MS Speaks Out Against New Zealand's Anti Spam Bill

out_sp0k1n writes "Ryan Hamlin, head of Microsoft's Technology Care and Safety Group spoke out against New Zealand's proposed anti-spam legislation, warning that it could impinge on 'the amazing vehicle of e-mail marketing'. He also suggests that CAN-SPAM has been effective in deterring spammers. From The Article: 'Though often criticized as too meek, US anti-spam legislation - which relies on people opting out of spam - has proved effective in supporting prosecutions and deterring spammers.' Anyone else think that one message doesn't count as spam?"

Comments

That's the idea.

[hungrygrue]

warning that it could impinge on 'the amazing vehicle of e-mail marketing'.

So their warning is basically that it might work?

Microsoft follows the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never get how anyone can ever use the argument that some people might "want" spam. If you want to buy something, you can find it on the net. I NEVER want to be inundated with junk adverts.

Mailinator lets me avoid getting spam in the first place. Good luck microsoft.

Re:Microsoft follows the money?

[Pig Hogger]

I never get how anyone can ever use the argument that some people might "want" spam. If you want to buy something, you can find it on the net. I NEVER want to be inundated with junk adverts.

Marketer brains are totally out of whack with reality. They operate not only in a different universe, but in a totally orthogonal plane of reality. It is therefore not surprising that they cannot understand nor fathom the motivations of normal people who are sick and tired of advertising being plastered all over the available meatspace.

Re:Microsoft follows the money?

[Nasarius]

It is therefore not surprising that they cannot understand nor fathom the motivations of normal people who are sick and tired of advertising being plastered all over the available meatspace.

The cleverer ones do understand this, which is why they're trying to poison word-of-mouth recommendations as well (see: astroturfing).

Spam is spam

[JesseL]

If it's unsolicited then it's spam. If you give spammers one freebie then they'll just form a new corporation every time they want to send a new batch of crap.

I don't care if they send me 'just one' or a million, either way it is infintley more than I want.

Re:Spam is spam

[TheOtherAgentM]

I see a problem with this thinking, not for most Slashdotters, but the average user doesn't even know what he subscribes to as far as mailing lists go. When I get email I think about where I have bought stuff from recently, to make sure I didn't forget to opt out of something. I give that vendor the benefit of the doubt. Most users out there won't think twice and legitimate operations are going to come under fire. While they may not shut down, the costs to prove they are in the right is a waste of their time. This may effectively raise operating costs of any operation that relies on email to do its marketing.

Re:Spam is spam

[JesseL]

Companies that don't want that hassle can make it very explicit when you sign up for their mailing list. They should make sure that the default option on their web forms is not to subscribe, and their email should be explicit about how you got opted in.

Here's a big clue, IF YOU DON'T MAKE SPAMMING DIFFICULT IT WON'T STOP.

Re:Spam is spam

[zippthorne]

I usually just reply to friends and family with the snopes link to whatever "virus warning" or "bill gates gives $1000 per forward" they send me. Then I chew them out for not removing the two hundred headers and the ten levels of 'forwarding' markers. I actually don't care if a relative wants to forward me the latest joke or what have you as long as they take the time to fix up the formatting a bit so I can read it without getting a headache.

Re:Spam is spam

[UnrepentantHarlequin]

Some numbers to scare yourself to sleep with:

There are roughly 25 million businesses in the US alone. Let's say each of them sent just one spam per year. Let's also assume that your software automatically junks any further mail from someone who has spammed you already. That would be 68,493 emails hitting you per day.

Let's say you could opt out at the rate of one every 5 seconds. That would be 12 per minute, 720 per hour, or 28,800 per 40-hour work week.

Assuming you take a couple of weeks vacation a year, in 50 weeks you can deal with 1,440,000 out of the 25,000,000 spam emails you got this year.

At that rate, it will take you 17.36 years to opt out of just the first year's spam.

But wait! There's more! New businesses open up every year. Just pulling a number out of the air here, let's say that they are established (and send out their annual spam) at a rate of 1 million per year. So by the time you've cleaned out your first year's spam, you have 17,360,000 more to go.

That's another 12 years of opting out ... at the end of which you have 12,055,555 more ... 8.37 more years ... another 5.8 years ... another 4 years ... another 2.8 years ... another 1.9 years ... another 1.35 years ... at the end of which, you're actually caught up.

So, 53 years from the date every business in the USA sent you one single spam, you've finally opted out of all of their lists.

You're still getting new ones, of course, at a rate of 2,740 per day, or 4,000 per working day. The first five and a half hours of every working day -- 70% of your workday -- you spend cleaning that day's spam out of your work email account. When you get home, you spend another 3.8 hours cleaning your home account.

And that's assuming ONLY spam from US-based spammers, and ONLY one from each, and ALL of them honor opt-out instructions (which are, of course, usually just verification of a live address)

53 years to opt out of all of it.

If you start work at age 18, you'll be 71 ... past when most people retire ... by the time you're breaking even on the spam. (and still, remember, opting out for 5.5 hours a day, and 3.8 more at home)

The Yes-You-Can-Spam act was a Bad Thing.

I want to be able to use my emailbox for EMAIL. Not to provide free advertising services for companies I want nothing whatsoever to do with.

That's how I read it.

[Swamii]

Ryan Longfellow, head of Bigandlong's Technology Care and Safety Survey spoke out against New Rolex's proposed anti-spam legislation, warning that it could imflate on 'the amazing effects of Viagra'.

He also suggests that his product has been effective in enlarging members from 100% to 200%.

From The Article: 'Though often criticized as too meek, click here for a free IPod - which relies on people starting their own home business - has proved effective in supporting the former great king of Nimbabwatsu' through verification of you PayPal account.

Re:Do Not Call List

[TheOtherAgentM]

The problem is that much of the spam out there is sent illegally. There is no care for who wants in or not with these guys. Sending from a remote, infected machine takes care of sending from your own server and being identified. So, we don't get mail from mailserver.com, but we get mail from every infected computer on XO's broadband and other ISPs that don't seem to care about the spam out there.

As a kiwi

[simonharvey]

As a New Zealander I am surprised that the government is showing this much common sense:

"Mr Cunliffe says Microsoft's proposed "opt out" approach is too weak and has been rejected.
"We decided it's going to be opt-in. End of story. Why should you have to opt out of spam?"

And that common sense is prevailing over US law.
*duck*

Simon

Re:CAN-SPAM effective?

[javaxman]

So far, it sounds like CAN-SPAM has bene "toothless", made "zero impact", etc.

Are you sure it hasn't actually "made the problem worse" by giving spam an air of legitimacy?

Re:What's up with his title?

[Maax]

The Departments of Truth, Peace and Love would have been just too much of a give away.

Re:Translation: If MSFT doesn't make money on it

[slavemowgli]

When you think about it, this story, and the fact that it is considered news, is actually rather funny - or disturbing, depending on how you look at it.

Why does it matter what M$ thinks about a proposed new anti-spam bill - or any bill, for that matter? Shouldn't the only thing that matters be what the *people* of New Zealand think?

Duh!

[Locke2005]

Microsoft makes money by providing Spam filtering and by suing spammers under CAN-SPAM. Anybody that expects Microsoft to be in favor of anything that reduces one or more of their revenue streams is obviously delusional.

Microsoft serious about squashing SPAM?

[Eric Damron]

"Mr Hamlin says Microsoft would like to see the bill changed so that businesses could be confident they could continue to use databases that they had already compiled to send out e-mail."
i.e. So that businesses could continue to SPAM.
"He also wants definitions in the bill changed so that companies would be able to e-mail information about new products and services to customers, even if they had opted out of receiving e-mail about other services they had bought from the company in the past."
So if I tell a company that I don't want their penis enlargement ads they can SPAM me with an ad for their latest p0rn and so on and so on and. . ."
"Though often criticised as too meek, US anti-spam legislation - which relies on people opting out of spam - has proved effective in supporting prosecutions and deterring spammers, he says."
Right, that's why my filters catch move SPAM every month than the previous. It's only the filtering technology that keeps email usable.

Is Microsoft really serious about squashing SPAM or just in finding another cow to milk? What was this I heard about Microsoft wanting to buy the company that use to be called Gator? Seems to me that SPAM and AD ware go hand in hand.

Yeah? Well as an American

[Belial6]

As an America, I'd love to see this bill come into effect too. The fewer havens for spammers the better.

Re:I don't get it.

[Daniel Phillips]

when an otherwise publicity-savvy company steps forward to fight for something which is not only stupid but also wildly unpopular, there's got to be some explanation

How about: Microsoft has plans to sell an anti-spam serivce.

Re:There's a better idea...

[cduffy]

Send spam in a competitors' name without the legally required trailer. Watch said competitor get hit with lawsuits.

Send spam in your own name. Blatently lie about where you got the addresses. Someone objects? Their word against yours.

Send spam from offshore. Don't bother with the legally required trailer. How's it going to get enforced?