Utah Anti-Kids-Spam Registry "a Flop"

Eric Goldman writes "A couple of years ago Utah enacted a 'Child Protection Registry.' The idea was to allow parents to register kids' email addresses and then to require certain email senders to filter their lists against that database before sending their emails. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah registry has been a 'financial flop.' Initially projected to generate $3-6 million in revenues for Utah, it has instead produced total revenues of less than $200,000. 80% of this has gone to Unspam, the for-profit registry operator; Utah's share of the registry's revenues has been a paltry $37,445. Worse, Utah has spent $100,000 (so far) to defend the private company from legal challenges by free-speech, advertising, and porn interests."

Comments

Let me get this straight

[fatduck]

From TFA:

The Utah law requires companies that sell adult-oriented products and services to submit their e-mail lists to Unspam to be "scrubbed" of addresses to which minors have access. The cost is half a cent for every address they submit, and Unspam gets 80 percent of the money. So they passed a law requiring mass email-senders to pay for a service from a specific private corporation? Brilliant.

Re:Let me get this straight

[Kenrod]

It is common for state regulations to be enforced by private sub-contractors which charge fees. This means less cost for the government.

In this case, because there is a free speech issue with the regulation, both the state and sub-contractor are getting sued instead instead collecting fees. So the regulation is costing money instead of making it.

My advice for the people of Utah is that if they believe the regulation is a good one, why should it matter if it turns a profit? If protecting kids is their goal, they should fight this to the bitter end.

How is aggregating tons of email addresses

[antifoidulus]

in a central locatio, esp. those belonging to children, a GOOD idea? I'm surprised the spammers weren't using them to harvest email addresses....

Willful ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been known for years that e-mail opt-out lists are completely unworkable for controlling spam. None -- absolutely zero -- attempts have ever been successful.

So Utah legislators decided that they -- and they alone -- would be the ones to implement the very first successful opt-out list.

It takes willful ignorance to believe that you will succeed where thousands before you have failed. Utah legislators must have deliberately ignored all advice given to them by the technical experts.

This is not ordinary hubris. This is a special kind of hubris that's infused with a stubborn, childish refusal to educate oneself.