ! I still got calls, but only from groups that are legally exempt from the list, which is a WAY smaller group than before. I went from 2 to 4 solicitor calls a day to about 1 every two weeks, if that. The others that I know have had similar experiences.
-Tom