Slashdot Mirror
Europe Passes Pro-spam Law
Richard Jones wrote in
to send us a story from news.com talking about the
latest developments in
European Spam Law.
They basically ruled it legal. (CT:The U-Haul is returned, we have
a lot of unpacking to do, but next week should be back to normal
around here.)
this article is proof.
If you look at the responses, "scores" were handed out as to how well they fit the opinion of the moderator, rather than the vailidity of the argument.
A comment: the law passed isn't "pro-spam" in any way. It simply fails to outlaw spam. It acknowledges spam but this is not the same as legagitimizing it or protecting it in any way. What is this? if you aren't violently against it, you're for it? The 1996 Communication Deregulation Act (or whatever it was called) also did not contain any clauses outlawing spam. Does that mean it's "pro-spam"?
The previous paragraph is an opinion. It is not neccicarily the correct opinion, but it is a valid one.
But any opinion giving some kind of compliment to the "pro-spam" bill-- or even an indifferent, non-hating outlook on it-- was given a low score.
the "Why is this labeled "pro spam" ?" posted by Anonymous Coward was given a 1.
The comment that was most inflamatory and angry about the "pro spam" bill ("The "opt-out" solution isn't a solution") was given one of the two fives. This post basically pointed out the obvious flaws in the opt-out system (which, while flawed, isn't exactly going to make the problem worse). One of the replies to this, the one from "Melbert", quite eloquently pointed out the much larger flaws that "outlawing spam" has. this post was given a score of one.
The only non-pissed-off post i saw with any score at all was the "Definition" one, which got a 3. but that was it.
I'm not sure quite what this says. But i don't like it.Anyway, whoever was arguing against "moderating" slashdot earlier was probably partly right..
--just another AC
i feel cowardly.
Hello all,
I'm wondering why this EU law is labeled as being "Pro SPAM". It just isn't Anti-SPAM. The opt-out system is entirely voluntary, and it doesn't prevent any of the member countries to outlaw spam anyway. At most, it's a missed opportunity to regulate spam, leaving the Net to fix the problem by itself. I actually like what they've done here...
Levien
#ifdef SENSE_OF_HUMOR
How about everyone forwarding all the SPAM they receive to their government officials with polite requests that something be done about it?
#endif
1. is unsolicited. The people you are spamming did not specifically ask to be added to your list.
2. is a mass mailing. You send the same email to multiple people.
3. the people you are emailing don't have a common thread which relates to the topic of your message. For instance, if you send an email to each of your Congressmen about a political issue, that's not spam.
If the above three are both true, then it's spam. Just try thinking of a situation where you obtain a bunch of email addresses without the addressees' permission, you send them all email, the email isn't about something which you know for certain will interest them, and your positive that it's still not spam. If you can't think of such a situation, then chances are my definition is a good one.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
IMHO, it should be illegal to obtain an email account (and hence the ability to send email) unless billing information is provided. If your ISP catches you sending spam, your account is closed AND you are billed $100 (or more). Email accounts can still be free, but you should have to provide a credit card or some other means by which you can be billed.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
. . .as long as it's illegal to send ANY piece of email without a valid return email that goes to the sender of the mail.
I just wanna see how many spammers stick around after their first spam with a valid reply to address. . .
** Martin
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It's a pain, but most major ISPs have an abuse@ email address, and most of the time, they get results. Learn to decipher the mail headers, and send mail to the originating host, as well as to anyone who hosts web sites mentioned in the spam. I've stopped counting the number of accounts I've gotten canceled, but I think spammers fear me now. Yes... they tremble in their boots... as they send me more spam. :/ It is satisfying to see a 404 Not Found on a spammer's URL though. :-)
... please just let us know.
If you'd prefer that we not sleep with your girlfriend again, please drop us a note.
If you'd rather not have your house robbed again, please call this number.
If you'd prefer that we not steal your services again, please reply to this address.
No, "opt out" is not an option.
A centralised "remove" database does not work either. The majority of spammers ignore this information, since they don't really give a rats ass if you don't want to receive their junk. Some spammers may use this information to *create* lists.
One-way hash functions are your friends. Submit your address to a central remove database, they store the MD5 hash. Spammers can MD5 each address on their list and see which hash to something on the remove list, but they can't take the remove list and reconstruct addresses. (Government and/or ISPs publish "trap" addresses and add them to the list to catch spammers who ignore the list; well-publicized free services exist to strip opt-outs from an arbitrary list of addresses.)
Why can't a centralized opt-out method be made to work in this way?
Alan
The readers with accounts are the moderators on Slashdot; check the archives for some of CmdrTaco's (CT==Rob Malda) posts regarding "new Slashdot features". CT, Hemos, and company aren't usually the moderators.
And, once more for the record, I *still* think all these posts should be available via NNTP, so we can use our newsreaders and 1) do our own filtering and scoring, and 2) keep track of which articles we've seen already much more conveniently (I use nested or threaded mode, at -1 because I frequently disagree with the scores I see assigned, which means in order to see new posts, I have to reload the page all the time and wade through everything I've already read. I'd set a higher score level, but then, as you noted, I'd miss the less-popular viewpoints, and the opposing side is often the side I want to hear from, not everyone that I agree with. Strange that so many alleged "unpopular geeks" seem to have such a problem with the unpopular opinion!).
Whatever. Using a web browser to read hundreds or thousands of Slashdot posts is a horrible kludge.
Everyone here knows how to sign up for a free e-mail account from wherever, and how to make it forward all incoming mail to a third e-mail address.
:-)
What would be the effect if everyone set up a free e-mail address forwarding to the representative of your choice, and posting the address on the Usenet?
Note that I am not advocating this, I'm just wondering what would happen?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
My problem with laws banning spam is that it is not clear to me that you can draw a clear line between spam and non-spam email. You could define it as any email sent to more than one person that was unsolicited, but that strikes me as too draconian. I could come up with cases where there are legitimate reasons to send out mass-mailings, and it seems excessive, to have the governmnet step in every time you have to hit the delete key. Yes spam is a problem, but I wonder whether banning it would really accomplish anything, and whether it could be done without stifling free speech. Anybody have a definition that would prevent abuses without turning every mass email message into a lawsuit?
The EuroCAUCE website is at: http://www.euro.cauce.org/
Sure, spam is irritating...
But do we really want to set the precedent of governments restricting the internet in this way? After all, whether you like it or not freedom of speech is freedom of speech. Once you begin applying "censorship" and restrictions, you're on a slippery slope that will be difficult to escape from.
You can't shout "Free speech for everyone!" in one breath, and then in the next breath allow them to do something like this because it's convenient and you maybe won't have to press the delete key on your mail client as many times a day...
Keep sight of what's important...
Nothing wrong with the idea of consumers being allowed to "opt-out" of receiving junk. Except that it just plain and simply does not work, and I suspect that in five to ten years the European Parliament will be realising that they have made an awful mistake.
Firstly, there is no guarantee at all that a spammer will remove you from his/her list. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case for most spammers.
Secondly, it requires effort, time (and consequently money) from the consumer to figure out how to get their email address removed from a spammers list. This would be OK if it was just a small handful of lists ever, but most spammers seem to each have their own "remove" list, and with each new spam mail I get, there seems to be a new address to reply to to "remove". So in reality consumers would probably be doing the "remove me" thing several times a week. Also, many of the "remove me" email addresses are simply bogus addresses.
A centralised "remove" database does not work either. The majority of spammers ignore this information, since they don't really give a rats ass if you don't want to receive their junk. Some spammers may use this information to *create* lists.
Most spammers will NOT remove you from their lists if you reply and type "remove" - on the contrary, replying often simply lets the spammer know which email addresses are active. Thus it is "unsafe" to "hit reply and type remove", so I do not do it.
As for "legit" companies, well, legalising spam, including the opt-out approach, also allows basically any company with access to your email address to spam you. So you can be sure that every few days yet another company will have "purchased" your email address as part of some spammer database and will be sending you advertisements for their products. The consumer will have to opt-out of every single one of these.
Companies have NOT shown in the past that they can be trusted wrt privacy; rather, they have shown quite the opposite (very large companies like Intel "consumer is the enemy", Sun "you have no privacy, get over it", and that other one have demonstrated they don't care about consumer privacy). Do you trust a company with your email address to not sell that information? Do you trust a company to delete your email address completely from their database? Do you trust companies not to 'exchange' information about consumers buying habits, etc etc?
Lastly, all the "usual" anti-spam arguments also apply, for example that most of the burden of cost is carried by the unwilling recipient of spam, typically through time and increased ISP costs.
Spam, all types of it, should be plain and simply illegal.
Spam should fall under the same regulations that "junk mail" and telephone solicitations do in the U.S. People who receive spam should be able to report to someone if the particular message is advertising something illegal or obscene. Spam should also have to show truthfully where it originated from and who sent it out. Spammers should have to maintain lists of people who do not wish to receive their spam and fall under heavy penalties if they send spam to people on that list. We will always have to live with spam, just as we have to live with snail-mail advertisements and telephone solicitors, but there should be enforceable regulations in place to control spam.
I am sure he's on AOL...
Even though spam can be anoying I would have been really worried if incompetent European politicians would try to regulate it (I have to know - I'm from Europe). Judging from what happend in the past (e.g. CompuServe blocking porn newsgroup sites because of Germany), they do more harm than good anyway.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I certainly doubt that this forms any
:-)
"pro-spam" regulation.
UCE is a form of advertising that is not legal
in Germany, which is part of the EU.
Maybe I am getting the details wrong:
Basically, if my competitor uses UCE for
advertising, I can have my lawyer send
him a letter asking to stop it, to send back
a written statement that they will stop using UCE
and are happy to pay me cash if they do it again.
Of course, THEY have to pay my lawyer.
Apart from this, there is a law regulating the
processing of person-related data. Most of the
time, they pretty much must have violated that
to get your email address. (The law does not
apply to persons doing this for private reasons)
So, you can still send spam if you are doing
it for private reasons. ("REPENT NOW!" or somesuch)
But then, this will constitute a violation of
the policy of your online provider - off you
go.
I have received spam from german companies
exactly twice. Both had their account revoked
at once, and had to pay the cost of the sysadmins
to do the cleanup. (Actually, they had to pay
the time the sysadmin needed to revoke their
account, too.) Both were not done via bulk-mailing
software, but were commited by newbie users
who did not know better.
I have never received spam from other countries within the EU - it's only you US folks who can't get your companies to behave