Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down Anti-Spam Law

Skater writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the Virginia Supreme Court has struck down the anti-spam law that was used to convict spammer Jeremy James, on the grounds that the ability to be anonymous was more important than the problem of spam. Strangely, the same court only a few months ago upheld the law. 'The court noted that "were the 'Federalist Papers' just being published today via e-mail, that transmission by Publius would violate the [current Virginia] statute." The court suggested that the law does not limit its restrictions on spam to commercial or fraudulent e-mail, or to unprotected speech such as pornography or defamation. And when the state suggested that the court merely tailor a restriction to the law within its opinion, the court declined.'"

Comments

Bad analogy

[R2.0]

If Publius sent the Federalist Papers via email to hundreds of thousands of people, it would BE spam. The Federalist papers were items that people VOLUNTARILY sought out - they weren't shoved into everyones mailboxes and under their door thresholds. If they were, they would have been ignored and thrown away just like junk mail is today.

Political freedom of expression is protected; what isn't protected is having ANYTHING shoved down my throat using my own resources.

Re:Bad analogy

[R2.0]

If someone is holding out a piece of paper for me to take, I can say "no thanks"

If someone is shoving that piece of paper in my pocket, and doing the same to THOUSANDS of others simultaneously, he would be arrested for assault.

That's the problem - there IS no "real world" analogy that fits properly. The problem, in this case, is that handbilling is an even poorer analogy than most. Junk mail would be a better analogy, except for the fact that the costs are paid by the mailers, not the recipient. Probably the best analogy would be telemarketing calls to cellphones, where the user pays for a call that they don't want. Oh, wait - that's ILLEGAL.

And don't say that it doesn't cost the recipient anything. I pay for my connection, and that money goes to a number of different people to pay for bandwith, among other things. If spam were gone, bandwidth needs would lessen and my rates would decrease. So I AM paying for spam, just not directly.

Bravo.

[spazdor]

And here we get to a fundamental question about what we want the Net to be. The court was entirely right to balk at deciding this for us.

We can have the right to communicate anonymously over the Net. Or we can have the right not to be contacted by anonymous people. We can't have both.

Other laws are still valid

[Anonymous Coward]

It is illegal to sell prescription drug without a prescription. Its also illegal to offer drugs to children in most states. Everyone here needs to call their country District attorney and ask them what they are doing about peddling drugs over the internet. It almost election time and some of them are trying to get elected as a state DA so now is the time to get on their case.

Honestly, I can't fault them for this.

[Millennium]

The court is right about one thing: the law is too vague. Fix the law, and then there will be no problem with the courts.

Re:Clueless judges

[jellomizer]

Well if the courts gave a law that made it illegal for you to send an email anonymously it would probably have just as many slashdotters saying how it is a violation of our rights. Sometimes to protect your rights you need to deal with people who abuse them.

I defend not what you say...

[gillbates]

but your right to spam everyone with it?!

First Ammendment in action?

Spam is the ideal litmus test for where someone stands on the rights of free speech. It's almost universally objectionable, never warranted, and offensive to just about everyone.

Yet I'm not sure if there's anyone in the ./ crowd who will stick to their free speech principles when such principles inconvenience them personally. Is there anyone here who, upon receiving spam, remarks to themselves, "Ah, yes, free speech is not dead. I'm glad that - although I personally could care less about replica watches or increasing the size of my body parts - that somewhere, someone out there is free to send such materials to my inbox. USA! USA! USA!"

Because it stands to reason that if spammers have no right to send anonymous messages, then neither do you or I. While a lot of people may not like this particular consequence of free speech, it's far more dangerous to do away with the legal protections for anonymous speech.