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Spam Your Rights Online

The "Colorado Junk Email Law" 141

Posted by timothy from the ok,-I-changed-my-mind,-send-me-spam dept.
toodrunk2f_ck writes: "News has been slow to trickle out about the new "Colorado Junk Email Law" (HB00-1309). Signed by Gov. Owen on June 6, the law is about to become active. CNET has this article on it and the legislative synopsis is here. Basically, the law allows receivers of unmarked "junk email" to sue senders for a $10 civil penalty per piece plus court costs. It seems unclear, though, how enforcement will work and what effects it may have. Imagine the workload on the courts if every person receiving spam were to sue over it. It will be interesting to see whether Colorado sets a precedent for other states to follow with this law." Hemos posted an article about the law before it was signed; that article is unfortunately no longer available, but the comments are.
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The Relatively Unknown "Colorado Junk Email Law" More

The Relatively Unknown "Colorado Junk Email Law"

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  • Im not a lawyer, but if its a state law, doesnt that mean that it would only be enforceable for spam that comes from companies based in Colorado?
  • yes, but if you want to receive mail from some legitimate listserv, you've just filtered out that mail. Most legitimate listservers do not put your email address in the two line either
  • The problem with this is that there may be legitimate email that just happens to have ADV in the subject.

    What about legitimate commerical mailing, would it have to have ADV, there's some commercial mail that I specifically request and want to receive.

    Or, what if someone, maybe an English teacher, writes the word 'adverb' in the subject? Should the mail just be deleted.
  • "Your television and cable services cost you money."

    Yes, but any advertising on that medium, comes *from* the provider, so the content provider is paying for it (or actually, being paid for advertisement). It is not *costing* them anything, and anything it costs you, you pretty much knew of ahead of time anyway (even PBS now has "commercials").

    "Your telephone services cost you money."

    And there are several anti-telemarketing laws.

    "Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain."

    Well, I don't know if there are any junk mail laws but there probably should be. Although that would probably take down the PO profit margin. According to the junk I get I'd say a third to a half of letter-sized mail the PO handles is junk.
  • So my question is this... How would the lawywers find potential claimants? Can I expect to find this email in my inbox?

    "ATTENTION ISP CUSTOMER:

    Have you recently been inundated with internet junk mail? Don't you wish it would go away? Well now thanks to a new class-action lawsuit being brought by Dewey, Cheadem & Howe Law Associates, you can get back at those pesky spammers! Just call our toll free number to add your name to our growing list of claimants!"


    --Fesh

  • ISPs could advertise that "we fight for you." They could offer a "Colorado-based mail server" and an "experienced legal team" to customers, with a class action suit perhaps every three months. Time Warner (roadrunner, AOL) has the money for it.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • It should be more specifically defined... like:
    [ADV:] or something less ambiguous. Plus, if it happens to be all caps to start with, your teacher shouldn't be sending mail that has a subject of: ADVERBS ARE FUN!

    That's just not nice.

    --
  • Playing devil's advocate here (I agree with the sentiment), I doubt language like this would find its way into a court opinion. Your television and cable services cost you money. Your telephone services cost you money. Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain.

    TV is different, if you don't pay for cable you're not paying for programming and without advertising you'd get no content. When you do pay for cable you're paying for a service which gives you more and clearer channels, you're not paying for the actual content (some "PayTV" stations excluded) but the service of getting them clearer and more of them.

    Your telephone does cost you money, and telemarketers are illegal in many places and during "supper hour" in many more, but regardless if you get one more telemarketing call or not, unless its a cell phone (where you pay for airtime) you're going to pay the same amount anyways, all you've lost is time.

    Mailboxes cost money to maintain regardless of how much "junk mail" flyers you get.

    The point with spam is that it costs the recipiant to receive it, it costs the ISP to receive it (bandwidth charges), etc, and if you didn't receive the spam it wouldn't have cost you.

    -- iCEBaLM
  • Ultimately, issues like this are interesting, but entirely beside the point. Neither the Congress nor the states are empowered (unless 2/3 of each house and 3/5 of the state legislatures feel otherwise) to limit speech. Period. That's the deal. If the legislation is based on the CONTENT of the message, which it must be to distinguish UCE from other e-mail, then it can only be passed under applicable standards if (by clear and convincing evidence):

    (1) there is a compelling governmental interest to justify the regulation; and
    (2) there exists no less interusive means by which the interest can be satisfied.

    I think even if you can show (1), you have some difficulties with (2). There are plenty of less invasive means by which UCE can be regulated, particularly given government intrusion.

    Again, isn't it interesting how the First Amendment absolutists on Slashdot suddenly become mute where it is THEIR petard upon which they are hoisted. I do not defend spam -- I hate it. But just as I defend free speech, I recognize that any regulation of a message based upon the contents of the message must be handled in manner consistent with constitutional sensibility.

    And with all due respect, the fact that Spam costs you when you leave an open channel to the world just doesn't cut it. I agree that its true, and I agree that, in a manner of speaking, its egregious. So what? "No law" meant "no law," not "laws that are sensible, or consistent with the consensus of those who do not want to get the speech."

    Free speech inconveniences those who do not want to hear it. That's the way of things. It is the nature of first Amendment litigation that the Constitution is most sorely tested by the least attractive candidates: Pornographers, Nazis, Flag Burners and Spammers. That these people are useless slag and a cost to society is beside the point entirely -- they are not made free to speak because it serves our interests to hear them. They are made free to speak so that we can also hear the voices of those geniuses among us who actually do have something to offer.

    What is particularly nuts about this colloquy is that there is a way to regulate Spam that is free of cost as well as cosntitutional infirmity. Why defend a clearly unconstitutional law (or one that will at least be unenforceable for the three to five earth-years and decades of web-years it takes to make it to the Supreme Court) when a clearly constitutional alternative exists that will have the same, or nearly the same, effect?

    A no-brainer by my reckoning. Stop yielding moral high ground to censors by rationalizing away the First Amendment in the case of spam. Get behind the constitutional alternatives, get the result you actually want, and then have the best of both worlds.
  • Text follows:
    Commercial E-mail is a very efficient, cost effective means of informing people about new goods and services. This translates into substantial savings to the consumer. That the vast majority of internet users don't mind Spam and want to hear about new goods and services.


    That for Years now, more advanced bulk mailing software has allowed bulk mailers to shoulder the full cost of Spamming. This cost has increased and access has become much more difficult due to unfair and illegal practices by the big providers (the later day Robber Barons) Who have a vested interest in keeping Costs and Profits high for as long as possible, and with the news media with whom most have form alliances, have and continue to wage a war of misinformation, deceptions, and out and out lies. That through an unholy alliance with vix.com, individuals and companies have been targeted by cyber terrorists who have attacked their equipment, programming and subjected people to threats of violence by posting personal information on these legitimate companies employees and individuals home addresses, phone numbers, which leads to threats against them, there families and children.

    Lastly, that the Robber Barons (Big Internet Providers) use special identification programs in their efforts to stop free trade that invades the privacy of all individuals by identifying, reading, and then determining whether or not you will get your mail or not (ask yourself this question, if AOL or SPRINT or AT&T or MicroSoftNetwork, (MSN), sent someone to your house to intercept your mail, open it, read it, and then arbitrarily decide whether they will put it in your mail box or not. Would you put up with that?) They call it filtering, we know it by its more insidious name, CENSORSHIP.


  • CAUCE has an RFC [cauce.org] on setting your SMTP banner to report not only your UCE/UBE preference, but your locality for legal situations.
    For example, our SMTP banner (provided by SMTPd of the Juniper Firewall Toolkit) says this:
    220 Machinename NO UCE C=US L=CO ready.
  • "Doesn't do a lot of good? Are you mad??"

    No, but I play a madman on TV :)

    But seriously, filter all you want...I expect that you may be doing more of it (I'm assuming you live in Colorado). Remember when Sen. Frank Murkowski tried pushing his spam-friendly bill through Congress (S.1618 IIRC)? It never became law, yet I saw a rise in spams that had a disclaimer at the end that read something like "This can't be called SPAM under S.1618 as long as we provide a remove request." All this bill will do is make spam more legitamite, which, in turn, will likely increase the spam flow.

    --
  • I agree to a certain extent that some kind of anti-spam legislation needs to be passed. Self-regulation just isn't going to work, and spam needs to have some kind of financial penalty associated with it (both for the sender and the beneficiary).

    The problem lies in the fact that its just too easy to use an anti-spam penalty as a kind of denial of service tool and forging spam from a legitimate entity that doesn't and spam leads you into the trap of getting legtimate businesses in trouble.
  • Hey, I bet you didn't READ the bill, did you?! A, D, V, COLON, in capitol letters. COLON! Did you see the COLON?! Nah. I didn't think so...
  • I did, but was pointing out that the person who I replied to didn't... chill...

    --

  • Re:Quite Likely Unconstitutional . . . (Score:3)

    by Veteran ( 203989 ) on Saturday August 05, 2000 @05:11AM (#878300)
    Imagine for a second that junk snail mail arrived "Postage Due", and that you had to pay for it. That is a much better analogy for spam, and that is why people like me find it offensive.

    If you as a lawyer can defend spam, then the same defense can be used to defend sending junk mail postage due. In fact, since it was a lawyer who invented spam in the first place, I think I'll return the favor by creating 'snail spam'. How about we geeks start sending "Hot teen sex at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" postage due letters to any law firm defending email spam? Would those of you in the law get the point then?

    Of course the US mail won't deliver such mail, or would it? If defense of spam is successful, I can't see any reason why the postal service couldn't be forced to collect the postage from the recipients. They could send each person a bill based on the amount of junk mail they receive each month. In fact, I think I'll apply for a method of doing business patent, and collect a royalty from everyone who uses my business plan.

    The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works

  • Sorry, I just could not resist. You know they did NOT use the GPL on StarOffice as they would like you to beleive, they used the LGPL which says you can use OpenSource Binaries for linking without returning any changes to the community. Then they added a second license wich says any changes made by anyone to StarOffice will have copyrights assigned to Sun.

    I Just could not resist when I saw the previous subject.
  • There's something called small-claims court. That's where you take a $10+court costs suit. It's impossible for that type of suit to "hog time" from a malpractice suit.

    Joe Blow the average computer user doesn't need to be able to get past IP spoofing and rerouting. Are you insinuating that there are no computer-savvy people in the entire state of Colorado? There are enough people there that are knowledgeable enough to trace spam back to the U.S., dedicated enough to stop it, and who get spam that sooner or later one of them will be hit by something originating from Colorado. All it takes is a couple suits, and really, how expensive are a couple small claims suits? Remember this is not the same court in which doctors are sued for malpractice (or OJs for wrongful death, whatever). Then all spam from that state could shut down.

    Furthermore, IANAL but you could probably sue somebody from any state for spamming you in Colorado if you tracked them to the U.S. Not sure on this though.

    BTW, don't most businesses identify themselves in their spam, because it is after all for advertisement purposes, no? So wouldn't you know where they were no matter how re-routed and spoofed they were?

    Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
    Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?

  • See if your state / Province / Country does at www.spamlaws.com [spamlaws.com]. Specifically for us in the Old Dominion, the law can be found at http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html [spamlaws.com]. The pertainent info is section 18.2-152.12 of the bill regarding Civil relief and damages, at the end.

    I suggested before that we set up a legal fund to handle this kind of criminal violation and penalties such that all proceeds of the cases would go to a legal fund to help foster more cases. However, I think this may be difficult to organise as IANAL. :) Perhpas a Class Action as suggested above is the best approach, but again IANAL. :)

    Be Seeing You,


    Jeffrey.
  • It's already happening -- I received the following spam early this morning:
    Hi, A Poll is being taken to settle the issue whether commercial e-mail or SPAM is a good form of advertisement, which you would like more of or it's a bad form of advertisement which you are against.


    The arguments go more or less as follows:

    Pro:

    Commercial E-mail is a very efficient, cost effective means of informing people about new goods and services. This translates into substantial savings to the consumer. That the vast majority of internet users don't mind Spam and want to hear about new goods and services.

    That for Years now, more advanced bulk mailing software has allowed bulk mailers to shoulder the full cost of Spamming. This cost has increased and access has become much more difficult due to unfair and illegal practices by the big providers (the later day Robber Barons) Who have a vested interest in keeping Costs and Profits high for as long as possible, and with the news media with whom most have formed alliances, have and continue to wage a war of misinformation, deceptions, and out and out lies.

    That through an unholy alliance with vix.com, individuals and companies have been targeted by cyber terrorists who have attacked their equipment, programming and subjected people to threats of violence by posting personal information on these legitimate companies employees and individuals home addresses, phone numbers, which leads to threats against them, there families and children.

    Lastly, that the Robber Barons (Big Internet Providers) use special identification programs in their efforts to stop free trade that invades the privacy of all individuals by identifying, reading, and then determining whether or not you will get your mail or not (ask yourself this question, if AOL or SPRINT or AT&T or MicroSoftNetwork, (MSN), sent someone to your house to intercept your mail, open it, read it, and then arbitrarily decide whether they will put it in your mail box or not. Would you put up with that?) They call it filtering, we know it by its more insidious name, CENSORSHIP.

    Why in the world should you be subjected to this, and have to pay higher prices !



    Anti SPAM:

    Anti Spam arguments go something like this: They don't seem to like it.



    Have a different opinion, give us a call because, your opinion on how to make this kind of advertisement better & to increase its use, is vital. Or if this is a terrible form of advertisement and how it should be curtailed, regulated or ended all together.



    Please call, 1-900-226-0388 and tell us.


    The charges for registering your opinion are as follows: Of the $1.99 per minute charge, 1-dollar goes to the telephone service Bureau 19 cents to retrieve your opinion 79 cents to transcribe this information into a viable format Leaving a total of 2 cents.

    So do call if you wish to get your 2 cents worth in !



    Poll results will be shared with the World !

    Attention both Pro and Anti Spam Advocates and those of you who may have sought removal from any number of bulk mailing lists. If you have received this e-mail it is because it is a conscious decision on our part to try and include everyone in this important poll. To not have included those who profess a dislike for this form of advertisement would have eliminated those individuals from the process and provide an unfair advantage to one side of the poll. We sincerely hope that all interested individuals or entity's understand the necessity of inclusion.

    ************************************************** ******

    This message is sent in compliance of the proposed bill: SECTION 301. Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this email address with the word remove in the subject line. This message is not intended for residents in the State of Washington, screening of addresses has been done to the best of our technical ability. If you are a Washington, Virginia, or California resident or otherwise wish to be removed from this list, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to mstrsrvcs@mailme.org with the word remove in the subject line.

    ************************************************** *******
  • Well, he definately wouldn't want to send spam emails advertising that he would sue spammers. Or would he? That would be an interesting marketing technique.
  • For more information from the perspective of a group lobbying spam solutions go to:

    http://www.bighorncenter.org/spam.html

    The site has some good, forward thinking ideas geared towards the information age.

  • This for sure allows users to effectively close doors to e-mail spammers. As soon as the law comes into effect, you will see an enormous increase the in the e-mail filters being set worldwide (whereever the knowledge goes) to "Move into Trash whatever says ADV".

    It's not unconstitutional to ban "free speech" (as they say), but it is certainly illegal to fill my mailbox with spam so that important messages bounce off + my time is consumed by their messages for FREE.

  • > but the bill also allows that customer's internet service provider to collect hundreds or thousands of bad messages sent through its main computers and sue the mailer for $10 on each one, providing the incentive of millions of dollars in potential damages. it's good to see that isps are not being left out of this bill. http://www.johncglass.com/law.htm

    i sorta take offense at that. it's not something you think about every day, so it's kinda difficult to put into so many words. maybe this isn't the point you're trying to make.

    it sucks major taco it is about the court costs. it can cost quite a bit for court costs, and that provides a means that people aren't going to be making money off of getting spam (such as if it were a $500 fine), but they still get dinged pretty badly, when 50 people suddenly sue, and they have to pay their court costs and the 50 people's... it seems to me that a law like this would only be useful if a large number of people banded together and sued a spammer.

    i agree, in part, but as they say, the devil is in the details. isn't there a practical application here? you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.


    ------------------------------------------------ ---------------
    a lex chebowan (alexchebow@yahoo.com)
  • Not if they have to pay court costs. Filing in small claims will probably cost at least 30 or 40 dollars, and add to that the 10, and they'd be paying potentionally $50 or so per piece of spam that they send off to an aware and pissed resident. I like it!
  • i live in colorado and as far as the local papers have reported, this law has never seen an actual court case. it's pretty likely that it won't work (but if it did... ). and bwt, not trying to defend a republican or anything, but it's Gov. Owen_s_.
  • Everyone's always complaining about wasting tax payer's money. Spending millions to investigate the deeds of politicians is a waste of tax payer's money. Spending millions to fund the wars of other countries is a waste of tax payer's money. Spending money to keep me spam free is a refreshing use of my hard earned cash. Of course for something like this to work, people would have to sue en masse. Spammers are more than likely counting the risk to their pocketbook. If I send one million email, and get a 25% return and only a 2% sue rate, then I'm ahead of the game. They'll need to do something about repeat offenders. Similar to the "three strikes and you're out" law. So here's another solution. If these spammers want to send me their documents, then they should pay a per monthly fee for me to store this information. I will incorporate and go into the documents storage business. I won't even have to advertise. Of course, just like the banks, we'll charge a $2 service charge when they decide they don't want to store on my system anymore and "withdraw" their email.
  • I think that this law is probably geared more towards Colorado based ISPs. I know that if I were running an ISP in Colorado I would send an email to all my subscribers saying:

    Hey! Guys! The state is enacting a law to stop spam! If you get any spam messages, forward them to spam@coloradoisp.com and we'll put them on the spamlist. If the spamlist gets over 100 [or 1000, or whatever] then we'll submit the list names and sue.
    Thanks,
    Ty Coon
    Head Honcho, ColoradoISP

    And as the "letter" says, when the ISP's spam list that they've received from their customers, they submit their list to the state and file the suit.
    The problem is with spam that uses shell accounts and forged headers, in order to mask the true identity of the sender. Those will definitely be harder to track down...

  • Is this really necessary? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know we all hate spam, but is it really such a concern that we need to waste taxpayer resources on preventing it?
  • I'm sure you resent it, but do you have another solution? Banning SPAM completely isn't goint to happen, but it might be possible to legitimize "honest" SPAM -- ie, SPAM that tells you its spam in the subject and doesn't forge headers. If the latter is the case, at least filtering between the MTA and MUA can eliminate seeing a lot of it.

    I don't see a solution for people running MTAs off of a dialup account; you don't know what you're getting until you get it.
  • IANAL, but it would seem that this law only applies to spam sent from Colorado. Otherwise you have the whole interstate-commerce thing, since SPAM is technically advertising for a product. If this law is challenged in court by a spammer who is caught, it probably won't stand. And of course, how exactly do you catch non-corporate spammers?

    Note that I haven't actually read it because, thanks to millions of /. readers, the server gives 500 Internal Error ...

  • ...if this 'ADV' in the subject thing sticks I'm sure you will quickly see ISPs offering you the option to dump 'ADV' mail before you download it.

    Which will just force the spammers offshore to some 3rd world hell hole like the Peoples Republic of Spamistan.

  • I have two thoughts on this. First, ten bucks is not much. It's hardly worth the hassel of going to court over for such a small amount.

    But, on the flip side, 10 bucks from 100,000 people would certainly be a bad thing for a company. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
  • And the thing that people seem to be overlooking is that the legislation calls for the tag on the subject line so that email clients may automatically file spam into the waste basket where they belong.

    This will reduce the effectiveness of spam considerably making it less attractive.

    My only question is would adoption of this kind of legislation across the US only drive the spammers across political borders?

  • So if anyone is interested in shutting down the Colorado legal system, simply send a bunch of spam to people in Colorado. Make sure to set the From: line to marketing@microsoft.com, or even better set it to be the colorado court system so you can take up more resources.

  • More bad than good (Score:5)

    by Raunchola ( 129755 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:42PM (#878320)
    Here's the meat of HR00-1309. The spammers...

    ...must provide the originating e-mail address of the spam

    ...can't forge third party domain names in the spam unless permission is granted

    ...can't forge header information

    ...must use "ADV" in the subject line of the spam (for easy filtering)

    ...must provide an opt-out mechanism

    ...can't spam people who've requested to be removed

    What makes this bill work is that spammers can't forge header information, which would work right in with forging domain names in the spam. A lot of sites out there (nowhere.com, localhost.com, etc.) have fallen victim to spammers forging their domain names, so this will hopefully save the hapless sysadmins from a lot of headaches. Also, it does say that spammers must honor remove requests. But think about how many spammers there are out there. It's almost like the dilemna of getting off a telemarketer's list. You may have gotten off Company A's list, but Company A may have sold your number to Company B, and you're back to square one. Besides, it's been proven in the past that spammers use their remove lists for spam runs, since the addresses are obviously valid. The requiring of "ADV" in the subject line of the spam works, to a degree. While you can filter out the spam based on that information on the user or system level, it doesn't stop the spam.

    And there's a lot that doesn't make this bill worth a lot. For one, requiring that the spam provide a valid From: address is just wasting space on the paper the bill is printed on. The spammer could use a Hotmail throwaway and get away with it, since they could argue that it's a valid address. The opt-out mechanism doesn't work either. It's been a fact that a lot of spammers out there use remove lists for spamming. And while the spammers must obey your request, it falls into the telemarketing scenario above. This bill also doesn't prohibit using an open server as a third party relay (AKA relay rape), which is a big problem, since some servers have crashed due to the load of spam being sent through it.

    Basically, as long as your spam has a valid From: address, "ADV" in the subject line, an opt-out mechanism, and doesn't forge header information or domain names, you can spam all you want. And that really doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of good IMHO.

    --

  • I think there should be a limit on court costs based on the fine, like maybe a percentage.

    I can't understand how, if I got a ticket and didn't contest it, the court costs could easily be EIGHT TIMES the size of the fee, and still generate revenue for anyone.

    How about making sure the court costs are less-than-or-equal-to the fee, and making the fee $40 or something? Same sort of money, but at least we know what we're getting. 'Cause if anyone tried to pull a fee like that on me, government or not, you'd bet I'd contest it!
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

  • Spam wont stop, its too easy and cheap. Even if it was legislated outta existence in the u.s. and other countries it can still come in from other countries, or even from antartica, or the moon for all we know. But this isnt the real problem. Although there will probably always be occurances of senseless acts of random spam they wont compare to the pseudo-spam caused by "opt-in" tricks: Companies that have their "send me opt-in spam" checkboxes that are "checked", companies that opt you in from nowhere without your permission and then deny it, and those times when you just cant opt-out because their system of opting you out is some temp using excel and the remove@we_arent_spammers.com mail spool file. I've even seen spam that made me make a phone call to be removed. Now multiply that by the increasing number of times your using online businesses. Sure you can keep using throw away addresses and help keep hotmail off nt boxes, or you can use a more elegant and powerful solution called Sneakemail [sneakemail.com] like I do.
  • Well, isn't SPAM also a comunity?

    Maybe, but I should not be forced to be a member of that community (by means of endless daily spam) any more than I should be forced to be a member of the Love the cactus community.
  • I'm really annoyed at sites that require addresses for download and also have that "May we please SPAM you" box checked. I've noticed its really common even at vendor web sites where I'm already getting a huge volume of paper junkmail from them. Its even more irritating when they do it when I'm downloading a patch for some stupid vendor bug that shouldn't have been there in the first place AND I'm a paying customer to boot.

    What I do is a traceroute to the company and identify their ISP. Instead of my address, I enter "abuse@whaetervtheirISP.net" and leave the box checked. Depending on my mood, I'm also inclined to enter root@localhost (although some forms are smart enough to filter this), root@[127.0.0.1] or any of the other hope-it-screws-em-up fake addresses.

    I'm sure its totally irresponsible of me, but that automatic opt-in crap has got to stop.

  • Couldn't state spam laws be gotten around by routing mail between states? If I send my spam from Maine, route through New York, then go anywhere I want to, wouldn't it fall under federal juradiction (I think like if someone comits a state crime and escapes to a different state)? Better yet, route the spam through a different country.

  • I doubt that this law would pass judicial scrutiny if it's applied to forms of political expression. In that case, e-mail is the equivalent of the "soap box", and the law essentially says that you can be held liable for expression that might annoy someone passing by who didn't agree to hear it.

    Anyway, I'm even more annoyed by junk snail-mail, since it requires me to dispose of the trash. And don't get me started on animated and blinking banner ads on websites...

  • Washington State's anti-spam legislation was recently held unconstitutional on the ground that states may not regulate the flow of spam, in that doing so is unduly restrictive of interstate commerce in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

    Does the constitution require that the average citizen pay for the interstate commerce initiatives of Losers Inc. or are we allowed to require that they pick up their own costs?
  • Forget about the inter-state commerce thing, what about international spam? I have been getting a ton of junk mail that doesn't even originate from the US. What annoys me most is the mail from .tw or sometimes .jp sites, that I can't even read, because it's usually encoded in the big5 charset, which just appears as ascii garbage.
  • Didn't you know? Companies are no longer allowed to advertise, because *gasp* they might make money. Can't have that with the NWO.

    Oh, you can advertise alright, but you have to pay for the adverts yourself. Suppose you turned on the TV and at the end of the month you got a bill from the TV station for all the adverts you watched. How would that be with you in your NWO?
  • This expenditure would do nothing then most likely hog court time for real valid claims (like a malpractice suite against a doctor) and make a terribly inefficient justice system more inefficient then it already is. Not only that, but this law is horrible to enforce, because most spammers I'm familar with (yes I actually know some in real life - they're nice guys!) spoof their IP's and reroute their spam from non-US smtp servers. So it ends up looking like the spams from another country and I'm sure it's enough to confuse joe-blow computer user who was hoping to get 10 dollars for getting spam. But how would a normal computer user even know if he was getting a spam from a person in colorado? I mean, this law only is valid in Colorado, correct, so spam from the other 49 states has no consequences?

    I mean, laws like these are the first step in eliminating spam -- and our right for free speech. Like it or not, democracy and capatalism are about marketting and money, and we all have had our share of spam in real life (door salesmen, spam in snail mail). I don't believe that just because it causes a slight inconvienence, spam should be eliminated with the cost of inching us closer to the decrement of our personal liberties.
  • Even if you could get say, all of the G7 nations to enact similar laws spammers would just move servers to a different country and it would be business as usual.

    What does the location of the server have to do with it? You press your case against the company that is being advertised, not against the advertising "agency".
  • I'm really really really confused. What postmasters have to do is very trivially grant mail server access to only those with a valid login and password.

    Then there'd be a lot less unintentional relay servers. The question is, WHY hasn't it happened already?
  • if(YouWantToMakeM$Lose$) { sendto_smtpservers_through_3_proxies_and_ hotmail_and_two_cascading_wingates (server, "From: Bill Gates \n" "Subject: Buy Win2K today!\n" "a whole lot of other forged headers and requests to forward this message all over the place to make it almost impossible to tell where it came from\n\n" "<Insert microsoft propaganda here>" ); } I don't see how this law could be enforced. It is my philosophy that it is better to make something that rightfully should be illegal illegal, even if it is unenforcible, and I do hate spam, but... Some ./ers have already mentioned that this law would not be enforcible by the end user because of the legal costs associated with taking such a case to court over $10, but an even greater hurdle for the law is identifying the person who sent the message. It only takes an IQ even lower than that of a script kiddie to forge the headers on an SMTP message, and it isn't too hard to hide the real host the message came from. Do it from hotmail through a few proxies and an anonymising service and through an open wingate(just type stats k on dalnet server for a list of them), and it will be as close to impossible to trace as you get. It would definitely cost >$10 to trace at least. Add to that the fact you could send spam and forge your headers to make it look like it came from someone else and even go so far as suing _them_ for it, and I think this law will bring more troubles than it solves.
  • tim, I still want to know why we weren't given the opportunity to question the microsoft engineers after IIS's fantastic performance in the mindcraft benchmarks. I can understand if they refused, but did you even ask? and was this interview with this ingo character offered by him, or requested by slashdot? thank you.

    My god! I wrote this! Normally I'd be pissed if my Slashdot output was misappropriated (not that that's ever happened, right roblimo?) but I'm honored to know that someone felt my point was valid.

    Hmm, as long as I'm posting at +2, I might as well implore you to check out Leisure Town [leisuretown.com]. You will very closely identify, I assure you.

    And a nickel's worth of free advice, McFly: Don't be too quick to judge (i.e. moderate) me for the apparent offtopic nature of my message. While I am willing -- nay, proud -- to bear the slings of outrageous moderation, I recommend that you do not waste your points on me. Trust me on that one.

    yours,
    john
    Trollin' for Art and Microsoft since 1992!
     Whoops forgot to make fun of timothy. tim -- you're a gun nut. monster.
  • Having worked in QA at Microsoft, I solemnly swear that this story is 110% accurate!!
  • It is about the court costs. Um... class action? Maybe you could start a spam-watch, where everyone "affected" by a certain peice of spam bands together and sues the pants off the offender.

    More bang for your buck!

  • You know, government expenditure has the potential to SAVE taxpayers money in the long run. Ever take macroeconomics?

    I consider laws like this a possible investment when proven effective. If people do take this to court and it becomes a deterrent against spammers, this could be saving you money. The amount of _your_ taxes spent on pursuing issues like this is miniscule. If this is found to be a deterrent, ISPs and businesses in general may save money on a macro-scale because of a reduction hardware expenses as a consequence of heavy mail traffic. The aggregate amount of money saved may well be greater than the amount spent on ligitation at the public's expense. And that while that might be a miniscule amount that you gain by lower prices or an improved product or increased mailbox space on your free mail account, it may be more than the haypenny or less you paid more in taxes. It's worth consideration, in any case.

    I have serious problems with people who immediately consider all government expenditure a "waste of taxpaper resources." That's why I don't vote libertarian.
  • I'd have a little kid looking sad... then zoom out to a worried mother... and then have a voice over going "pr0n spam got you down.... turn that frown... INTO CASH" with blinking "$$$" with the mother holding 10 dollar bills. After the mother, there'd be a 5 second zoom in on Master P's face with his big gold teeth showing. Then he'd tell everyone how to cash in on the spam craze. Oh that silly, silly Master P. He know the low down on all the shiznat!
  • We do.
    It's called "Cable"
  • from the article: For purposes of this article:

    "Computer" means an electronic, magnetic, optical, hydraulic or organic device or group of devices which, pursuant to a computer program, to human instruction, or to permanent instructions contained in the device or group of devices, can automatically perform computer operations with or on computer data and can communicate the results to another computer or to a person.

    Wow! They have "organic devices" on the 'net in Virginia?!?!? Cool...

  • Oklahoma has had this for quite a while. Their fine is $500 per piece of unsolicited commercial e-mail. I read a page about one guy that frequently sues over the spam he receives and has won all but his first suit--he knows the ropes now and doesn't lose. I can't remember where I found his URL (maybe here a long time ago). Search for it; you'll probably find it.

    One *VERY* friendly spam site is popsite.net [popsite.net] . Their whole damn page is dedicated to 'preventing' spam. BS! That's a dead give-away to their real business. 90% of the spam I get is from them on more than one of my accounts, but not for much longer. I'm implementing a sendmail filter to bounce the spam back (with a cease and desist letter) to root@ postmaster@ and abuse@ popsite.net AND their admin/tech/billing contacts on their domain. Each time I get a message originating from popsite.net, I'll increment by one the number of times their spam (with my letter) gets sent back to them. With all the spam they send me, that will be up to over a hundred with a month and a half. That should get their attention pretty fsckin' quick. I have sent numerous letters to them asking them to take action, even threatening legal action, and have never gotten a response from them, or their upstream providers that also received my messages.

    Registrant:
    StarNet, Inc. (POPSITE5-DOM)
    473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
    Palatine, IL 60067
    US

    Domain Name: POPSITE.NET

    Administrative Contact:
    Intravartolo, Susanna (IS168-ORG) sue@STARNETUSA.NET
    Susanna Intravartolo
    473 W. Northwest Hwy. St., 1A
    Palatine,, IL 60067
    US
    (847)963-0116
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
    Technical, Support (TS548-ORG) postmaster@STARNETUSA.NET
    StarNet, Inc.
    473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
    Palatine,, IL 60067
    US
    (847)963-0116
    Fax- (847)963-1302
    Billing Contact:
    Billing, Department (BD829-ORG) billing@STARNETUSA.NET
    StarNet, Inc.
    473 W. Northwest Hwy., Ste. 1A
    Palatine,, IL 60067
    US
    (847)963-0116
    Fax- (847)963-1302

    They are from IL and I'm in KS. Who wants to meet me at their office next Friday for a bitch-slapping session?

  • I have be receiving spam mail in my mail box at my house for 20 years!

    Foooool!

    Would you have kept quiet for 20 years if the paper-spam was being delivered COD???
  • As far as I'm concerned, if I give out MY e-mail address to someone, they sell it (which would also make them liable), and someone then sends me unsolicted mail to MY account on MY server, that's tresspassing. They are using MY resources to send me their shit. I didn't authorize them to use MY resources. I didn't ask for them to send me their shit.

    Example:I didn't ask that crook to enter MY garage and use MY electricity when he turned on MY light. I didn't authorize his walking on MY concrete which is causing wear and tear on MY resources.

  • KevinMS says: "... oryou can use a more elegant and powerful solution called
    Sneakemail [sneakemail.com] like I do."

    I'm sure your short term experience with Sneakemail has been fine (assuming you have no affiliation with the company), but I cannot bring myself to use a proxy e-mail site that:
    1. does not have a privacy statement
    2. does not explain its operation clearly in advance (in fact, says essentially nothing).
    3. tells me to create an account blindly, and promises to explain everything as it goes along
    4. explains nothing before collecting my real e-mail address
    5. does not explain its revenue model (if they go belly up, they may sell their customer list)
    6. makes no privacy promises regarding the mail that passes through it, before sign-up (so they can freely make a list of all the porn sites you do business with, but don't want spamming you


    In short, this site has written itself a blank check for abuse. I intend to set up an account with them, leading to a [nonobvious] unused address, just to see if I start recieving mail there! (If not tomorrow, then eventually.) My past tests with similar services have had a near 100% spam rate.

    Be very wary of using Sneakemail, or any service that does not spell out privacy policies. Even sites the spell them out often don't follow them, so what are we to expect from one that makes no promises?
  • 1) You are wasting my time by driving to slow in front of me.

    2) You are wasting my time by writing a check at the grocery store check out line.

    3) You are wasting my time by putting me on hold to wait for tech support.

    4) You are wasting my time by not having enough employees working at the Motor Vechicle registration line.

    5) You are wasting my time by thinking that I am going to waste 10 hours to go to court to get $10 bucks back. That isn't even work 15 min of my time.

    Hell I waste very little time deleteing spam, they should make laws for bigger wastes of time first, than for spam.

    I hardly think spam is the big problem for individuals here. Give the ISP's so power to sue for use of their equipment, don't waste my time. And even this will just push spammers to some other country.

  • My God, that's genious.

    --

  • Couldn't someone send out a whole bunch of spam, posing as a company that they want to 'punish' for some reason? Because of the way this law is set up, if the company couldn't prove it wasn't them, wouldn't they have to pay the fine?

  • I have serious problems with people who immediately consider all government expenditure a "waste of taxpaper resources." That's why I don't vote libertarian.

    There are two main camps of libertarians. One is more prone to that reaction than the other. That group is more accurately referred to as the Anarcho-Capitalists, sometimes also known as individualist anarchists. They see no use whatsoever for a central government. Although they are commonly lumped in with libertarians, it is a distinct and separate philosophy which is more radical and often received unfavorably.

    The term 'libertarian' properly and accurately belongs to the second group. Libertarians support government to the extent that it exists to protect our rights, provide police protection of our lives and property, and defend our shores. I consider myself in this group.

    My point is that not all libertarians are rabidly anti-government on any and every issue.

    I'm still not sure what to think of anti-spam laws, personally. I'm hoping some sort of technical solution will arise, as so often happens on the Internet. I have to say that spam hasn't been a problem for me at all since I learned not to post my address in newsgroups or submit it to dubious sites. I have about 12 different email addresses forwarding to one mailbox, and I get less than one piece of spam a week.



    --

  • Um... class action? Maybe you could start a spam-watch, where everyone "affected" by a certain peice of spam bands together and sues the pants off the offender.

    You missed the point, which is that under this law, when the spammer loses, they must pay court costs and attorney's fees for the person who sued. It would actually be much more expensive for the spammers if the cases are not brought as a class action, because then they'd have to pay the court costs for each of the people who sued, which could add up very quickly.

  • I have not been able to read the statute. So aome of this is guesswork based on reading the comments.

    1. There will be the same problem as witht he Washington law. The problem with knowingly sending the SPAM to Washington. Also, the issue of constitutionality of state laws affecting interstate commerce.

    2. Even though there is attorney fees, there still is a resistance for a court to award $5000 in fees for a $10 case.

    3. There should be a $1000 or $10/per email violation. And include lost wages to appear in court. Court costs and attorney fees do not include the lost wages for the prosecution.

    4. There should also be the same sort of penalty available for the people who had their servers hijacked or addresses forged.

    5. A penalty for people who sell an email address that has not been authorized to be spammed.

    6. Penalty for a Software publisher that writes software that hijacks servers to spam.

    There has been success in having individuals rewarded to stop fraud. That is why Abraham Lincoln put the Qui Tam laws into place. That allows an individual to file a lawsuit on behalf of the federal government

  • Re:Quite Likely Unconstitutional . . . (Score:3)

    by Jim Tyre ( 100017 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @10:49PM (#878351) Homepage
    Hmm, My friend having made the point I would have made, guess I'll have to value-add a little. ;-)

    The actual Washington Court decision is here [wa-state-resident.com], though it doesn't say a lot. The theory is the the Commerce Clause of the Constitution grants primary authority to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government, not the states. If a state law unduly burdens interstate commerce, then, no matter how noble the intent may be, it is unconstitutional. This is what is known as a so-called dormant commerce clause issue, the "typical" commerce clause issue being one where there is a challenge to whether a Congressional enactment is justified under Congress' (quite broad, but not unlimited) commerce power.

    I don't like spam, but as a practicing lawyer, I think the Washington case was decided correctly, and that the U.S. Supremes would agree if ever called upon to visit the issue.

    Of course, federal legislation would not address the First Amendment issue, but that issue won't arise until either there is federal legislation or the Colorado courts disagree with the Washingtom court on the dormant commerce clause issue.

  • personally I wish legislators would keep their hands off the web... I hate spam mail just as much as the next person but really... things will get real interesting now that the US Postal Service is going to give email to every US resident... expect to see alot more ballyhoo like this in the next few years...

  • Re:Quite Likely Unconstitutional . . . (Score:3)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @10:54PM (#878353)
    And even if federal legislation is passed, there remains the outstanding First Amendment questions. Soon to be seen at an appellate court near you . . .

    The whole point of hating spam is not because it's annoying, sure it's annoying, but the bigger picture is someone is paying, usually the email account holder, for these guys to advertise to you. You pay for your internet account, or you pay by seeing banner ads, the ISP pays by using their bandwidth, hard drive space, etc. Spam costs the recipiants money, there is no First Amendment protection which allows you to advertise to someone while costing them money at the same time.

    -- iCEBaLM

  • Re:More bad than good--are you joking?? (Score:3)

    by AME ( 49105 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @11:00PM (#878354) Homepage
    His point is: If you think there's a lot of UCE now, just wait till it's legitimized.

    By the way, I've heard good arguments why none of those things would help at all. The quick list:

    Saying that they can't forge the header is a nice gesture, but it's only a small improvement. Many spammers broadcast from ISP accounts that are shut down within hours anyway.

    The problem with subject tags is that it doesn't eliminate the cost-shifting. Spammers still get a free ride and everybody else pays to deliver and process their junk.

    The problem with opt-out lists is that you still have to receive it. Spammers get one free bite. It wouldn't be *too* bad if it were just that, but all they have to do is "change" their "company" and they get another free bite. Repeat indefinitely. In general, opt-out is not a good solution [cauce.org].

    And all this is assuming that they actually honor the law at all.


    --

  • This legislation conclusively proves two things:

    • all politicians should be required to take an intelligence test before they are allowed to mention the word "computer." Let alone write laws about computers, or (perish the thought) use one.
    • This is an election year

    At first glance, this bill seems too stupid for words--let's be serious. Is there anybody who has been online for, oh, say two weeks that hasn't figured out that on the Internet there are no state lines? And if you've been through law school (which, presumably, most Colorado legislators have been) you have heard something at some time about restrictions on Interstate Commerce? This bill is one colossal exercise in taxpayer-funded flamebait, destined to be overturned by the first judge who reads it. Right?

    Except...

    Politicians should generally be kept away from computers and other things they might hurt themselves with--but that doesn't mean they don't have a nascent form of Neanderthal cunning. Remember--this is an election year. Periodically politicians have to demonstrate that they are fighting, tooth and nail, for their constituents. That they are defending the weak, empowering the powerless, and valiantly struggling to defeat the wicked schemes and machinations of [if democrat==1 {big business, big oil, Republicans} else {labor unions, environmental wackos, Democrats}]. Americans may revere national leaders who are proven veterans of decades of foreign policy--but everybody votes for the guy who "fights". Nobody gets re-elected because he or she is regarded as a serious legal scholar with a remarkable ability to grasp the subtle nuances of extremely complex litigation.

    Example: Bill Bradley, when he was a senator, was reknowned for his serous scholarship, and his ability to grasp the subtle nuances of extremely complex litigation. After two terms, as a senior senator with national prominence, he just barely squeaked past an unknown opponent (Christie Todd Whitman, subsequently elected governor of New Jersey) who promised to "fight for our children." He just got thoroughly spanked by Al Gore in the presidential primaries, even though when they both were in Congress Al wasn't regarded as bright enough to carry Bradley's luggage. But Al promised to "fight for the people."

    So a politician must periodically demonstrate that he is a fighter--pretty much regardless of who he fights, or whether he ever wins. At the same time, most politicians really do want to achieve something or other, and they realize that in order to be effective in a group of 100, 200, or 435 Type A personalities you have to have cooperation. Being a "fighter" and working cooperatively would seem mutually exclusive, no?

    What happens if they stage a fight, but only one fighter shows up?
    Yup. What many politicians have discovered is a way to "fight" that actually doesn't include an opponent. A phenomenon in recent years has been a steady succession of legislation by one "fighting" politico or another designed to prevent the crisis du jour. Cocaine vendors, pornographers, child predators, and now email spammers all have one thing in common: none of them is willing to appear in a public hearing to oppose any legislation. There isn't a Recividist Pedophiles Industry Association wining and dining legislators, or an Alternative Neuro-Pharmacology Association staging demonstrations for government-subsidized blow. Everybody, Republican and Democrat alike, can "fight" email spam with the sure and certain conviction that nobody, anywhere, will oppose them. They all get to print "co-sponsored the Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law" on their campaign brochures, and they look like heroes.

    The fact that the Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law is totally unenforceable, absolutely unconstitutional, and guaranteed to be overturned within minutes of getting litigated doesn't mean anything. These politicians may not be that bright--but they're not completely stupid. They know perfectly well that this law is going to get tossed in the hopper by the first judge to see it. And they know that nobody yet has put "...and 47% of my opponent's legislation was overturned within minutes of getting litigated." on a campaign brochure. The practice won't stop until candidates start running ads pointing out how much tax money is wasted by incumbents writing frivilous legislation in order to look like "fighters".

    This is an election year. The Colorado Anti-Junk-Email Law is an election year gimmick. Don't be fooled into thinking it is anything more--at the very best it is a waste of tax money.

  • It does if ISPs offer a checkbox on thier signup forms

    No, it doesn't. The problem of cost-shifting is not related so much to the user as it is to the provider.

    Do you think it costs them nothing to devote hardware cycles to processing every piece of mail that crosses their servers? Do you think it costs regional and backbone providers nothing to commit large amounts of bandwidth to delivering billions and billions of junk emails?

    Do you suppose that these costs will eventually trickle down to the user's bill? You better bet they will!

    --

  • One thing that seems to be overlooked is: how is a spammer supposed to know that the email is going to someone in Colorado? If I were an attorney, I'd be arguing that my client couldn't be held responsible if it turns out that BartSimpson@eat-my-shorts.com happens to reside in a state that has passed one of these laws. And what about people who have, say, a Yahoo email account that they use POP to download their mail from? How can one possibly know where that goes? What if the Yahoo user lives in a state in which it's legal to send commercial email and then moves to Colorado? This law is going to cause more trouble than it solves, even assuming that it isn't declared unconstitutional. I despise spammers as much as anyone, but passing legislation that won't fix the problem, or worse, bogs down the courts, isn't the answer.
  • And do the customers to whom the email was addressed get the money if the ISP wins? I bet I know the answer to that one.

  • The Revengenator (Score:3)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Saturday August 05, 2000 @08:52AM (#878363)
    Dear Sir or Madam: Do you hate someone? I mean deep-down, gut-churning, all-consuming, roast-in-the-fires-of-hell hatred? Then the all-new Revengenator® is for you! Now, with just the push of a button, you can spew tens of thousands of forged email messages to Colorado residents, all in your target's name! Imagine their surprise when they're hit with thousands of lawsuits for millions of dollars! Your dreams of that all-consuming, sword-of-justice, scorched-earth payback is here, for the low-low price of just $49.95! The Revengenator® : now, it's personal.
  • Basically, as long as your spam has a valid From: address, "ADV" in the subject line, an opt-out mechanism, and doesn't forge header information or domain names, you can spam all you want. And that really doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of good IMHO.

    Doesn't do a lot of good? Are you mad??

    :0:
    * ^Subject:.*ADV.*
    /dev/null

    ...to never get spam in my inbox again. That would sure make ME a happy camper!

    --
  • Well hey, this is kinda like the law against telemarketers calling you after tell them exactly to "take me off your list." I read somewhere that if they call again you can sue them. (more info on this pertaining to telemarketing/junk email here [privacy.net]. . .interesting read if you havent seen it already)

    The hairy line between advertising and harrassment keeps getting tugged from one side to the other by the courts, regardless of the tangled mess of precedent. Meanwhile, we still get spam and probably always will, 'specially with more people checking their email and letting the voice mail be.

    -S

    http://students.washington.edu/steve0/ [washington.edu]
  • If I had a dime for every piece of spam sent to me...

    Wait a sec, I guess I *can* now. :-)

    - Joe

  • Are there better techniques for dealing with it? What reasons can I give the people I email to take action if they don't have specific policies like Tripod does?
    I just assume that all ISPs have an anti-spam policy. (If they don't, I figure clogging their admin's email with copies of spam sent by their customers might motivate one.) Here's the form letter I send to postmaster of ISPs hosting spammers, or who were faked in spam headers:
    Dear sysadmin or postmaster:

    I'm sure that as a reputable organization you have an AUP that forbids spam. Please make this luser aware of it. By any means necessary, up to and including a sledgehammer to the cranium. I'll gladly lend you a sledgehammer if needed.

    If he/she/it faked your address in the headers, maybe you should consider legal action for damage to your reputation. If he/she/it used your machine to relay spam without your knowledge, may I suggest both legal action and tightening your security. (If I can be of assistance in either endeavor, please contact me.)

    Thank you.

    Feel free to adapt for your own use.

    It usually gets a polite form letter reply along the lines of "we have forwarded the matter to the appropriate department for investigation, yada yada yada".

    Of course, traceroute, whois, and reverse domain lookups are your friends in figuring out who to send it to.

  • Just saw this.. (Score:3)

    by Frijoles ( 16015 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:10PM (#878377)
    But the bill also allows that customer's Internet service provider to collect hundreds or thousands of bad messages sent through its main computers and sue the mailer for $10 on each one, providing the incentive of millions of dollars in potential damages.

    Now this could be very damaging to a company. It's good to see that ISPs are not being left out of this bill. Good work, Colorado!
  • I am a laweyr, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

    I haven't read the law (and don't have a Colorado license anyway). However, what makes or break this as a viable solution is the issue of joinder: the way in which these can be combined in a single suit. If each person has to file each complaint as a separate action, it's close to useless; most of us won't front the filing fee, plus another $20 or so to serve it, etc., over ten bucks.

    On the other hand, if the ISP can file these in bulk, perhaps making part of the terms of service an option for the ISP to file and keep a share in return for hirin an attorney, it's a whole new ball game (actually, this is my preferred solution: a standard statutory liquid damages of $10 or so, and joinder rules which permit ISP's to step in on behalf of all subscribers).

    hawk, esq.
  • > as a practicing lawyer,

    Yikes, we're coming out of the woodwork on this one .. . .

    hawk, no longer a practicing lawyer, but instead a recovering lawyer, not having sued anyone in over six years [*applause*]

    [hey, where do I get my five year pin? :) ]

  • Re:$10... (Score:3)

    by Kwikymart ( 90332 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:14PM (#878383)
    If I were a lawyer in colorado right now I would definatly be filming my "Get any spam lately? then you can cash in!" commercials. Instead of having people with neck braces and crutches I would have "ravaged by spam" computer systems that are covered with scortch marks and dents. Muwhahaahha! that'll show 'em!
  • Do you need more money? Sure, we all do! Well, this money making scheme *really works*! How? If you live in the state of Colorado, sue the sender of thie e-mail (that's me) for $10! If you have received multiple copies of this message, you can collect multiple times! Soon, the money will just pile up!

    (By the way, this message is in accordance with U.S. Postal Laws and Free Speach and that Pro-Spam bill they passed awhile back).
  • > Spam wont stop, its too easy and cheap. Even if it was legislated outta existence in the u.s. and other countries it can still come in from other countries

    Will the USA end up sending troops to Columbia to stop spam smugglers?

    --
  • > Doesn't do a lot of good? Are you mad??
    >
    > :0:
    > * ^Subject:.*ADV.*
    > /dev/null
    >
    > ...to never get spam in my inbox again. That
    > would sure make ME a happy camper!

    Yes, but you're forgetting about those of us who have to *pay* to access our e-mail. Here in Japan, there is no flat-rate calls to anywhere (including your local ISP), so you are paying extra to download all that spam. I *really* resent having to subsidize would-be "businessmen" (read: chicken boners) spam whether it arrives at my mailbox or is filtered to /dev/null.

    I believe the U.S. and Canada are two of the very few countries offering flat-rate local calls. But I still get every bit as much spam to my addresses in Japan as you do to your address in Nevada.
  • > As soon as the law comes into effect, you will see an enormous increase the in the e-mail filters being set worldwide (whereever the knowledge goes) to "Move into Trash whatever says ADV".

    Those of us with dialup links will greatly resent having to spend several hours downloading several megabytes of spam, just so we can get the handful of useful messages from our friends.

    I think one of the restraints on spam right now is the fact that is is almost universally recognized as bad manners. Only assholes send spam. But if governments start saying "it's OK, so long as you label it", then the odium will be lessened, and the internet will drown in a big vat of pink pseudo-meat.

    --
  • Hey!

    The problem with subject tags is that it doesn't eliminate the cost-shifting.

    It does if ISPs offer a checkbox on thier signup forms for "Store *ADV*?" so at the same time as choosing your POP password, you can choose for all messages with ADV in thier titles to be deleted at the mail server. The same could be done at SMTP servers.

    Maybe...

    Michael


    ...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.

  • Actually, it isn't about the $10 (Score:4)

    by rstultz ( 146201 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:15PM (#878402) Homepage
    It is about the court costs. It can cost quite a bit for court costs, and that provides a means that people aren't going to be making money off of getting spam (such as if it were a $500 fine), but they still get dinged pretty badly, when 50 people suddenly sue, and they have to pay their court costs and the 50 people's... that could effectively stop all SPAM.

  • Law only useful for class action suits (Score:5)

    by benwb ( 96829 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:17PM (#878403)
    It seems to me that a law like this would only be useful if a large number of people banded together and sued a spammer. Ten dollars here or there will not really impact a large spammer- they'll just roll it into operating costs, and instead of charging pennies an address, they'll be charging, well... pennies an address.

    However, lawyers will be on this like flies on honey. The best profit margin that a lawyer can have is on a class action suit, and this has to be one of the easiest ones for them to find claimants. Lawyers will make a bit of money, and if we're really lucky they'll litigate the spammers into non-existence.

  • Court TV.. (Score:3)

    by wiZd0m ( 192990 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:18PM (#878404)
    Man, I can't wait to see the first spammers who's gonna get hammered by Judge Judy... ;-)

  • Quite Likely Unconstitutional . . . (Score:5)

    by werdna ( 39029 ) on Friday August 04, 2000 @08:19PM (#878406) Journal
    It may well be that only federal legislation can resolve this problem. Washington State's anti-spam legislation was recently held unconstitutional [cnet.com] on the ground that states may not regulate the flow of spam, in that doing so is unduly restrictive of interstate commerce in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

    While another court may have a different view, there is precedent that seems indistinguishable in the present case.

    And even if federal legislation is passed, there remains the outstanding First Amendment questions. Soon to be seen at an appellate court near you . . .

  • The only thing this bill would "do" if it is upheld is shield spammers. It's not going to affect the fly-by-net scum that make up the majority of spammers, as they will simply ignore it. What it WILL do is provide a shield of respectability for more established groups that want to spam you but are afraid of the repercussions.

    $10 civil remedy per spam? Under national law in the US there is already a $500 civil remedy (under US Code 47.5.II, a better law than any that have been proposed since) - guess what? It doesn't mean squat unless you can prove who sent the crap. If you get spammed by someone foolish enough to include his real identity, by all means, file suit in small claims court and screw them hard. But the vast majority don't do that, and won't do that.

    All this law means is that folks that aren't totally fly by night, that you can track down, will now have a shield that might or might not stand up in court or even be interpreted by an ISP to shield them from the booting they deserve - if they comply with it. "But your honor, this promotion (they never call it SPAM but that's what it is) was conducted in full compliance with HR00-1309, we move for immediate dismissal." "But, abuse@myprovider.com, this was not SPAM, it was mass marketing conducted in full compliance with HR00-1309."

    The legislature of the state of colorado has no right to determine that my private mailbox can be abused by anyone as an advertising medium as long as they do it nicely. My mailbox is mine and is not for the purpose of unsolicited advertising, period.

    Opt out is wrong for several reasons. First off it isn't honoured, and it never will be. Send your address to an opt out service and, if they don't spam you themselves, they will certainly add your list to the confirmed list they sell to all the other spammers. Don't believe me? Make a free email account, any of the dozens of places available, don't use it, don't give it to anyone, except for the "removal" addresses the spammers send you. Give it a few months, and you'll have tons of mail. I've done this, others have done this, it works.

    Secondly, even if they honoured it, it's still an unnacceptable shift of responsibilities. If someone wants to use my address for advertising, they need to get my permission first. They have no right to demand that I mail them and "opt out" unless I opted in to begin with. If you disagree, think about this for a moment - how about I go around and find all the mailing lists I can that don't confirm joining (a practice that is fortunately rarer than it once was, but there are some) and burden you with removing yourself. How many mailing lists can I sign you up for in a day, before you say enough!? Their failure to confirm your subscription properly does NOT create any obligation to jump through their removal hoops. When someone spams you, you have no obligation to ASK them to quit - anymore than you have to ASK someone to stop stealing your car.

    If I want to know about your product/service/chain letter I'll use one of the many fine search engines and find you. If you send me ads anyway, I WILL make sure that your provider knows about it, and if they don't care I'll be talking to their provider. No law is needed.

    SPAM is network abuse, period, and IMOP all attempts to fight it through the legislature are fatally flawed. The legislature is the pawn of business, and a great many businesses want a license to spam. They have enough influence to ensure ALL legislation will have such a license embedded in it. The net is much better equipped to deal with spam. Organisations like maps and orbs do more good than any government will ever do. If certain networks want to be spam friendly, that is their right - but the rest of us have no obligation to carry their traffic. Let them have their own internet, and spam each other to their hearts content.

  • Ahhh, should've been more specific on that. What I meant was that, even though the spammer could be using ISP X for his spam run, they could just stick a Hotmail throwaway in there, since it is a valid address.

    HTH

    --
  • Spam costs the recipiants money, there is no First Amendment protection which allows you to advertise to someone while costing them money at the same time.

    Playing devil's advocate here (I agree with the sentiment), I doubt language like this would find its way into a court opinion. Your television and cable services cost you money. Your telephone services cost you money. Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain.

    The issue depends closely how a particlar bill is crafted. Compelled speech (label your e-mail in a particular way) or prohibited speech can give rise to a First Amendment claim. (While I agree there are arguments to be made on both sides, I have always found it interesting how we Slashdotters tend to be First Amendment Absolutists on some issues and non-constitutionalists on others . . .)

    There is already some jurisprudence on the subject, but nothing is likely to be settled (given the commerce clause issue), until the federal government gets into the act.

    There *IS*, of course, a way to regulate spam that doesn't involve a content-based speech regulation: make it unlawful to misrepresent, whether by X-MAIL tag or otherwise, the manner with which e-mail was distributed. (There is an unassailable first amendment constitutional exception for regulation of false statements.)

    Once this is done, we can modify our e-mail clients to include a tag, perhaps something like

    X-DIST: 100 10

    to mean "this e-mail has not been sent, either in identical or substantially similar form, to more than 100 people who have not previously subscribed for such e-mail in the past 10 days, whether by the sender of this message, or persons in privity with them." Or something like that.

    Now, we can filter spam just fine -- and slam those who misrepresent (if you can catch them) with whatever book you care to throw at them -- and all without implicating the First.
  • However, lawyers will be on this like flies on honey. The best profit margin that a lawyer can have is on a class action suit, and this has to be one of the easiest ones for them to find claimants. Lawyers will make a bit of money, and if we're really lucky they'll litigate the spammers into non-existence.

    That is, of course, the point. One could make the statute a criminal matter, enforced by the government. But then, the burden of proof would have to be "beyond a reasonable doubt," and the government would have to spend substantal resources to catch them. By having "private district attorneys" litigating these matters, the government doesn't need to get involved, yet the regulation is effectively enforced, at least in part.

    The downside is that such actions will have little impact on "judgment-proof" spammers with little resources, or perhaps at most a house (protected by homestead) and a few computers with an internet link. There is no benefit to class-action lawyers in terms of money, and the incentive to enforce is lost. For this reason, the Spam bill needs to be followed-up with criminal penalties as well. (While a judgment proof person may not be afraid of losing a few chattels (indeed, might not even answer the complaint and simply move on after a default judgment is entered), many do value their liberty.)

    However, in any case, the bill has to be written carefully to avoid First Amendment issues. And, as noted in a separate message, legislation of this type passed by a State may well be unconstitutional, in view of what happened in Washington State.
  • This whole thing will get thrown out the first time some slimy spammer convinces a judge that there's no possible way they can determine whether mail sent to the email addresses they have on their list are going to Colorado or not.

    Personally, I'd prefer a simple ammendment to the junk fax law that includes spam in the same category as junk faxes. (The junk fax law is vague when it comes to definitions... spam could actually be considered a junk fax by the definitions they used... but I believe this was tested in court and failed)

    -S (receiver of over 3000 spams since '97)
  • Use the address above.

    Even the Federal Trade Commish [ftc.gov] claims that uce "is a threat to consumer confidence in online commerce."
  • I think this law is a great idea, but totally un-enforceable. Even if you could get say, all of the G7 nations to enact similar laws spammers would just move servers to a different country and it would be business as usual. Also, alot of times spam comes from hijacked mail servers so you'd have to deal with suing people whose only fault is having an insecure server if the penalty was paid by the originating address. This is more a case of political posturing than actual law-making. To enforce this law at all would be completely unfeasible.
  • I can see it now, the mailboxes of Colorado residents will be filled with "ADV: Getting spammed lately?" email.

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