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Spam Your Rights Online

Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California 291

Posted by timothy from the potted-meat-product dept.
Craig Newmark (craigslist) writes "In California, we had a pretty good antispam bill proposed by Sen. Debra Bowen, which was killed yesterday. A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee. Here's a quick round up. We're considering a big feedback campaign, based on conversation with staffers on what works for them, since they want to hear from constituents, as opposed to spam. More to come ..."
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Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California More

Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California

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  • Round up (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:47PM (#6351887)
    the spammers and send them to Hormel to be converted to canned meat.

    I'm sure Hormel wouldn't object; it'd be sweet revenge :-)

  • Whose Bill? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jasoncart ( 573937 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:49PM (#6351901) Homepage
    "Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California"

    Poor chap - we need all the anti-spam campaigners we can get.

  • Looks like a case of missing parentheses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:54PM (#6351940) Homepage
    It seems that the sentence ..."seek actual damages, or may elect to recover liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement ... $1 million per incident, whichever is less."

    Should be parsed as ..."seek actual damages, or may elect to recover ( liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement OR $1 million per incident, whichever is less.) "

    But it can also be parsed as .."(seek actual damages OR may elect to recover (liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement OR $1 million per incident)) whichever is less."

    Disclaimer: IANAP.

  • Wouldn't have helped (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:58PM (#6351973)
    Spammers will keep moving themselves out of the jurisidiction of the law. A story in MIT's tech review spoke of a prolific spammer who used servers in Romania and China.

    Technology is still the best hope for killing spam. Laws may provide a few amusing high profile instances for public display, but they can't stop a threat that so easily straddles jurisdictions.

    • Re:Wouldn't have helped (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Schezar ( 249629 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:04PM (#6352023) Homepage Journal
      ...prolific spammer who used servers in Romania and China.

      And then I block email from IP blocks in those countries. I don't know anyone there, I don't do business with anyone there: I personally have no reason to accept email from them. If every nation I have friends in enacts tough anti-span legislation, spam becomes a moot issue to me.

      • Nope (Score:5, Insightful)

        by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:38PM (#6352340)
        You would have to do more than that.

        You also have to have every machine in every nation you do business with have perfect security also.

        How many stories have we all read on spammers using compromised machines to do their spamming form?

        A US congressman friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about anti-spam legislation. I told him it is a waste of time. Legislation can't stop spam, deny lists wont stop spam, and firewalls wont stop spam.

        The only way to stop spam is to scrap SMTP and build a new trust based system from the ground up. The protocol is broken and can't be fixed.

        • Re:Nope (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Schezar ( 249629 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:53PM (#6352468) Homepage Journal
          You also have to have every machine in every nation you do business with have perfect security also.

          Good point, but my solution was designed for... me. I've given up on the spam war. Now, I only care about my personal inbox. I blacklist IP blocks willy-knilly (but not so many that it would make sense to move to a white-list. Yet.). I've NEVER received anything important via email from anyone I didn't already know.

          Job offers? They phone me.

          Emergency? They page me.

          Going out for a beer? They IM me, or they knock on my damn door.

          Business? They send it to me via our secure LotusNotes server (yea, yea... IBM is VERY different on the inside than it looks from the outside. We use OS/2 Warp on critical servers too.) Or they email me normally (I know them: they're not blacklisted).

          Pleasure? Any girl who propositions me over email (unsolicited, mind you) is probably not very high on my ladder [intellectualwhores.com] to begin with.

          Email is not a way to receive messages from strangers anymore: the spammers have ruined that. Email will likely become a white-list based messaging system and nothing more. It's a pity, but we've already crossed the bridge, and there's nothing left to do but to burn it behind us.
        • The only way to stop spam is to scrap SMTP and build a new trust based system from the ground up. The protocol is broken and can't be fixed.
          Great! Do you think you can have it finished and rolled out world-wide by next Tuesday?

    • Re:Wouldn't have helped (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:07PM (#6352056) Homepage Journal
      Spammers will keep moving themselves out of the jurisidiction of the law. A story in MIT's tech review spoke of a prolific spammer who used servers in Romania and China.

      Fortunately, I don't need mail from any servers in Romania or China. Now, if somebody spent the time to map networks to geographic locations, they could offer a filtering service. It might be a full-time job keeping a database of known routers, but lots of them have very nice DNS names if you get high enough up the hierarchy.
    • Technology is still the best hope for killing spam. Laws may provide a few amusing high profile instances for public display, but they can't stop a threat that so easily straddles jurisdictions.

      Until the spammers grow powerful enough to have the technology outlawed via DMCA or some other poorly written law. Just playing devil's advocate here but if we don't keep the law on our side now, they surely will keep the law on their side then.

    • Re:Wouldn't have helped (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:29PM (#6352252) Homepage
      A story in MIT's tech review spoke of a prolific spammer who used servers in Romania and China.

      The location of the servers is (or should be) massively irrelevent. If I set up a kiddie porn website, I won't get very far with the excuse "I used a server in Romania" if I'm still located in the US.

      Technology is still the best hope for killing spam.

      I've been hearing that line for nearly two decades, and I've seen absolutely NO PROGRESS! I'm sorry, you had your chance, it's time to try some other approaches. A state law is, indeed, not much of a deterrent for a lot of people, but it can help set a precedent that will lead to a national law, which in turn can help set a precedent that will lead to international law.

      Furthermore, spam depends on really thin margins. If you have to factor in the expense of moving (physically, see above) to Romania, then you may not find spamming such an attractive idea after all.

      Anyway, questions of jurisdiction are not necessarily as simple as you'd like to think. See, for example, the cases of Sklyarov (sp?) and Elcomsoft. For something like this, the big question would be, is the controlling jurisdiction willing to cooperate with the jurisdiction where the offense took place?
      • You are comparing apples and orages. Child porn is covered by a raft of international treaties regarding child exploitation that generally acknowledge that this it is a much more serious issue than spam, and you cannot equate the two.

        Added to which, you once again come up against jurisdictional issues when gathering evidence from these nations.

    • Technology is still the best hope for killing spam.

      Technology needs support from the law. For example, a typical locked door won't keep out someone who can throw as much time and muscle into it as he likes -- but it usually is effective against people who know that they have to do their breaking and entering discreetly and quickly, because it a crime is in and of itself.

      The same principle should be applied here. If the law treated circumvention of an anti-spam filter the same way it treats circumventi

    • Most countries that do business with the states eventually will adapt laws that the states does.

      Just look at how quickley copywrite laws spread world wide (although some contries have yet to really enforce it).

      What will eventually happen is the spammers will find some un-inhabbited lawless island to do their spamming from, and all we have to do is bomb that island :)
    • Technology is still the best hope for killing spam.

      See, I keep hearing this. Along with cries of "SMTP is old and outdated, we need something better". And really, that's just passing the buck.

      Sure, SMTP is old. And it may very well be outdated. But you can't claim that replacing SMTP is the only way to solve the spam problem. SMTP is not the problem - Poorly implemented SMTP installations are the problem. Open relays are the problem. Poke through your inbox and see how much of your spam goes thr

  • No, not Micro$oft! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Potent ( 47920 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:59PM (#6351979) Homepage
    I thought Micro$oft was supposed to be against spam...

    Oh, I get it - they are against *everybody elses* spam. :)

    hahahaha
    -----------

  • Left hand doesn't know right hand? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anti Frozt ( 655515 ) <chris...buffett@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:00PM (#6351992)
    • "A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee."

    Didn't Microsoft just recently step up it's Anti-spam efforts as pointed out in this previous story [slashdot.org]

    Maybe they're "selling weapons to both sides" by backing a pro-spamming bill so they can have stronger reasons to step up their anti-spam behaviour?

    • Re:Left hand doesn't know right hand? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gerddie ( 173963 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:13PM (#6352106)
      Didn't read the article, ej? The other bill was also considered to be sort of an anti-spam bill by those who introduced it, and Microsoft, well ... Bowen contended that Microsoft backs the Murray bill because it wants to be in a position to charge spammers to send ads over its system and to continue to sell anti-spam blockers to their customers. [1] [go.com]
    • Bowen accuses Microsoft of having alterior motives for backing (in her opinion) a weaker anti-spam law. She might be right (weaker anti-spam laws might allow Microsoft to promote their own anti-spam software and/or deliver their own spam and/or sell mailing lists to others) but I can't entirely fault Microsoft's position on this one.

      According to Microsoft, they're not backing the new bill because they want indemnity from spamming. Rather, it's because Bowen's bill apparently places greater responsibility

  • Executions? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:01PM (#6351995)
    Where is the part about executions? I bet Teaxs spammer laws would have spammer executions.

  • Inadvertent my ass (Score:5, Funny)

    by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:03PM (#6352008) Homepage
    Ooops, it looks like I accidentally sent this email to 20,000 people on my spam list instead of my 5 established customers! How can that have happened? I'll make sure that doesn't happen until tomorrow at least!

    The only good thing is it basically gives each spammer one "freebie" - surely a court won't believe they KEEP "inadvertently" sending spam. Will they?

    • Strongbad: Oops, I droped a CD with 5,000 e-mails on it

      Bubs: Oops, I dropped a quarter for each one.

    • ...it basically gives each spammer one "freebie"...

      Hello, again, Your Honor. No, Sir, that wasn't me. I'm Joel_0x00000A71@spamhost.com but the spam in question came from Joel_0x00000A70@spamhost.com so clearly I can't be held responsible. Yes, Your Honor, It won't happen again. Um, Your Honor, if it pleases the Court, may we take a recess before we reconvene for the next case, we've been at this all morning and I've got to get something to eat before I appear here again for Public vs. Joel_0x00000A72@sp

  • Anti-spam? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ReeferCpe ( 613569 )
    The story title on Slashdot: "Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California" The google link: "Consumer-Backed Anti-Spam Bill Passes" on almost every link. Am I missing something?

    • Re:Anti-spam? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gorm the DBA ( 581373 )
      Yep, you are...sorta...

      Two bills were proposed. One, which failed in committee was backed by many consumer advocates, including the article poster. The other, which passed, was favored by Microsoft, America Online, etc.

      The bill which passed is regarded as less anti-spam than the one which was rejected. Is it? Dunno, I'd have to read the actual bills. Both appear to at least be a first step, and it should come as no surprise that the one backed by bu$ine$$ passed.

    • I think the google links are to sites that jumped the gun. While they say "Consumer-Backed Anti-Spam Bill Passes" on the google links, when you click on them, they read "Consumer-Backed Anti-Spam Bill Fails". They probably had the title set up, but had to change it when the bill failed to pass.

      Sort of a Dewey vs. Truman in internet time.

      Funniest thing though, is that the very first google link is to THIS slashdot story!

  • Jurisdiction (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jimmer63 ( 651486 )
    Where would this bill have any jurisdiction? A national bill really seems to be the only way to deal effectively with the problem, even though it's a step in the right direction. This doesn't affect the huge amounts of spam coming from Asian countries either.
  • Is there really a Spam Lobby? What's the issue getting this bill passed?

    I mean who the hell wants to deal with spam, beside the spammers of course... and from prior /. stories I was under the assumption that they were slowly, slowly having issues making money due to better spam blocking techniques and people fixing their open relays.

    • The lobby isn't run by the spammers themselves, but the buisinesses who hire these jokers to peddle their crap. Spammers wouldn't exist if there wasn't demand for their services. What we need is a law which lets you go after the company who hired the spammer in the first plac as well as the spammer themselves.
  • Some where there is a small group of Vikings who are very pleased...

  • spam would be cool under this law (Score:3, Insightful)

    by macshune ( 628296 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:04PM (#6352025) Journal
    "According to an Assembly analysis, the spammer could be fined $1,000 per unwanted e-mail or $1 million per incident, whichever was less, plus actual damages to the recipient. An incident is defined in the bill as "a single transmission of substantially similar content."

    Spam would go from annoying menance to lawyer-feeding-frenzy.

    Example: Most people get like 10 spams a day. That's $10,000. Wait 10 days and that's $100,000. Wait 100 days and that's a cool million.

    Yeah, the spammers are outside of california's jurisdiction, but database errors and the like could make quite a few people millionaires. Scary stuff, IMHO
    • I take it you're for responsible anti-spam laws; the kind that take the possibility for human error into account. Unfortunately, people (here and elsewhere, and in general) think that if a problem is widespread enough you've got to immediately jump to cutting the offender's hands off.

      It's a hypocritical stance in this forum to take that tack with spammers unless you also harbor some level of approval of the RIAA/MPAA efforts vs. P2P users. Same thing -- perceived endemic problem that can only be solved

      • Heh, so are you complementing me or insulting me with that first statement?:) I don't agree with the tactics used by the music industry to combat p2p, and i do have problems with widespread litigiousness. laws such as the california anti-spam law is just the same as taxing it. they just move the administrative costs to the taxpayers who enlists lawyers that smell the money who in turn sues the spammer, etc, etc. also, one spam does not cost me $1000 in lost productivity, and if it does to anyone, i'm su
        • Complementing.

          From my viewpoint, it's better to make adjustments gradually while observing the results than to overcompensate particularly where legislation is concerned. The laws made today are likely to sit on the books for a long time -- probably longer than the technology they're intended to be applied to -- whether they end up being used well or abused.

          Making spam an uneconomically sound way of advertising should be the goal, and that's achievable without excessive punitive action (which, as you poi

  • From the Google News summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by SweetAndSourJesus ( 555410 ) <JesusAndTheRobot@yahoo . c om> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:04PM (#6352027)
    Debra Bowen, which was killed yesterday ...

    Man, this spam war is getting serious.

  • Voted down because... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rocco2nr ( 632976 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:04PM (#6352029)
    Those old geezers like the good deals they're getting on viagra
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Microsoft was supposed to be against spam. (See slashdot article [slashdot.org] regarding Microsoft stepping up anti-spam efforts)

  • Pro-spammer != Pro-spam (Score:5, Informative)

    by dewboy ( 22280 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:05PM (#6352031) Homepage Journal
    The summary is misleading. If you read one of the articles, you'll see that the measure that was passed was not in support of spam - it, too, was an anti-spam measure. It just wasn't quite as strict as the Bowen measure.

    Furthermore, I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it "pro-spammer"; it still calls for fines to be levied. It just appears more "pro-spammer" than the consumer-backed bill.

    • It does here (Score:5, Insightful)

      by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:15PM (#6352134) Homepage
      Furthermore, I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it "pro-spammer"; it still calls for fines to be levied. It just appears more "pro-spammer" than the consumer-backed bill.

      It was definitely pro-spammer, and ultimately pro-spam, in the sense that this is the best-case scenario for them. There is no way that the legislature could have completely nuked the bill, they would have been burned at the stake. So what did they do?

      Reduce the penalties significantly

      Provide loopholes for "inadvertent" sending.

      So how do I prove that something wasn't inadvertent? Legally, I believe the burden is on the prosecution, and the bill allows for cases to potentially be tossed if the sending was inadvertent, or the penalties at least greatly reduced.

      So bottom line is, if this thing gets passed, I want to see if it has any real effect upon spam or spammers. We shall see.

  • Spam Prevention (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fux the Pengiun ( 686240 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:05PM (#6352032)
    The news link doesn't mention this, but Senator Bowen's [ca.gov] bill was actually written by Greg Maddox of Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) fame [spews.org]

    It's odd that this would come up right now, but I've got a friend in the California state senate (he's a page), and apparently there's rumor that this bill may have been killed because some topless photos of Senator Debra Bowen [ca.gov] have been floating around on the internet. It's ironic that the spam bill would be killed because of free porn spam.
    • Great... between a topless Senator Debra Bowen, and a pantsless Senator Ted Kennedy, we could make a fully naked Senator! Of course, that full naked Senator would look scary as Hell and send shivers down any sane person's spine, but...

  • Perhaps... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jdehnert ( 84375 ) * <jdehnert@@@dehnert...com> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:05PM (#6352035) Homepage
    ..we should forward all of our spam to the reps who voted agains the bill?

    • Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:23PM (#6352199)
      why not install SpamAssassin or create your own filters and block addresses that frequently contain Spam?

      I use server side blocking, I use procmail blocking with my own blacklist, and I have recently been playing with Squirrelmail which offers a SHITLOAD of options for fending off spam.

      It's their right to send it to you, it's your right to block it.
      • I use server side blocking, I use procmail blocking with my own blacklist, and I have recently been playing with Squirrelmail which offers a SHITLOAD of options for fending off spam.

        I'm happy that you have the money to pay for the bandwidth and temporary storage of spam coming in to your residential feed. Ask AOL how they feel about having to process over one billion (!!!) spams per day. How much do you reckon that costs?

        It's their right to send it to you, it's your right to block it.

        Could you poin

      • Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by British ( 51765 )
        Filtering is one thing, but that tidal wave of incoming spam still takes up valuable bandwidth. Some people, including myself, don't beleive the spammers have that right to send it to you, and want to take it a step further.

        I shouldn't have to go out of my way to prevent all this shit into my inbox. Either way, they are still taking resources out of my livelyhood to make a buck. Not kosher.
      • At least Missouri does and I imagine most others do as well. So if you did forward your spam it might not get there.

        The problem is half of our reps and senators don't even use a computer. Their assistants do but they don't. In Missouri at least, some of the ones that do use a computer see "just hit delete" as the perfect solution.

      • Re:Perhaps... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by eyeye ( 653962 )
        ah... I installed spamassassin yesterday and it rated non spam as spam and vice versa, success rate about 50%.
        I think I could have done about as well as that with a few procmail rules.

        Am I missing something? Bash me with a cluestick.

  • Yup (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:06PM (#6352046) Journal
    Pro-spammers like Microsoft have lots of money and motivation. Anti-spam folks always have either one or the other, if any, but almost never both. Every now and again a rogue politician will take up arms against spam, but he or she always faces the 5 or 6 six politicians that either don't care, or are paid not to care by spammers and their interests.

  • Defining "genius" . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:06PM (#6352048) Homepage Journal
    Step 1: Help shoot down anti-spam legislature.

    Step 2: Advertise that since spam is out of control, you're going to do everything in your power to help stop it, both in preventing spam from hitting your users and telling the government it needs to be stopped.

    Step 3: Profit ... Right?

    I got nothing.
  • Let me see your wallet.....uh huh....10...20... $32.00. Just as I suspected.

    Give it up. It takes money to take money and you don't have what it takes.

  • Quick Round-Up Wormhole (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nherc ( 530930 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:11PM (#6352084) Journal
    So, in typical /. fashion I post before reading the story. Anyway, I hit the first link in the story [google.com] and follow the first link Google News gives me trying to find out more.

    What do I see? The post I just made at /.

    That's pretty good considering the story only had 20 comments when I followed the link... Google News is really up-to-date.

    May I suggest this alternate Google News link with a "-slashdot" [google.com].

  • I think that if the system administrators of the US government really wanted to get anti-spam legislation passed, they should log as much spam as they should, and add up how much money it cost for those spam to be transferred. This should incude the size of the e-mail itself, the size of the websites they link to, and the size of any images that must be downloaded.

    Show that to a couple of senators with the tagline "... of taxpayers money"

    --LordKaT

  • Microsoft (Score:3, Informative)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:15PM (#6352127) Journal
    Of course Microsoft [bcentral.com] supports the weaker bill. They are a spammer (sorry, "opt-in email marketer") themselves. Not as dirty as the others, but by no means clean.

  • Regulate what?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unixwin ( 569813 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:15PM (#6352133) Homepage
    Why does the goverment have to get into every freaking use or misuse of the internet?

    Ok, say CA passed a law and allowed ppl to sue a spammer for say a million dollars, ok, so are you going to Korea, China, .ru , and all the other domains, and serving warrants on them?

    "Wait wait" will be the protests, you can go after the big spammers like aaa,bbbb & cccc!!

    yeah sure, dont you think they'd just use servers outside CA and perhaps the US to do what they've been doing ???

    Trying to explain a email message header to a court of law may be one thing but getting the actual spammer may be a whole different game to play.
    Ofcourse "my server was hacked and was being used for spam" will always be an option.

    So whats the answer?
    technology, even Windows machines have pretty good free Bayesian filter softwares available,(atleast for OE, & Outlook) and they are pretty effective, Popfile , SpamBayes are a couple which come to mind.

    They will stop most of your spam, and a couple of weeks of "training" will catch most of 'em.

    These softwares are not complicated to use, and are available through click and point interface no messy config files.

    Ofcourse in the brighter side of this planet where free software reigns , there are too many spam filters available, server side, and client side. Pick one and forget the rest of the laws.

    whew....
    • Unless its something like 100% accurate and doesn't leave a spam folder I still have to cull through to check for mislabeled emails.

      Bayesian filtering gets a lot of attention and I'm guessing mainly because its such a technical solution, but really its just another hack.

      So far I've had the best luck with an old fashioned challenge-response type system (ala bluebottle.com [bluebottle.com]) and while its not as sexy sounding as Bayesian filtering, its saving me the sheer frustration of having to weed through other peopl
    • The fundamental problem with spam is that it's resource abuse. Filtering only increases the resources used.

      By putting legislation into effect most spammers would move their operations offshore. The simple solution is to block those companies. To most of us it's not a big deal as we don't do business with companies outside the US. But it does hurt international business for those who do and it shifts our problem onto someone else.

      I can only imagine the Good Guy sys admins overseas pissed off because their
    • Yeah, what is the government for, anyway ? Serving the needs and wishes of the people it represents ?

      You'd think from some of the responses here that the majority of people disliked receiving spam, and wanted to do something about it.

      Doing something for the MAJORITY of people, that is, not just a small technical elite who know how to use complex tools to avoid the problem themselves, while everyone else suffers.

      Why doesn't everyone get together, as a "society", and choose a set of people to listen to our

  • Make a site, identify legislators (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:16PM (#6352140)


    Make a site like the Boycott RIAA site and related [netfirms.com] but identify each legislator, where they stand on the position, and where they voted.

    If they used a tactic such as leaving the room when voting time came, to prevent a quorum, or to avoid going on record for the vote, identify that if it is known. Or if not known, list "present" or "absent" votes/non-votes.

    You need to get a record of where the legislator stands. Do they support spammers like aol, microsoft, and the other dregs of spamming? Or do they support a spam free in box? Do they support opt in? Or industry's favored opt out? Do they support the federal do not call list? Or can they be quoted as saying that there are better ways of accomplishing the same goal, adopting the marketing companies tactics by avoiding being in opposition of a law that the vast majority of the public favors?

    Find out what their voting record is. Find out what their positions are. Then find out what they actually do, do they back up their positions with votes in favor of their positions, or are they looking for cover?

    Find out the info. Then out them. Make a site that can be used by voters to make an informed choice on where their legislator stands on the issues.

    Then let us know where the site is.

    Daylight is the best antiseptic for this infestation.

  • FCC's do not call registry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pierreg0 ( 251589 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:17PM (#6352142)
    The FCC authorized a nationwide "do not call" registry to prevent unwanted phone solicitations. Why not also enforce a "do not spam" registry to prevent unwanted email solicitations?

  • Why legislate? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:22PM (#6352195)
    Why legislate, when we can innovate? Instead of wasting taxpayer money enforcing new laws and red tape, why not let the capitalist market come up with a technological solution to the spam problem? Not only would we avoid giving even more power to the government, we'd stimulate innovation and competition among anti-spam companies.

    Is everyone seriously so impatient to solve the spam problem that they are willing to enact badly worded, overbroad legislation? Give the congress the power to regulate some aspects of the Internet, and that power will quickly expand into other areas. Do we actually want to go down that nightmare path?

    Q: "Mr. Senator, how do you plan to pay for the execution of these new spam laws?"

    A: "I plan to tax the Internet."

  • Believe it or not, (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rashan ( 546637 ) <rashan@hagan-net.nEULERet minus math_god> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:23PM (#6352203) Homepage
    Spam does indeed have a group of people who actually believe it's a good thing. Take Adam Hanft, for instance. He did a commentary on Market Place [marketplace.org] yesterday [marketplace.org] where he claims " It?s "outsider capitalism," it?s part of the free market, and it works. " He even claims that it's better than direct mail, since it kills fewer trees.

    Of course, his reports leave out a lot of things, like young children having adds for bodypart enlargements, or graphic emails of beastialty in their inbox... certainly don't see that too often with Directmail.

    But this guy is just one example of those who do lobby for spam mail... misguided though they may be.

    A link to the audio stream is here [marketplace.org]

  • "...and make it easier for recipients to cut off e-mails from companies they had been doing business with."

    I have more problem getting rid of spam from companies that I've *never* done business with. Businesses that I've bought from occasionally send out offers, but they're always very good about removing me if I ask.

    It's not the legitimate businesses that are the problem, it's the spam kings sending out offers of huge manhood and low rate loans with "remove me" links that point to overflowing Yahoo accou
    • Agreed. I get a lot of email, ads and such. If it's from a legitimate company I can easily opt-out.

      For some reason I haven't been able to do that with the Hong Kong porn spammers.

      BTW, all the Hong Kong spam comes to the email address I used here on slashbot. So that must make slashbot culpable for spam as well, right?
  • What I want to know with all of these spam penalty ideas, is how do you bill them? Does the state send one big bill at the end of the year? At taxtime? What if the spammer is in a foreign country? Does this only apply to spammers located in California?? etc. etc.

    If we can track them down to bill them, why not just beat the living s out of them then?

    --D

    p.s. Craigslist fricking rocks! I just wish more people in Sacramento knew about it (and knew how to use computers actually).

  • What we really need in a law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:49PM (#6352439)
    What we really need is a law which lets you go after not only the spammer, but the company who hired him. Start going after the companies behind this and you will dry up demand for the services of spammers. If they are an overseas company, then revoke their right to do buisiness with anyone living in the United States or whichever country the law is enacted in.

    That is what is needed, to put pressure on these clowns who are hiring the spammers in the first place.

  • Why Wait for the Law? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by egg troll ( 515396 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:57PM (#6352518) Homepage Journal
    Its obvious that a legal solution to spam will not happen anytime soon. Instead, I personally take matters into my own hands: I registered my domain and found an inexpensive webhost ($10/mo can get you a truly decent webhost.) From there its easy to create all the email accounts you need, as well as install anti-spam software.

    Alternatively one can just set up a *nix box off a DSL line and run your own mailserver with whatever anti-spam tools you choose. It saves you the $10/mo and its a little more work, but you do have complete control of the box. Doing this, my spam has fallen to almost nothing.

  • Target the moneymen. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Funksaw ( 636954 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @04:02PM (#6352548)
    The problem with most anti-spam bills is that they are overbroad. That might be the case here.

    The problem is, the bill targets the spam-senders, who are acting pretty much anonymously and out of jurisdiction.

    Why not simply target the spam-originators?

    I mean, for every "Click here for crap" or something, there's a guy who expects to get *paid.*

    Why target the middlemen, when you can go after the moneymen? Why target the supplier when you can target the demand?

  • Pro-spammer bill, my ass (Score:4, Informative)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @04:02PM (#6352552)
    "A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee."

    from abc7news [go.com]: "According to an Assembly analysis, the spammer could be fined $1,000 per unwanted e-mail or $1 million per incident, whichever was less, plus actual damages to the recipient. An incident is defined in the bill as "a single transmission of substantially similar content." But Givens complained the bill would allow a judge to reduce the penalties to actual damages and $100 per e-mail or $100,000 per incident, whichever was less, if the advertiser had taken "due care" to prevent the transmission of unsolicited ads. ", under the bill that passed. Doesn't sound very pro-spammer to me even under the reduced penalty.

  • Why else... (Score:2, Funny)

    by neosake ( 655724 )
    Why else can't we mark those " msn member services " as spam?!!!
  • that Microsoft was evil, this was it.

    They ARE evil incarnate.

    I hear Bill G. is building a dark tower in Redmond... I think the working code name is Barad-Dur......

  • their strategy: control spam, not eliminate it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chip rosenthal ( 74184 ) <chip@unicom.com> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @04:11PM (#6352622) Homepage

    What's becoming clear is that Microsoft has a strategy to control spam, not eliminate it. You'll find that the legislation that Microsoft supports typically: 1) legalizes spam, 2) mandates opt-out, and 3) places power of enforcement in the hands of service providers rather than individuals.

    One essential element of any good anti-spam law would be the right to private action: the spam victim gets to go to court and collect damages directly. This is one of the things that has made the junk fax law so effective. This is precisely what Microsoft does not want to happen.

    Although the Microsoft supported laws aren't killing private action outright, they tend to make it useless. For instance, the trick they pulled in Texas was to allow ISPs to collect $25,000 or $10/spam, whichever is more, but individuals get $25,000 or $10/spam whichever is less. So, under the new (Microsoft-endorsed) Texas spam law, you could drag a spammer into small claims court and not even collect enough to cover your filing fees.

    I believe Microsoft's intention is to chase away the rogue spammers, and then turn the corporate spammers into a revenue stream. So instead of 100 messages/day sellng us viagra or pr0n, we'll get 100 messages/day selling us insurance or aluminum siding. Oh yeah! That's so much better.

  • The root cause here seems to be the almighty buck, pound, peso, krugerrand, etc. Spammers are in business because someone pays them to send spam.

    Can we create legislature that makes it illegal to hire someone to send spam for you? You know, the same way it's illegal to hire someone to beat up your good-for-nothing neighbor. While the spammers are hard to backtrace, the product offerings have to be traceable, otherwise they wouldn't be selling anything.

    The downside of this suggestion is that it's easy t
  • So I'm reading the news.com summary, which is a bit biased, but basically shows the slashbot title as being grossly misleading. California is still debating an anti-spam bill, and will probably pass one.

    It just won't be the one written by Senator Bowen.

    From reading the articles it is unclear if this is a bad thing or not. Bowen sounds hysterical, and the Murray complaints against her bill are not very specific.

    Need more info. Or am I just supposed to be outraged like a good little slashbot?

  • Googleloop (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dahamma ( 304068 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @04:35PM (#6352799)
    Notice that as of this writing the Google "roundup" referenced in the story has the story itself as the second link... the consequences of this to "PageRank" are now mindboggling...

  • there once was a country where stealing was permitted. Sounds odd, but its true.
    Well the ruler thought this was wrong, but could not overule an existing tradition.
    What nhe did was require thives to carry a 'registration card' of sorts.
    The catch is, the registration card was a 500 pound piece of granet. The penelty for stealing without a license? death.

    So allow spam in general, but forbid it being sent to politician, charities and children. Put the responsibilty to know who there sending it to on the spamme
  • Last week I saw a Charlie Rose episode where he discusses spam with a Cnet editor, FTC commissioner, AOL VP and a Microsoft Attorney. The stance of all those involved were against spam and wanted to do something to reduce it. It's a interesting discussion and I suggest you try and catch it if it's on again.

    http://www.charlierose.com/thisweek.shtm

  • Aren't Republicans supposed to be the biz whores? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @04:44PM (#6352858)
    I'm so confused, conflicted, and concerned. The Democrats own California government, body and soul, and yet the legislature keeps selling out to business. Yesterday it was the shootdown of financial privacy legislation, now this. The only way the pubic is going to get anything useful passed is the initiative process. Or maybe even elect a few more Republicans, just to see if they might do a better job.

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