Lawmakers Try to Protect Kids From Spam

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Some states have moved to shield children from email peddling porn, alcohol and other adults-only products, the Wall Street Journal reports. Critics say the laws, which establish a registry of kids' email addresses, are unfair to marketers and could create security risks. The debate echoes earlier discussion about a proposed do-not-spam national registry that the Can-Spam Law urged, but which the FTC nixed. This time, though, the registries are moving forward on a state-by-state basis, and facing court challenges from the adult entertainment industry." From the article: "Few email addresses have been placed on the state registries so far. Earlier this week, Utah's registry had 1,992 addresses, and 62 schools had registered their domain names to block emails to student accounts. About 160 companies had submitted their email lists for screening. In Michigan, 3,658 email addresses have been registered, along with 41 school domains. About 170 marketers had applied for screening."

Comments

Just what we need.

[RandoX]

More laws.

Re:Just what we need.

[Wornstrom]

So, if I submit my email address to this database, and just say it belongs to a kid, I can stop recieving v!@gr@ spam?

Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[dada21]

I wonder how many sex offenders work for government.

Actually, I find this really overreaching legislation unacceptable for a free society. When you become a parent, you must accept the priviledge of parenting -- don't push it off on me.

When you tax me, regulate me and force me to monitor what your children are doing, you are putting the brunt of parenting on me. I don't want it. I'm responsible and have no had kids before I was ready. Don't ask me to help you, I don't want to.

I want to run my business utilizing every right I was born with -- including speech. If you don't want my e-mails, you can run a white list and bounce everything not in it. Problem solved, by the free market.

I want to run my life without paying for the legal system required to enforce these tyrannical laws. I have no desire to put another lawyer in the district attorney's office. I have no desire to put another cop in a nice office in order to do a parent's job. I have no desire to put another judge on the bench to take away the freedoms of the citizens put in from of them.

Here's a guide to life:

1. Don't have kids until you can support them yourself (including paying for school, food, clothing and shelter).

2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.

3. Understand that raising a child means having one parent at home. If you have a child, stop spending money on toys and vacations and new cars and new clothes. Focus your money on your child's present and future.

4. Understand that raising a child means constant care. Don't let your child go anywhere without knowing where and with whom. If one parent is home, this is much easier.

If you can't understand these simple procedures (learned over millenia), don't have kids. I don't want to pay for them, I don't want to raise them, and I don't want to provide free daycare for them. It isn't my kid.

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[Rude Turnip]

"I want to run my business utilizing every right I was born with -- including speech. If you don't want my e-mails, you can run a white list and bounce everything not in it. Problem solved, by the free market."

Do it on your own dime...my bandwidth and server space cost me money. Funny how you're all for the "free market" until one of its finer points inconveniences you.

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[dada21]

You're right here, to a point. Parents who trust clergy or youth pastors to be alone with their kids are idiots.

I've been working on putting some of my time into mentoring kids. Guess what? I never EVER am alone with them. It isn't because I can't be trusted, it is so they don't lie.

I've seen VERY successful home schooling programs in my community. One program is about 50 parent-couples who share the responsibility. They do a science day where 3 parents are the teachers (together) for the entire group, a math day, a writing day, etc. They share the burden, but never are alone with the kids.

I would never let my kid be alone with an adult -- ever. In a church I attend the pastor's kid was abused by a grandparent! These things happen, you have to be smart and be secure in advance. Why should I trust anyone, even a "good Christian."

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[OYAHHH]

Bull,

To your entire premise!

You and everyone else would be highly offended and possibly out for blood if it were legal to approach children on the sidewalk in front of their house, show one's genitals and then say "Buy viagra, see what it does for me!"

The approach by spamming porn marketers is absolutely no different. Slightly, and I'm not sure if that portrays the right meaning, less obnoxious, but the same approach.

It is in EVERYBODY's interest to have a certain level of sanctity in our society for our children. And that means everybody has to chip in to some degree and be willing to live under a reasonable ruleset that keeps perverse material away from everybody's children.

To say that it is the parent's responsibility is a cop-out and totally un-acceptable. Otherwise, you might as well digress to my example at the beginning of this rant where children would not be able to play in their own front yard with any certainty that they would not be molested by the first pervert that happened to come along.

Get real, grow up!

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[RexRhino]

You can disconnect your server from the internet if you want to save disk storage and bandwidth... Build your own private intranet (that is what many companies do to avoid paying for unnessicary bandwidth), and you can have all the control you want.

But PLEASE don't turn the Internet into some over-regulated ultra-controlled medium, like telephone, radio, and everything else. You may think you are oh so cleverly stopping the Spammers by having the Internet micromanaged by the same people who brought you the Patriot Act... but I garantee that it will bite you in the ass and in the long run will cost you orders of magnitude more that whatever your spam bandwidth costs (and probably won't have any effect on Spam whatsoever)!

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[yourlord]

ok, so my server is now secured, but in order for my server to recognize and reject your mail, it still has to clog up my bandwidth to get to it. What you suggest would be the same as you parking 30 trucks covered in ads in my driveway blocking access to my garage. My garage is well secured so you can't get into it, but you are clogging my means of using it with your trucks, on my property.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about making 3000 laws that do nothing to solve the problem. No amount of laws will fix the problem. Only a revamp of the technology can.

You're hiding behind the concept of a free market and using it as an ethical shield so you can feel good about assaulting millions of people's property and lives daily.

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[malsdavis]

I think the problem is the way the mainstream media love the healdine grabbing nature of child molestation to the point that the average parent or even governments are unable to rationally equate the risk of molestation against the need of a child to live a fullfilling childhood, have decent teachers, a sense of freedom etc.

In America especially the media have developed this into a situation where no-one cares if a child's childhood is taken away from them through over-protective parenting and their life prospects ruint by rubbish teachers and over-protective teaching methods so long as the risk of molestation is supposably reduced.

Its all beside the point anyway, because as you point out statistically its hundreds of times more likely for the offender to be a close friend/relative.

Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely

[dosquatch]

Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money. Make a law, and it does. Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks. Laws won't stop them. Again, the free market works.

Are you really this obtuse, or are you just playing the part up?

Yes, I have to pay for my server and my connectivity. My doing so is NOT an invitation for you to use it for your purposes, NOR is it an obligation to accept your attempts at such. To wit, I own a building. That building is made of nice, flat surfaces called "walls". Some fuckwit... say, you... comes along with spraypaint and uses my walls as his advertisment without my consent. "Free market", you say? "My obligation to maintain", you say? "Vandalism and graffiti", I say, which happen to be illegal. In short, buy a fucking billboard and leave me and mine out of your business model.

How do I get on the list?

[eldavojohn]

I mean, I am an adult, but I could sure do without the adult-product spam mail. Seriously, does anyone want to know where they can get more booby mags and silly sauce? How are they going to regulate who gets on these lists? The button you click says "Household E-mail address."

Is this an abuse of the service? Probably. But it would bring me great joy to watch some spammer take a $1K-$5K hit for each e-mail sent to me promising the enlargement of my genitals and/or mammaries. From the article:

The Utah Division of Consumer Protection has cited one Web site for allegedly violating the law. It says a Web site called HoneyI------TheBabysitter.com sent a sexually explicit email last month to an address on the registry, and the state is seeking a fine of up to $2,500. The site's owner couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Now that's satisfying!

If you're wondering what adult products qualify for you to file a complaint: Under the law, marketers are prohibited from sending messages containing or linking to any products or services that are illegal under Michigan law for children to purchase, obtain, view or participate in. These include, but are not necessarily limited to: Alcohol, Tobacco, Pornography or Obscene Material, Gambling, Illegal Drugs, & Firearms

On the converse, I'm guessing that if I did get on the list my Spongebob spam would probably increase.

The problem with this

[RandoX]

It will only work for senders in the US, and that's assuming it would work at all. For the rest of the world, it's a free list of valid email accounts.

All it'll take to kill this (for better or worse)

[Caspian]

...will be for the list to get into the hands of one child molestor.

Then the whole affair will be killed faster than you can say "Don't touch me there, Father Geoghan".

The EFF is one of the parties opposing the law

[chriss]

So think twice before "death to all marketers".

FTFA: The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group for the adult-entertainment industry, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Utah in November seeking to bar the state from enforcing its law, saying it is invalid under a federal anti-spam law and violates free-speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Several groups said they plan to join in filing a legal brief in the suit opposing the Utah law, including the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, a marketing trade group; Beverage Solutions Inc., a beer-and-wine seller; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights advocacy group.

While protecting children from spam is a noble goal, Utahs method of forcing companies to have a third party check their address databases against blacklists (and having to pay a lot for that) will only catch a small part of the spam, while resulting in a giant overhead.

What worries me most is the definition of "inappropriate sales pitches", which can be heavily fined. What is inappropriate? I run a website for free language training, aimed at adults and kids. What happens if a kid requests the newsletter, but the kids school or parents have put its email address on the blacklist? If some right wing christian decides that teaching children the french names of bodyparts is indecent, will I be fined for making an "inappropriate sales pitches"? Smells like CDA.

Chriss

--
memomo.net - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

Got it all backwards they have

[digitaldc]

I don't know why you would bother creating a registry of kid's names & schools that is most likely to be unsecure, infringing on privacy rights, burdening the innocent individual, and is impossible to verify.

How about just stopping the spam with huge fines for the offenders and/or putting them out of business permanently?

I would like to know one person here who thinks that spam emails are a legitimate way to do business.
It is like the electronic equivalent of harassment and email vandalism.

Some Points

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Just some short points:

1. Don't have kids until you can support them yourself (including paying for school, food, clothing and shelter).

The average cost of raising a child is $250,000.

2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.

The church essentially does what you advocate against the government doing. namely, raising peoples children for them.

3. Understand that raising a child means having one parent at home. If you have a child, stop spending money on toys and vacations and new cars and new clothes. Focus your money on your child's present and future.

Raising children has always entailed both parents working. The single working parent was a concept largely confined to 1950's america. Across the globe and throughout time, both parents have usually needed to work to support a family.

4. Understand that raising a child means constant care. Don't let your child go anywhere without knowing where and with whom. If one parent is home, this is much easier.

See previous point. Also along these lines, in the past, children often worked from quite a young age, usually alongside their parents. The modern school system is in essence an alternative to this, enabling parents to work, without simultaniously supervising their children.

I'm Liking an "Internet License"

[RobotRunAmok]

Like a driver's license. You can apply for it when you are 18, so your being on the 'Net means de facto you are an adult (at least legally/mathematically). All the chatroom entrapment theatrics drop to zero. Signal-to-Noise in places like, well, Slashdot increases dramatically. Would-a-been script kiddies spend their formative years in the high school Drama Club, where they not only have an aptitude but may actually pick up some social skills as well. L33t Sp33k is killed before it can grow. People with any predilection to dress in Goth 'fashion' or smoke clove cigarettes receive no encouragement via Usenet, and so Light returns to The Land. Music ceases to be marketed like jujubes. Instant Messaging, the electronic equivalent of the juvenile pinging of small stones at one's bedroom window, loses traction in business and people start picking up phones again. No metallic object is ever again manufactured in 'Hot Magenta.' The list of benefits go on and on...

Note to moderators: I am kidding. Mostly.

Re:Slashdot idiots

[Legion303]

"Spammmers that want to comply have got to send their list to the state and the state does the checking. The spammer never gets the registry."

Not that I think it's a problem, but it's absolutely trivial to get a list of kids' addresses in this scenario. I send this list to the sanitation group:

lolita@aol.com
swinger@yahoo.com
bgates123@msn.com
sjobs@apple.com
[...]

They clean it and send me the "allowable email list" back:

swinger@yahoo.com
bgates123@msn.com
sjobs@apple.com
[...]

Oops.

This law covers requested email, not just spam

[billstewart]

If you read TFA, you'll see that one of the alcohol-sellers said that the law forced them to pay two separate states to verify their entire subscriber list because some kid from Utah _might_ request to subscribe, and it would be illegal for them to accept the subscription. And the combined price for the two states is 12 cents per name, which is really annoying for a free newsletter.

It's not just about spam - it's about all kinds of speech, and about the technical competence of the lawmakers, who don't understand the implications of the laws they're writing.