Anyone who reads somethingawful.com knows that this isn't necessarily the nobrainer that you think it is
Anybody that knows the whole story knows that somethingawful.com isn't the innocent victim you claim them to be. And anybody who uses groups.google.com to search for somethingawful.com will be able to find that information.
The article doesn't mention it, but the spam advertised the website mypillsrx.com, where they claim to sell various prescription drugs. More
likely, they just collect your money or credit
card number.
Eddy Marin, a well known spammer with a history
that includes convinctions for cocain dealing,
money laundering, and who was involved with
pornography, seems to be behind the spam.
In the meantime, his pet lawyer, Mark Felstein,
(
check out the cute picture)
is suing several people who fight against spam
for blacklisting "anonymous members" of his newly
created
EmarketersAmerica organization, and several
anti-spam sites all over are being under DoS
attacks.
The spammers are winning because the good guys are
playing fair and honest while the spammers have
no morals are are making up their own rules.
remove.org is run by spammers, for spammers. They send spam themselves (or they hire other spammers to do it for them.) If you are stupid enough to pay remove.org to not spam you, then you are part of the problem. It's idiots who give money to the spammers that make it worth their while to harass the rest of us.
West's ruling wasn't a "Telemarketers have the right to call you ruling", it was a simple "Federal agencies can't just go running around making rules because they feel like it" ruling.
Bull shit. The Do Not Call list wasn't something the FTC just made up on their own. A law was passed, and the money was alocated to have the FTC run the DNC list. Congress voted on it. The judge pretended that none of that happened.
The next day, many congressmen were quoted saying that the ruling was ridiculous, and in one day, they made it damn clear to that judge that the FTC *did indeed have the approval of congress*.
If he had been paying attention at all, he would have known that before. In fact, I think he probably did - but the ATA bought him off.
He deserves no slack. He's just a shill for the telemarketers.
Many people on the list (such as myself) sometimes buy products or services as a result of phone solicitations
It's the jerks like you who buy from telemarketers and spammers who encourage them. Then the rest of us, who will just tell them "Fuck off, asshole, I don't want your crap" and never buy anything still have to put up with the spam and the phone calls.
I've never bought from a telemarketer. I never will. I've never bought from a spammer. I never will. And I'm tired of having to tell them that over and over and over.
Ok, I see what you're saying. Doesn't change the basics, though. There is a system for making an amendment to the constitution.
Civics class was a long time ago for me, and since I don't track politics very much, I'm not surprised that I don't remember everything they taught me then.
It seems to me that it doesn't say that congress can't amend the constitution. In fact, it seems to say quite the oposite, explaining the process necessary to make a constitutional amendment.
If you believe that congress can't amend the constitution, then how do you believe that the constitutional amendments that have already taken place happened? For that matter, "Free Speech" all goes back to "The First Amendment" - it itself is an amendment, made by congress.
As mentioned before, I don't believe it is necessary to amend the constitution over this, and I'm not a proponent. But I certainly believe that it can be done.
Here it is, quoted from the webpage.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
I discussed both injunctions. In the first case, the judge may a nonsense ruling, and congress shut that argument down by having a near 100% agreement the next day.
In the second case, a different judge ruled that it's an unfair ban on freedom of speech, because of the loopholes that were left in on charities, political calls, etc. But judging by congresses reaction to the first judge, they are going to try and force this thing through. That can be done by winning an appeal, but it can also be done by simply closing the loopholes and passing a new bill. Then the judges complaint about how it affects commercial speech and not the others is no longer relevant. In addition, this is congress. They can, should they choose, amend the constitution. I personlly don't think it will be necessary, and hope they don't go that route.
The one thing that still is bugging me is the pre-recorded stuff. I am not willing to listen to the whole pitch so that I can tell them to piss off. If anyone has figured out a better way to deal with this than just hanging up, I would love to hear about it.
The TCPA made those calls illegal. The fact that many telemarketers still use them shows that they simply don't care about the law, or the consumer.
I *never* just hang up on them, as as soon as you do, they start calling someone else. Better is to just set the phone down and go on about your business. A few minutes later, you can hang up the phone. That wastes their time, so they can't annoy quite as many people. And sometimes it leaves them long messages with nothing on them. Sometimes not - some of the marketers have a "press 1 to leave a message" kind of thing, probably designed to avoid long blank messages.
I'm not going to call the judge at home, or at work, because I don't want to deal with the potential hassle.
But quite honestly, as long as you are reasonable (ie, no cussing, no threats, etc) I don't see how they can complain that people call after the court ruled that people don't have the right to say No to phone calls.
If the members of the DMA have a right to call until they are each individually told "Go away" then certainly we have that same right.
But again, I'm not going to call the court.
I do, however, recommend calling the DMA and some of their friends. The judge wouldn't even have been looking at this except for the ATA and DMA and buddies filing the lawsuit. They are the ones that call us time after time. Call them!
The American Teleservices Association can be called at (866) 500-4272.
You can call the Direct Marketing Association at (202) 861-2410.
Other numbers for the DMA:
212 768-7277
212.790.1488
They have a fax listed at 212.391.1532.
The 768-7277 number has many extensions, and you can find out which one goes where on the
DMA website.
d) The judge specifically states that the FTC does have the authority to do what it's doing. (Given that, of course, the now conflicting decisions we have will be moot once Bush signs the law.)
Congress had already passed the law and had also approved funding. The marketers thought buying off a judge to say "Congress didn't say OK" would
solve their problems. The judge went for it, even though it made him look like an idiot.
But congress quickly proved that the "You don't have congressional approval" argume wass BS. How often do you get a 100% agreement on *anything* in congress? Much less in one day? They had already decided and voted, and the judge claiming that they hadn't peeved them off.
So, the only part where the the law was overturned was over the idea that commercial speech was unfairly singled out, and the compaines speech would be limited specifically by the government, not by the individuals. The FTC won as much as it lost, but it only needed to lose one to get sent back to the drawing board.
I've been all in favor of the Do Not Call law, but if I'd written it, there wouldn't have been a bunch of loopholes about "charities" (yeah, sure they are) and survey's ("Would you like to take part in a survey designed to sell you life insurace?") and politics and what not. And I've been expecting the marketers, who will not take "No, I'll never buy from you, go away, leave me alone" for an answer, to use those loopholes to keep calling.
But they've also pissed off at least 50 million people as well as congress. It's possible congress will say "Fine, since you won't accept it this way, we'll rewrite it, and we'll get rid of the loopholes." The DMA will regret they ever made that argument if it goes that way - and those of us who don't want the phone calls will be better off.
There is only one catch to this. The politicians are not going to want to outlaw political telemarketing. They consider themselves outside the law, and if the only way to outlaw telemarketing is to outlaw political cold calling, then they won't do it. Sad, but true.
Right. So if someone mugs a rich guy, the cops should chase the mugger, and if someone mugs a poor guy, the cops should shrug their shoulders and eat their donuts.
The bottom line is that whoever is causing the DDOS attacks is breaking the law. If they are allowed to get away with it now, they'll continue later. Now that they've chased several spam fighters away, they'll likely pick another target. And your solution is "Oh, those guys didn't have a lot of money, they shouldn't be protected."
Sorry, but if you want to protect the rich guy, you need to grab the mugger that just stole $20 before he decides "Hey that works, so why not go mug a rich guy."
A joe job is the term used when a spammer forges domain names or email addresses as the sender so that after he sends a million spams, the bounces go to someone else. Innocent people have to deal with the bounces, while the spammer hides his tracks.
It's happening to me right now.
This page discusses how
mypillsrx.com is forging whitis.com addresses, as well as addresses from several other domains, to send their spam.
it would really help a LOT if you'd cite the damn things.
I did that before, and you responded with gibberissh. It isn't worth my time to talk to you, as you're an idiot that can't be reasoned with who claims he understands the law all the while proving that you understand it even less than I do. And I'm not going to law school. (Or pretending to go to law school, as I suspect is your situation.)
But when I see you post nonsense, I'll continue to point it out, so that you will have more trouble lying to other people.
I work for a list marketing company and as such I get a unique perspective on this issue.
No wonder you have to post as an Anonymous Coward. If I were in your position, I'd be embarassed to let anyone know who I was, too.
Much as I'd hate to admit it this really is a good thing. My company has been growing and expanding but this law was going to seriously hurt our business.
Yes, because you rely on harrassing people who do not want to hear from you as a business model, and this law will put an end to that. Sure, maybe you're DMA/ATA buddies bought off one judge, but this is too popular a law, and it *will* end up taking effect. Just a matter of time.
As a matter of fact, despite the company I work for I was one of the first to put my name on the DNC list.
I'm not surprised to hear that you are a hypocritical bastard. Fuck off and die, scum.
This is not a simple do-not-call list, which reputable companies take pretty seriously.
Bull Fucking Shit. I got 20 calls at my home number from a company wanting me to sign up so that I could accept Visa/Master Cards, and I don't sell anything. I told them each time that it was my home phone, not a business phone, and to put me on their Do Not Call list, yet they continued. I eventually started calling one of their VP's, cussing him out each time they called me.
Telemarketers don't give a shit about whether you want their calls, any more than spammers care whether you want their spam.
This is the government actively soliciting the names/numbers of people in order to prevent marketers from contacting them.
More BS. This is the government saying "There have been a lot of complaints about telemarketers, and if you want them to stop, you have to say "No" by adding your info to this list. The government isn't asking people to sign up, they are simply making it available.
Furthermore this list prevents marketers from contacting you ever, whereas the normal existing situation was that you would request that they not contact you again.
That's the first truth you've written. I realize that telemarketers don't want us to say "No don't call me" one time and be done with it. They want us to have to tell each and every one of them, individually, time and time again "No don't call me" and hope they follow our wishes. Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck you.
On that, we agree. Probably for different reasons. You, for instance, seem to think that he's honest and fair. I don't want to say that he was bought off, but something sure seems fishy.
His opinion was that the FTC was not authorized by Congress to take this step. You may disagree, but his reading of the law was well within the boundaries of reasonable interpretation.
Congress appears to disagree. According to the
the NYTimes two congressmen believe that the FTC has authorized the FTC to take this action. (This is, BTW, a much better article on the story than the one that/. gives.)
Remainder is a quote from the article.
That view was disputed by two congressmen with a strong interest in the issue ? Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and John D. Dingell of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat.
"Contrary to the court's decision, we firmly believe Congress gave the F.T.C. authority to implement the national do-not-call list," the congressmen said in a statement. "We will continue to monitor the situation and will take whatever legislative action is necessary to ensure consumers can stop intrusive calls from unwanted telemarketers."
I agree. Fucking with the judge (no matter how much he deserves it) is likely to cause you problems.
That's why I recommend you call the merican Teleservices Association at (866) 500-4272. Tell *them* what you think. They are the ones that sued to block the Do Not Call list. They've already changed phone numbers once, and I'm sure they are pretty tired of people calling and telling them what slime they are.
The state cannot arbitrairily ban all unsolicited commercial email.
I hate to be the one to point it out to you, but the state of California just did.
However kneejerk popular these spam laws are, that doesnt make them right. Please dont bother citing Rowan v. Post office because that case concerned the sending of unsolicited obscene PORN through the mail not all junk mail.
I could argue with you about he scope of Rowan vs Post Office, but I'll leave that for someone else.
I will, however, point out that unsolicited faxes have been illegal for some time. Unsolicited telephone sales have had a number of restrictions for some time, and a national do-not-call list has now been created.
You seem to think that spam is free speech, protected by the first amendment. But courts have consistently ruled otherwise. The fact that spammers try to force their advertising costs, as well as the ads, onto unwilling recipients *does matter* when the law looks at it.
As to your "model spam law":
A "Do Not Email" list would be great for spammers - they would love to get that list of email addressees.
Opting out of every spammers mailing list would take you the rest of your life - and new spammers and new mailing lists would continue to crop up.
I'm not sure if you would consider a forged address to be OK or not. You say that "fake unreplyable email names" should not be allowed. If the spammer forges someone elses address, as is happening to me, is that OK? It's replyable - but the mail goes to someone other than the spammer. It's happening to me, right now. See http://www.whitis.com/mypillsrx.htm for details.
I have issues with your other points, too, but these are the more important ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody that knows the whole story knows that somethingawful.com isn't the innocent victim you claim them to be. And anybody who uses groups.google.com to search for somethingawful.com will be able to find that information.
The same spammer forged a number of other domains, including mine. I have a page about it at http://www.whitis.com/mypillsrx.htm. There is also another article available at AVN Online.
Eddy Marin, a well known spammer with a history that includes convinctions for cocain dealing, money laundering, and who was involved with pornography, seems to be behind the spam.
In the meantime, his pet lawyer, Mark Felstein, ( check out the cute picture) is suing several people who fight against spam for blacklisting "anonymous members" of his newly created EmarketersAmerica organization, and several anti-spam sites all over are being under DoS attacks.
The spammers are winning because the good guys are playing fair and honest while the spammers have no morals are are making up their own rules.
Steve B, I think your message was one of the best I've seen on the subject.
Bull shit. The Do Not Call list wasn't something the FTC just made up on their own. A law was passed, and the money was alocated to have the FTC run the DNC list. Congress voted on it. The judge pretended that none of that happened.
The next day, many congressmen were quoted saying that the ruling was ridiculous, and in one day, they made it damn clear to that judge that the FTC *did indeed have the approval of congress*.
If he had been paying attention at all, he would have known that before. In fact, I think he probably did - but the ATA bought him off.
He deserves no slack. He's just a shill for the telemarketers.
It's the jerks like you who buy from telemarketers and spammers who encourage them. Then the rest of us, who will just tell them "Fuck off, asshole, I don't want your crap" and never buy anything still have to put up with the spam and the phone calls.
I've never bought from a telemarketer. I never will. I've never bought from a spammer. I never will. And I'm tired of having to tell them that over and over and over.
Civics class was a long time ago for me, and since I don't track politics very much, I'm not surprised that I don't remember everything they taught me then.
If you believe that congress can't amend the constitution, then how do you believe that the constitutional amendments that have already taken place happened? For that matter, "Free Speech" all goes back to "The First Amendment" - it itself is an amendment, made by congress.
As mentioned before, I don't believe it is necessary to amend the constitution over this, and I'm not a proponent. But I certainly believe that it can be done.
Here it is, quoted from the webpage. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand what you are trying to say.
In the second case, a different judge ruled that it's an unfair ban on freedom of speech, because of the loopholes that were left in on charities, political calls, etc. But judging by congresses reaction to the first judge, they are going to try and force this thing through. That can be done by winning an appeal, but it can also be done by simply closing the loopholes and passing a new bill. Then the judges complaint about how it affects commercial speech and not the others is no longer relevant. In addition, this is congress. They can, should they choose, amend the constitution. I personlly don't think it will be necessary, and hope they don't go that route.
The TCPA made those calls illegal. The fact that many telemarketers still use them shows that they simply don't care about the law, or the consumer.
I *never* just hang up on them, as as soon as you do, they start calling someone else. Better is to just set the phone down and go on about your business. A few minutes later, you can hang up the phone. That wastes their time, so they can't annoy quite as many people. And sometimes it leaves them long messages with nothing on them. Sometimes not - some of the marketers have a "press 1 to leave a message" kind of thing, probably designed to avoid long blank messages.
But quite honestly, as long as you are reasonable (ie, no cussing, no threats, etc) I don't see how they can complain that people call after the court ruled that people don't have the right to say No to phone calls.
If the members of the DMA have a right to call until they are each individually told "Go away" then certainly we have that same right.
But again, I'm not going to call the court.
I do, however, recommend calling the DMA and some of their friends. The judge wouldn't even have been looking at this except for the ATA and DMA and buddies filing the lawsuit. They are the ones that call us time after time. Call them!
The American Teleservices Association can be called at (866) 500-4272.
You can call the Direct Marketing Association at (202) 861-2410.
Other numbers for the DMA:
212 768-7277
212.790.1488
They have a fax listed at 212.391.1532.
The 768-7277 number has many extensions, and you can find out which one goes where on the DMA website.
Congress had already passed the law and had also approved funding. The marketers thought buying off a judge to say "Congress didn't say OK" would solve their problems. The judge went for it, even though it made him look like an idiot.
But congress quickly proved that the "You don't have congressional approval" argume wass BS. How often do you get a 100% agreement on *anything* in congress? Much less in one day? They had already decided and voted, and the judge claiming that they hadn't peeved them off.
So, the only part where the the law was overturned was over the idea that commercial speech was unfairly singled out, and the compaines speech would be limited specifically by the government, not by the individuals. The FTC won as much as it lost, but it only needed to lose one to get sent back to the drawing board.
I've been all in favor of the Do Not Call law, but if I'd written it, there wouldn't have been a bunch of loopholes about "charities" (yeah, sure they are) and survey's ("Would you like to take part in a survey designed to sell you life insurace?") and politics and what not. And I've been expecting the marketers, who will not take "No, I'll never buy from you, go away, leave me alone" for an answer, to use those loopholes to keep calling.
But they've also pissed off at least 50 million people as well as congress. It's possible congress will say "Fine, since you won't accept it this way, we'll rewrite it, and we'll get rid of the loopholes." The DMA will regret they ever made that argument if it goes that way - and those of us who don't want the phone calls will be better off.
There is only one catch to this. The politicians are not going to want to outlaw political telemarketing. They consider themselves outside the law, and if the only way to outlaw telemarketing is to outlaw political cold calling, then they won't do it. Sad, but true.
The bottom line is that whoever is causing the DDOS attacks is breaking the law. If they are allowed to get away with it now, they'll continue later. Now that they've chased several spam fighters away, they'll likely pick another target. And your solution is "Oh, those guys didn't have a lot of money, they shouldn't be protected."
Sorry, but if you want to protect the rich guy, you need to grab the mugger that just stole $20 before he decides "Hey that works, so why not go mug a rich guy."
Sounds to me like you're making up "facts".
You didn't read the article, did you?
A joe job is the term used when a spammer forges domain names or email addresses as the sender so that after he sends a million spams, the bounces go to someone else. Innocent people have to deal with the bounces, while the spammer hides his tracks.
It's happening to me right now.
This page discusses how mypillsrx.com is forging whitis.com addresses, as well as addresses from several other domains, to send their spam.
I did that before, and you responded with gibberissh. It isn't worth my time to talk to you, as you're an idiot that can't be reasoned with who claims he understands the law all the while proving that you understand it even less than I do. And I'm not going to law school. (Or pretending to go to law school, as I suspect is your situation.)
But when I see you post nonsense, I'll continue to point it out, so that you will have more trouble lying to other people.
It's a federal law. The ruling was done in federal district court. It affects the federal law, not just people in Oklahoma.
No wonder you have to post as an Anonymous Coward. If I were in your position, I'd be embarassed to let anyone know who I was, too.
Much as I'd hate to admit it this really is a good thing. My company has been growing and expanding but this law was going to seriously hurt our business.
Yes, because you rely on harrassing people who do not want to hear from you as a business model, and this law will put an end to that. Sure, maybe you're DMA/ATA buddies bought off one judge, but this is too popular a law, and it *will* end up taking effect. Just a matter of time.
As a matter of fact, despite the company I work for I was one of the first to put my name on the DNC list.
I'm not surprised to hear that you are a hypocritical bastard. Fuck off and die, scum.
Bull Fucking Shit. I got 20 calls at my home number from a company wanting me to sign up so that I could accept Visa/Master Cards, and I don't sell anything. I told them each time that it was my home phone, not a business phone, and to put me on their Do Not Call list, yet they continued. I eventually started calling one of their VP's, cussing him out each time they called me.
Telemarketers don't give a shit about whether you want their calls, any more than spammers care whether you want their spam.
This is the government actively soliciting the names/numbers of people in order to prevent marketers from contacting them.
More BS. This is the government saying "There have been a lot of complaints about telemarketers, and if you want them to stop, you have to say "No" by adding your info to this list. The government isn't asking people to sign up, they are simply making it available.
Furthermore this list prevents marketers from contacting you ever, whereas the normal existing situation was that you would request that they not contact you again.
That's the first truth you've written. I realize that telemarketers don't want us to say "No don't call me" one time and be done with it. They want us to have to tell each and every one of them, individually, time and time again "No don't call me" and hope they follow our wishes. Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck you.
You can call the Direct Marketing Associatin at (202) 861-2410.
The American Teleservices Association can be called at (866) 500-4272.
In both cases, of course, you'll have to leave a message. They aren't very interested in taking our calls - just in calling us.
I believe it is only fair that they hear everyones opinion.
On that, we agree. Probably for different reasons. You, for instance, seem to think that he's honest and fair. I don't want to say that he was bought off, but something sure seems fishy.
His opinion was that the FTC was not authorized by Congress to take this step. You may disagree, but his reading of the law was well within the boundaries of reasonable interpretation.
Congress appears to disagree. According to the the NYTimes two congressmen believe that the FTC has authorized the FTC to take this action. (This is, BTW, a much better article on the story than the one that /. gives.)
Remainder is a quote from the article.
That view was disputed by two congressmen with a strong interest in the issue ? Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and John D. Dingell of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat.
"Contrary to the court's decision, we firmly believe Congress gave the F.T.C. authority to implement the national do-not-call list," the congressmen said in a statement. "We will continue to monitor the situation and will take whatever legislative action is necessary to ensure consumers can stop intrusive calls from unwanted telemarketers."
That's why I recommend you call the merican Teleservices Association at (866) 500-4272. Tell *them* what you think. They are the ones that sued to block the Do Not Call list. They've already changed phone numbers once, and I'm sure they are pretty tired of people calling and telling them what slime they are.
It's only fair...
I hate to be the one to point it out to you, but the state of California just did.
However kneejerk popular these spam laws are, that doesnt make them right. Please dont bother citing Rowan v. Post office because that case concerned the sending of unsolicited obscene PORN through the mail not all junk mail.
I could argue with you about he scope of Rowan vs Post Office, but I'll leave that for someone else.
I will, however, point out that unsolicited faxes have been illegal for some time. Unsolicited telephone sales have had a number of restrictions for some time, and a national do-not-call list has now been created.
You seem to think that spam is free speech, protected by the first amendment. But courts have consistently ruled otherwise. The fact that spammers try to force their advertising costs, as well as the ads, onto unwilling recipients *does matter* when the law looks at it.
As to your "model spam law":
A "Do Not Email" list would be great for spammers - they would love to get that list of email addressees.
Opting out of every spammers mailing list would take you the rest of your life - and new spammers and new mailing lists would continue to crop up.
I'm not sure if you would consider a forged address to be OK or not. You say that "fake unreplyable email names" should not be allowed. If the spammer forges someone elses address, as is happening to me, is that OK? It's replyable - but the mail goes to someone other than the spammer. It's happening to me, right now. See http://www.whitis.com/mypillsrx.htm for details.
I have issues with your other points, too, but these are the more important ones.