What I find absolutely astounding is something that was considered criminal a generation ago is now accepted as common practice. "Companies and governments keep databases, big deal", is the common attitude now, but in the 70's even the CONCEPT of maintaining a database of personal information was considered criminal, never mind how it was used.
It's the nature of the beast. Once pandora's box has been opened, there is no shutting it. Computers are designed to keep databases - the belief that nobody will abuse that ability can only be held by people who think that every human is honest and ethical.
That is why we need someone in an oversight position who can be trusted. Kelley's history with DoubleClick doesn't convince me to trust her - it convinces me that one of her talents is in whitewashing. She was hired to "Get Those Damn Privacy Nuts To Leave Us Alone" and she did it. Now the government needs the same job done, so they've turned to a professional.
Regardless of who is put in that position, you can trust that they will/are/have/will continue to develop large databases on as many people as possible. I see this as inevitable. The question, IMO, is how are those databases going to be used - for good, or for evil.
I have long held the belief that Symantec does not more aggressively crack down on all the Norton spammers because once somebody has purchased an unauthorized copy of Norton, they will have to pay Symantec for updates. Thus, Symantec makes money on the subscription fees and doesn't have to mess around with actually making a disk, printing a manual, etc.
I used to report Symantec and McAfee spams to the companies, but I've given up. Checking back, the sites don't seem to go away, which tells me that even when the spam is reported to Symantec, they aren't doing anything about it. I'm fairly convinced that either they are having "independant marketers" send the spam, while trying to pretend that they aren't involved, or that they have decided that people who buy the pirated versions will end up coming back to them for updates and such, as you suggest.
I can't see any way that the spammers sites could stay up month after month, even after the spam has been reported to Symantec (or McAfee) unless those companies were doing nothing to try and get rid of it.
Re:May as well be the first to say it
on
AOL Sues Spammers
·
· Score: 1
Huh? It certainly doesn't cost less to send a billion messages than it does to receive a billion messages. I'm sure it costs more.
A spammer can pay $19.95 (at most) for a dial up account, and send tons of messages that month. He doesn't have to store those messages. The ISP that he is using probably hasn't planned on any given customer useing that much bandwidth. The costs are, for the most part, spread out among the various ISP's that are receiving the messages.
Claiming that it costs more to send spam than to receive it is ridiculous.
But let's keep discussing it; we may get somewhere.
You believe spammers are truthful. You deny the cost
shifting involved with spam. You continue to claim that a law
against spam would be unconstitutional due to the 1st amendment,
though I've cited cases which show that the TCPA's junk fax law
has withstood that legal challenge. You have several times
equated all bulk mail (ie, opt in mail) with spam. You claim that
a ban on bulk spam is not a manner restriction, and that it is
not aimed at easing a burden on ISPs or users. You claim that
banning unsolicted bulk email is "content discriminatory" (your
words). You believe that opt-out works.
I think you are the Iraqi Minister of Information.
Continuing the discussion won't be useful, as your point of view
isn't based in reality.
I didn't set up an account until recently, though I've been on the slashdot mailing list for awhile, and visited the site before that. I'm glad I set up the account, and it doesn't take long.
I agree that we need technological solutions. I agree that a law will not stop spam, even if the law is well done (and this one is not.)
That was my point about murder and rape. The law doesn't stop them - but it helps, and it's good that we have those laws.
cpt kangarooski writes: You've misunderstood.
I think that spam needs to be entirely truthful, insofar as advertising can be.
Oh. I thought we were talking about spam in the real world. Spam isn't truthful.
Forged headers, fake return addresses, hijacked servers, fake opt-out instructions,
claims that "This mail is not sent unsolicited. You opted in via a third party"
and similar nonsense, while selling GetABiggerDick, MMF, HomeMortgageRefinancing,
CheapTonerCartriges and BootlegSoftware. Spammers have no history of being truthful.
Of course, no domestic law could prevent foreign spam no matter how draconian
On that, we agree. And the proposed law which started this discussion
isn't designed to prevent spam, but to legalize it. However, we've been talking
about the first amendment implications. You claim that spam is free speech, and laws
against it would be thrown out due to the first amendment. I've called "Bullshit".
As for advertisements being free speech, I'm mindful of what the Supreme
Court said in Central Hudson (447 US 557): The First Amendment...
protects commercial speech from unwarranted governmental regulation....
[W]e have rejected the "highly paternalistic" view that government has complete
power to suppress or regulate commercial speech.
Central Hudson is related to a complete ban on an industry, keeping them
from advertising in any way, via any media. It's a completely different thing.
It starts by saying : A regulation of appellee New York Public Service Commission which completely bans
an electric utility from advertising to promote the use of electricity violates the
First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Your claim that a complete ban on advertising (using any media) by electrical
companies is comparable to a cost shifted situations such as spam doesn't
give me much hope in your chances of being successful in law. However, I do
realize that lawyers are willing to twist the truth into very convoluted shapes,
so perhaps you'll do well.
You have a case regarding the bulk nature of spam being objectionable -- cite it! I want
to read it. I like to think I know about the First Amendment, having studied it
quite a lot here in law school, and having discussed spam _specifically_ for days,
but perhaps I'm missing something that you can point out. I don't mind being corrected,
but I encourage you to put up or shut up.
Ah, the old "I'm right, because I'm a lawyer" ploy. Sorry, but I'm not buying.
I'm no lawyer, but I've studied the issue for a lot more than a few days, and
there are plenty of court rulings on my side. You've yet to produce one that
supports your argument, with Central Hudson being your only attempt.
As to put up or shut up, I've posted quotes from specific rulings before, and you've
ignored them. But I'll try again, even though I know that you'll probably ignore
them again.
You'll find a well thought out discussion, with plenty of court rulings, on the
subject of spam and free speech at http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/spam_law.html. I'll
hit some highlights, and this is fairly long anyway, but I'm not going to attempt to
duplicate everything on that page - you can read it there, if you actually care.
I'm not convinced that you do.
Various excerpts shown below.
AOL v. Cyberpromo
http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dljunk/cyberord erf.html Cyber Promotions, Inc. does not have a right under the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution or under the Constitutions of Pennsylvania and Virginia to send
unsolicited e-mail advertisements over the Internet to memb
I wrote
"My email address is for my use, not the spammers use."
Capt Kangarooski replied
"Have you told them that? I bet you haven't".
I've told them thousands of times. I've tried unsubscribing - doesn't work. I've tried complaining - and now abuse@my domain gets spam,
as they sold that address to other spammers when they got my complaint. If the goverment were to require spammers to filter via a SAFEeps type of global removal system, I would be glad to use it. SAFEeps.com has gone away - with no legal requirement, spammers just ignored it. Every other global removal system has simply been used as a way to collect addresses. Such as the IEMMC and the DMA's EMPS.
You want me to tell each individual one, forever. Millions of them. And done your way, email becomes useless.
Kangarooski wrote "Advertisements are a form of free speech.".
Earlier, I posted quotes out of the court system on that which directly disagree. Kangarooski may *wish* that spam were free speech, but that doesn't make it so. He simply doesn't understand the 1st amendment.
He also wrote "...but there's no reason to believe that it's legal to ban advertising over email altogether."
I've heard no one - nobody - zero people - ever - that wanted to outlaw email advertising altogether. I advertsie by email. I don't spam. It's not complicated. You don't send unsolicited mail by bulk. That may be simple to do, but it annoys lots of people, and pushes your advertising costs off on them. The alternative is to spam.
Using that same theory, there shouldn't be laws against rape and murder. After all, a law won't stop rape, or murder. And it's certainly better to defend yourself before the rape than to try and have him arrested afterwards.
This isn't a good law, by any means. A good law could be crafted. A good law won't stop spam all on it's own - but a good law would help.
Spam is free speech? To the spammer it is. To me, it's like having you paint your advertisement on the side of my house.
Every ISP charges more money because they need extra bandwidth and storage space due to spam. Most have people working an abuse desk, handling spam complaints. Those costs get passed on to the customers.
Post what you want on a website. Buy a newspaper ad or a radio spot. Post to relevant newsgroups. But don't assume that because I have an email address, you have a right to send me your crap over and over. My email address is for my use, not the spammers use.
If spammers are allowed to run rampant, they will eventually ruin email. I already get over 100 spams a day. What happens when it reaches 1000 or more every day?
Spam is already forcing people to hide their email addresses, use filtering systems which sometimes cause us to miss mail we would actually want, and costing all of us a lot of money. And if nothing is done, it will get worse.
1st amendment issues? What 1st amendment issues? The spammers love to claim that they have a right to spam due to the first amendment, but that's not true. Here are opinions from the courts.
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
"[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands."
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
Spammers can say whatever they want by sending to opt in lists, or by posting to a web page. They don't have the right to force their crud on me and you while making us pay the bills. Standing outside of my window yelling at me with a bullhorn would still be considered harassment, and screaming "Right To Free Speech!" doesn't change that.
The 1st Amendment stuff is talked about because spammers are afraid of losing the ability to spam, and because people don't understand the 1st amendment. Spammers use other peoples resources to spread their message, and the 1st amendment doesn't give anyone the right to force any publisher or broadcaster to spread their message.
Spam via foreign countries? True, no US law is going to stop all spam. However, as long as the companies which are advertising by spam are held accountable, a US law outlawing spam would stop a very large amount of it.
Is this a good law? No, of course not. It shouldn't even be considered an anti-spam law. It's pro-spam from the beginning. The law begins with the assumption that they are allowed to send the spam, and that we have to beg them to stop. That's opt out. While any good anti-spam law should require (among other things) that you be removed from mailing lists if you ask to be removed, a law which is actually trying to stop the spam wouldn't give them the right to spam you prior to your begging them to stop. And the fact that you asked to be removed from one list may simply be used as an excuse to add you to a bunch of others, as they now know that they have a real person reading mail at that address.
A good law will also not require the AG's to be involved. They have plenty to do already, and spam is going to be a very low priority for them. Saying "You can spam until people ask you to stop, and continue spamming until an AG decides that you are worth his time" isn't going to stop spam.
Summary:
I'm in favor of a US law against spam. I'm under no illusions that such a law would stop spam, but I believe it would help. And it's clear that this law was crafted by the DMA and others who want to make sure they don't lose the right to send spam.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the nature of the beast. Once pandora's box has been opened, there is no shutting it. Computers are designed to keep databases - the belief that nobody will abuse that ability can only be held by people who think that every human is honest and ethical.
That is why we need someone in an oversight position who can be trusted. Kelley's history with DoubleClick doesn't convince me to trust her - it convinces me that one of her talents is in whitewashing. She was hired to "Get Those Damn Privacy Nuts To Leave Us Alone" and she did it. Now the government needs the same job done, so they've turned to a professional.
Regardless of who is put in that position, you can trust that they will/are/have/will continue to develop large databases on as many people as possible. I see this as inevitable. The question, IMO, is how are those databases going to be used - for good, or for evil.
Personally, I would trust Mitnick, and I wouldn't trust Kelly. Trust is the difference.
I used to report Symantec and McAfee spams to the companies, but I've given up. Checking back, the sites don't seem to go away, which tells me that even when the spam is reported to Symantec, they aren't doing anything about it. I'm fairly convinced that either they are having "independant marketers" send the spam, while trying to pretend that they aren't involved, or that they have decided that people who buy the pirated versions will end up coming back to them for updates and such, as you suggest.
I can't see any way that the spammers sites could stay up month after month, even after the spam has been reported to Symantec (or McAfee) unless those companies were doing nothing to try and get rid of it.
A spammer can pay $19.95 (at most) for a dial up account, and send tons of messages that month. He doesn't have to store those messages. The ISP that he is using probably hasn't planned on any given customer useing that much bandwidth. The costs are, for the most part, spread out among the various ISP's that are receiving the messages.
Claiming that it costs more to send spam than to receive it is ridiculous.
You believe spammers are truthful. You deny the cost shifting involved with spam. You continue to claim that a law against spam would be unconstitutional due to the 1st amendment, though I've cited cases which show that the TCPA's junk fax law has withstood that legal challenge. You have several times equated all bulk mail (ie, opt in mail) with spam. You claim that a ban on bulk spam is not a manner restriction, and that it is not aimed at easing a burden on ISPs or users. You claim that banning unsolicted bulk email is "content discriminatory" (your words). You believe that opt-out works.
I think you are the Iraqi Minister of Information.
Continuing the discussion won't be useful, as your point of view isn't based in reality.
If there are "alternate JuggleGeeks" in parallel universes, I suspect they are also very sceptical of this idea.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,BT_CO_20030 411_005761-IFheoZhlqF0xJuqZXqYjNSTkL,00.html
Gives better coverage, IMO, including rebuttal from CAUCE.
You could consider getting an honest job - but I doubt you will.
Godwin involked. Thread over. You lose.
I agree that we need technological solutions. I agree that a law will not stop spam, even if the law is well done (and this one is not.)
That was my point about murder and rape. The law doesn't stop them - but it helps, and it's good that we have those laws.
However, a well written law would help.
You've misunderstood.
I think that spam needs to be entirely truthful, insofar as advertising can be.
Oh. I thought we were talking about spam in the real world. Spam isn't truthful. Forged headers, fake return addresses, hijacked servers, fake opt-out instructions, claims that "This mail is not sent unsolicited. You opted in via a third party" and similar nonsense, while selling GetABiggerDick, MMF, HomeMortgageRefinancing, CheapTonerCartriges and BootlegSoftware. Spammers have no history of being truthful.
Of course, no domestic law could prevent foreign spam no matter how draconian
On that, we agree. And the proposed law which started this discussion isn't designed to prevent spam, but to legalize it. However, we've been talking about the first amendment implications. You claim that spam is free speech, and laws against it would be thrown out due to the first amendment. I've called "Bullshit".
As for advertisements being free speech, I'm mindful of what the Supreme Court said in Central Hudson (447 US 557): The First Amendment ...
protects commercial speech from unwarranted governmental regulation. ...
[W]e have rejected the "highly paternalistic" view that government has complete
power to suppress or regulate commercial speech.
Central Hudson is related to a complete ban on an industry, keeping them from advertising in any way, via any media. It's a completely different thing.
You can find the ruling at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=447&invol=557
It starts by saying : A regulation of appellee New York Public Service Commission which completely bans an electric utility from advertising to promote the use of electricity violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Your claim that a complete ban on advertising (using any media) by electrical companies is comparable to a cost shifted situations such as spam doesn't give me much hope in your chances of being successful in law. However, I do realize that lawyers are willing to twist the truth into very convoluted shapes, so perhaps you'll do well.
You have a case regarding the bulk nature of spam being objectionable -- cite it! I want to read it. I like to think I know about the First Amendment, having studied it quite a lot here in law school, and having discussed spam _specifically_ for days, but perhaps I'm missing something that you can point out. I don't mind being corrected, but I encourage you to put up or shut up.
Ah, the old "I'm right, because I'm a lawyer" ploy. Sorry, but I'm not buying. I'm no lawyer, but I've studied the issue for a lot more than a few days, and there are plenty of court rulings on my side. You've yet to produce one that supports your argument, with Central Hudson being your only attempt.
As to put up or shut up, I've posted quotes from specific rulings before, and you've ignored them. But I'll try again, even though I know that you'll probably ignore them again.
You'll find a well thought out discussion, with plenty of court rulings, on the subject of spam and free speech at http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/spam_law.html. I'll hit some highlights, and this is fairly long anyway, but I'm not going to attempt to duplicate everything on that page - you can read it there, if you actually care. I'm not convinced that you do.
Various excerpts shown below.
AOL v. Cyberpromo
http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dljunk/cyberord erf.html
Cyber Promotions, Inc. does not have a right under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or under the Constitutions of Pennsylvania and Virginia to send unsolicited e-mail advertisements over the Internet to memb
"My email address is for my use, not the spammers use."
Capt Kangarooski replied
"Have you told them that? I bet you haven't".
I've told them thousands of times. I've tried unsubscribing - doesn't work. I've tried complaining - and now abuse@my domain gets spam, as they sold that address to other spammers when they got my complaint. If the goverment were to require spammers to filter via a SAFEeps type of global removal system, I would be glad to use it. SAFEeps.com has gone away - with no legal requirement, spammers just ignored it. Every other global removal system has simply been used as a way to collect addresses. Such as the IEMMC and the DMA's EMPS.
You want me to tell each individual one, forever. Millions of them. And done your way, email becomes useless.
Kangarooski wrote "Advertisements are a form of free speech.".
Earlier, I posted quotes out of the court system on that which directly disagree. Kangarooski may *wish* that spam were free speech, but that doesn't make it so. He simply doesn't understand the 1st amendment.
He also wrote "...but there's no reason to believe that it's legal to ban advertising over email altogether."
I've heard no one - nobody - zero people - ever - that wanted to outlaw email advertising altogether. I advertsie by email. I don't spam. It's not complicated. You don't send unsolicited mail by bulk. That may be simple to do, but it annoys lots of people, and pushes your advertising costs off on them. The alternative is to spam.
This isn't a good law, by any means. A good law could be crafted. A good law won't stop spam all on it's own - but a good law would help.
Every ISP charges more money because they need extra bandwidth and storage space due to spam. Most have people working an abuse desk, handling spam complaints. Those costs get passed on to the customers.
Post what you want on a website. Buy a newspaper ad or a radio spot. Post to relevant newsgroups. But don't assume that because I have an email address, you have a right to send me your crap over and over. My email address is for my use, not the spammers use.
If spammers are allowed to run rampant, they will eventually ruin email. I already get over 100 spams a day. What happens when it reaches 1000 or more every day?
Spam is already forcing people to hide their email addresses, use filtering systems which sometimes cause us to miss mail we would actually want, and costing all of us a lot of money. And if nothing is done, it will get worse.
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
"[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands."
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
Spammers can say whatever they want by sending to opt in lists, or by posting to a web page. They don't have the right to force their crud on me and you while making us pay the bills. Standing outside of my window yelling at me with a bullhorn would still be considered harassment, and screaming "Right To Free Speech!" doesn't change that.
The 1st Amendment stuff is talked about because spammers are afraid of losing the ability to spam, and because people don't understand the 1st amendment. Spammers use other peoples resources to spread their message, and the 1st amendment doesn't give anyone the right to force any publisher or broadcaster to spread their message.
Spam via foreign countries? True, no US law is going to stop all spam. However, as long as the companies which are advertising by spam are held accountable, a US law outlawing spam would stop a very large amount of it.
Is this a good law? No, of course not. It shouldn't even be considered an anti-spam law. It's pro-spam from the beginning. The law begins with the assumption that they are allowed to send the spam, and that we have to beg them to stop. That's opt out. While any good anti-spam law should require (among other things) that you be removed from mailing lists if you ask to be removed, a law which is actually trying to stop the spam wouldn't give them the right to spam you prior to your begging them to stop. And the fact that you asked to be removed from one list may simply be used as an excuse to add you to a bunch of others, as they now know that they have a real person reading mail at that address.
A good law will also not require the AG's to be involved. They have plenty to do already, and spam is going to be a very low priority for them. Saying "You can spam until people ask you to stop, and continue spamming until an AG decides that you are worth his time" isn't going to stop spam.
Summary:
I'm in favor of a US law against spam. I'm under no illusions that such a law would stop spam, but I believe it would help. And it's clear that this law was crafted by the DMA and others who want to make sure they don't lose the right to send spam.