Spammer Fined $2,000 Plus Costs in Washington 244
berniecase writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Jason Heckel, of Salem, OR, has been ordered (on summary judgment, no less) by King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North to pay $98,000 for sending spam to Washington state residents. Heckel's lawyers say they'll appeal on the basis that Washington's law violates the constitutional protection of interstate commerce."
Finally! (Score:2, Interesting)
Hopefully this will set a precedent that can be applied against all of the other spam companies.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
Stopping International Spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
There are good ways to slow them down considerably right now -- spam filters, blacklists, etc. These have made it significantly harder for spammers to get their email to their targets/victims, and reduced abysmally low response rates even further.
However, stopping spammers or any other kind of criminal entirely isn't possible. Despite the clear laws and effective enforcement, people still kill other people, steal their property, etc. What the laws and enforcement do is make it dangerous to commit crimes, and deter most people who might otherwise do so.
Before you can deter a spammer in, say, China, you've got to think of a way to make him/her think that spamming is too dangerous and not worth the trouble. That depends on, not just new laws, but a very different international legal environment. (That, or convincing the Chinese government that all spammers are members of Falun Gong.) <wry grin>
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
Specifically, legitimate Internet users in China and other Asian nations are finding it harder and harder to send legitimate e-mails to Western-based ISPs which have blacklisted them. Boom, automatic international sanctions, from the ground up.
As a result, they are going to start increasing pressure on their governments to deal with the problem. And if there's one nice thing about an authoritarian government, it's that they are very good at dealing with "problems". We fine someone $2000, they use the gulag... hmmm.. spammers in the gulag. That I'd like to see.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps we could petition them to set up webcams. I'd pay to see it.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
No! No no no no no! Don't give the Chinese spammers any more ideas!!!
Hello and Greetings! You like see evil spammer in gulag? Watch hot inmates get advantage of evil spammer in shower! Just click here for hot, gulag shower webcam!
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
What do you think the war on Iraq is about? What else could Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction be than a battalion of spammers with big lists?
$2000 dollar fine (Score:5, Informative)
Which adds a nice cool $96,197.74 on to it.
Re:$2000 dollar fine (Score:5, Insightful)
And that was only 2/3rds of what the state asked for in costs. They also asked for $20,000 in fines.
Washington's law does not make all spam illegal. Only e-mails that use a deceptive subject line, misrepresent the e-mail's origin or use someone else's domain name without permission are prohibited.
This is interesting. Virginia's law is similar, it's an extension of the fraud laws, not of the computer crime laws. I think that is a good way to attack the issue without running into first amendment issues.
Re:$2000 dollar fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$2000 dollar fine (Score:2, Informative)
If you register your email as "not wanting to get spam" (there's a website to do it on), then spammers (or to be "PC" about it... Commercial Bulk Emailers) are supposed to use that list.
If they email you on one of those BS "Opt Out" mailing lists, that is one of the grounds you can sue them for.
$200-300 per email isn't bad, considering I usually get 10+ spam mails on a bad day.
Re:$2000 dollar fine (Score:2, Funny)
--
Re:$2000 dollar fine (Score:2, Insightful)
There is now a (small) reason for spammers to consider a different line of work. It's time to make the scummy companies, who use the services of spammers, fear for their pocketbooks.
Who knows, maybe after a few companies get hit with fines for hiring spammers, they'll start to fade away or go back to bulk mailing. It's like jailing people who hire hitmen to kill their spouses for the insurance. Sure, we put the hitman behind bars when we find them... but we also put away the scum who solicited the murder.
Damn, how I hate spam! And that pink imitation meat stuff is pretty disgusting too!
"Interstate commerce"? What about international? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, there's always relays.osirusoft [osirusoft.com] - a cross-referenced database of nearly all DNS blacklists.
Re:"Interstate commerce"? What about international (Score:4, Funny)
Hard choice.
Re:"Interstate commerce"? What about international (Score:4, Insightful)
Here in the USA, I suffer with both.
Re:"Interstate commerce"? What about international (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we need an unaccountable, basically secret organisation of corrupt career beurecrats to have the power to fine people for sending messages out that someone doesn't want to recieve. What a wonderful plan! I'm sure their abuses of authority will be central to any calls to overthrow all world government via armed struggle over the course of the next century - since peaceful progress is for pussies, I support this plan wholeheartedly. Also, we should give the WTO the authority to try and execute journalists and peace corps volunteers.
How's about this - everyone sign an anti-spam treaty, and then make it enforceable in the courts with local jurisdiction over the spammer, regardless of were the spam went. The WTO would be guaranteed to clamp down on any spammer that wasn't part of their clique, so you miss something in enforcement, but at the very least you have a direct guarantee (which ought to be explicit in the treaty) that this power won't be used to stifle public participation or the like.
Re:"Interstate commerce"? What about international (Score:2)
I agree that the WTO is problematic, but it was approved by duly elected governments. It is, in effect, the treaty you wish each country to sign. As much as I hate to admit, the purpose of the WTO is probably sound. Instead of trying to develop a process or treaty to negotiate each international problem, a general process is set up that can handle most problems. On the balance, it is likely a good thing.
If there is really a problem of the WTO, it is the fault of or duly elected officials, who negotiate the deals, and not the WTO, which is just a bureaucracy following the rules they are given.
Re:"Interstate commerce"? What about international (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a long day -- I read this and had a mental picture of a law that required all spammers to use condoms.... ;)
On a more serious note, international law isn't up to dealing with spam and spammers yet, and I don't think it will be any time soon. It can't even deal with terrorism and terrorists effectively. :/
Osirusoft is an excellent resource, but it doesn't contain anything even close to all of the available anti-spam blacklists. MAPS is pretty irrelevant these days, but don't forget the DSBL [dsbl.org] , Five-Ten-Sg [five-ten-sg.com] , Monkeys.com [monkeys.com] , RFC-Ignorant [rfc-ignorant.org] , and Wirehub [wirehub.nl] , all of which are publicly queryable and none of which are mirrored by Osirusoft.
There are a whole bunch of other blacklists out there, as well. Not all are well maintained and not all have consistent policies about which IP ranges or domains get listed and how a domain can be removed, though, so I stick to the established ones.
Interstate commerce? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spam has never helped me in a monetairy way, and for me has nothing to do with products whatsoever...
Re:Interstate commerce? (Score:4, Funny)
What kind of a person are you?
Re:Interstate commerce? (Score:2, Funny)
* free Viagra
* your penis being enlarged
* FREE HOT XXX TEENS
* losing 500 pounds in two weeks
* an easy college diploma
* making money very quickly
Re:Interstate commerce? (Score:4, Funny)
First you get the Viagra.
Then your penis 'enlarges' ...
I don't know about you, but if I had to keep up with the energy of several wet, horny teens I'd probably drop my spare tire in a big hurry!
What with all the intellectual discourse you'll be having with these teens, a diploma should be a breeze!
Diploma = money. Like, duh?
justice... (Score:2, Interesting)
lets hope more people take advantage of this...
$96000 Costs....? (Score:5, Funny)
That means the lawyers cost $96000.... $96000.... 96000 M.F. Dollars!
Ok, that does it, I'm sending in my application to Yale right now!!!
Re:$96000 Costs....? (Score:2, Informative)
$96000 (US) was only two-thirds of the cost, according to the article.
And he didnt profit :) (Score:3, Insightful)
The guy only made like 600 bucks.
Re:And he didnt profit :) (Score:3, Informative)
All he has to do is ignore it and they can't do anything without a prolonged legal wrangle with the courts in his state.
Assuming they work through that he'll have to pay some sort of contempt of court fine (a few grand at most) but he can dodge the rest simply by declaring bankruptcy and reopening under a different name.
Re:And he didnt profit :) (Score:2, Interesting)
Last I heard, court judgements and fines of this type were non-dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings. But otherwise, I agree that if he stays poor enough, never buys a house, and never gathers any significant amount of assets, there isn't much that the court can do.
That isn't how most people want to live, though. :)
Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously, this guy got the _wrong_ email address. Go Washington!
Cash now! Ask me how! (Score:5, Funny)
After all, he got rich on the Internet and you can too.
Re:Cash now! Ask me how! (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the article, he sold pamphlets for $40 in quantities of 30-50 per week for about a year. This was while sending 100K to 1M e-mails per week. So, at best, he's getting a 0.04% response rate.
Doing the math assuming an average for 40 sales pe week, he made $1600/wk, or $83,200 per year before expenses.
Since the fine is $98k, his losses, before expenses, are $14,800. Ha ha! Spamming doesn't pay!
Re:Cash now! Ask me how! (Score:2)
Where do I sign up?
Problem with the decision (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's face it: The amount of people that can see a message when sent via e-mail is a hell of a lot more than any advertiser could hope for via any other medium. And a $100K judgement, I believe, isn't enough incentive to stop anyone from spamming.
Besides, the real problem with spam tends to lie overseas, out of the reach of the US justice system. Most of the spam I receive day in, day out seems to originate from the Orient--China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, etc.
While I applaud the decision here at home, I wonder what sort of effect it will ultimately have on curbing the spam problem. Sadly, I don't think it's going to make even the smallest of dents.
My $.02, anyway...
Re:Problem with the decision (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't know there was such a thing.
Re:Problem with the decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly correct--the spam you receive seems to originate overseas. Actually, much of it is coming from hucksters in North America. They're just bouncing their pitches off open relays overseas.
Re:Problem with the decision (Score:3, Interesting)
And hosting their sites in the PRC or Korea, where they're basically untouchable. The godless communists (plus the South Koreans) get hard currency, and the spammers get "bullet proof hosting." Time for a cable cut, and soon.
Re:Problem with the decision (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, not according to SpamCop [spamcop.net].
Most come from Europe/Asia, except for the Hotmail spam (now that's weird, isn't it?).
Re:Problem with the decision (Score:2, Insightful)
But even without the "where did it really originate" argument: looking at the statistics I draw up each month for my employer, based on detected spams (I think we catch some 80% of it by the way), the vast majority comes from the States, and the vast majority of that vast majority comes from just a handful of spammers (jackpot.com, oin70.com and whatever their domain-of-the-week is). They just keep on pumping the spam even though we've been rejecting it for months (one spammer has been ignoring his target being unreachable since 1996, and I've got 4,000 spam attempts on file from that single spammer to a single recipient).
Wow... (Score:4, Funny)
Not unless you're an ISP (Score:4, Interesting)
So yeah, you can make money, but the only way to actually make good money would be if you were an ISP (because you could sue every US spammer that sent email to a user). Individuals like me are better off getting a job
Or a lawyer (Score:2)
Anti-spam cases with large amounts of spam and good $/spam could prove to be the mother-load for lawyers working on a percentage basis.
hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Follow the rules. (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody is stopping him from interstate commerce in Washington state, he just cant be deceptive. Oh the horror.
Sue spammers, pay $7000 for THEIR legal fees (Score:5, Informative)
spam.... (Score:5, Informative)
MIMEDefang [roaringpenguin.com] + MCaffee [mcaffee.com] (enter favorite virus scanner here) + Spamassassin [taint.org] makes the spam and viruses pretty much go away.
And here [rudolphtire.com] is a great HOWto by Mickey Hill on making it all work together.
Legislation is not going to solve this problem, and only ties up our courts/government with drivel. As many people have mentioned, how is this going to work with international spammers? It's not. Just kill the spam.
You missed one (Score:5, Informative)
"SPEWS is a list of areas on the Internet which several system administrators, ISP postmasters, and other service providers have assembled and use to deny email and in some cases, all network traffic from.
Most spam advisory and blocking systems work after the fact. There is a time lag between the spammer setting up shop, spamming millions, and getting netblocks listed by these systems. SPEWS identifies known spammers and spam operations, listing them as soon as they start, sometimes even before they start spamming."
I'm working on setting up my own mail server just so I can implement SPEWS (and other spam-fighting tools).
SPEWS does much more harm than good (Score:2)
They recently blacklisted a huge swath of IP addresses - hundreds of class Cs, [spews.org] deliberately blocking not just spammers but thousands of IP addresses on neighboring subnets. Sadly, my little block of 64 IPs was included. So I went on the mailing list (SPEWS will not respond to inquiries) and suggested than an error had been made. My IP was coming up as a "confirmed source of spam" in spamasassin and other tools. I was immediately bombarded by a bunch of leet little fucks telling me it was my fault for choosing the wrong ISP, and I need to switch.
Fuck SPEWS. I like my ISP [hurricane.net], and I could find no evidence of them being spam-friendly. In fact, SPEWS keeps almost zero documentation. The just block whatever the hell they want, and they're accountable to no one.
Please don't filter with SPEWS unless you want to lose contact with a good chunk of legit mail servers which have deliberately been blacklisted!!!
Re:You missed one (Score:3, Informative)
Even vger.kernel.org was listed once...
Odds are using spews to filter will nail a lot of good email along the way.
Re:spam.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Spammers find ways around filters. Notice that they're using l33t sp33k now? I get very short 2 line spams for "h0t r@pe sit3s" now that just slip right by SpamAssassin.
It's a game that they play. *Some* sort of legislation works. At least it gives Joe Average a way to fight back and go after spammers. The ISPs can go after spammers and recoup damages, if any occured.
I'm sick of having to build walls just to keep idiot spammers out. I have other things that I'd rather spend time on.
Re:spam.... MIMEDefang should DIE! (Score:3, Interesting)
Education is the answer. Breaking MIME should be a criminal offense.
What about SnailMail spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, here becomes the question... are spammers protected by the same laws that enable companies to send you junk mail? If they are then it's something you just have to delete every day, like throwing out junk mail. If not, can those companies that send junk-mail be fined on similar grounds?
Something slightly thought-provoking if you think about it.
Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you know of any hard figures that support either conclusion?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, as I understand it, junk mail slightly subsidizes first class. It is not subsidized by first class or any other class of mail.
The costs to receive junk postal mail are indirect, although real. In my case, it costs two dollars a month for a slightly larger rented mailbox, a little electricity to run my shredder for all the credit card offers (which cannot be safely thrown away unopened, as I do most junk mail), slightly higher rent to pay for an additional trashcan for the apartment complex to accomodate the extra trash....
And the real cost to me, which is the time wasted to deal with it. :/ It doesn't annoy me as much as telemarketing calls, and nowhere near as much as spam, but it is an issue.
Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, and here's why. I dont have to pay anything to recieve junk snail mail. Many many people have to pay to recieve spam. It's not just you spending money on your internet connection, it's also your provider who has to pay for more bandwidth, and the backbone providers as well.
The bottom line is that spam costs a lot of money.
Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:3, Insightful)
- No, and here's why. I dont have to pay anything to recieve junk snail mail.
Whilst that's accurate, its not the whole story. Last time I checked, garbage collection was not free. So yes, it does cost me money.Re:What about SnailMail spam? (Score:5, Informative)
Now consider another thing: not only do you get it for free, but the sender is spending exorbiant amounts of money on their junk mail! There's the cost of typesetting, printing, binding, and then there's the postage, which is a minimum of US$.15 per article. So let's say it is going to cost them US$.20 (20 cents) per mailer.
Take for instance the perennial Pennysaver [pennysaver.com], which is broadcast to everybody with an address. Harte-Hankes, their owner, is broadcasting this to every resident with a postal address, General Delivery addresses excepted, once per week. Now lets consider that in Anaheim, CA there are around 350,000 people covering 11-12 zip codes. In short, Harte-Hankes is spending US$70,000 per week to send a circular - that's US$3,640,300 PER YEAR in postage for the circulars alone, including the $150 fee for the permit to send bulk mail and another $150 fee for a permit to send the mail with a "postage paid" indicia on it (in lieu of a stamp or meter mark). That's in Anaheim ALONE, so you can imagine how much it costs to send these out once per week throughout the United States. It is on this kind of stuff that your mailman is making his bread and butter - you think your $.37 stamp for sending off the money to the phone company is keeping him fed?
So now that we have established that companies who spam your snail mail box spend exorbiant amounts of money in merely dropping this stuff at the post office, let's consider how much a spammer spends on his spam run:
$19.95 per month for his internet connection on a reputable ISP
$300 for a mass-mailing package if he gets one from another spammer
$600 on a decent computer with the latest greatest Windoze version
So this guy made a one-time go of $900, and if he is lucky he'll spend a total of $39.90 because his ISP overlooks him for a month. (Or worse, he has a contract that exempts him from the TOS rules and is perpetually on until somebody sues his ass blue.)
So this guy is making a trivial investment and gets to distribute the cost of his stupidity over the entire 'net.
More information can be found on the United States Postal Service [usps.com] website, and postage rates for US Domestic mail can be reviewed by looking at a PDF of USPS Notice 123 [usps.com] (WARNING: PDF LINK).
Dear God! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Dear God.... (Score:2, Informative)
<G>
Anyone who has lived in a cave for the last two years and isn't aware of the Advance Fee Fraud scheme, which is run out of Nigeria, most other west African countries south of the Sahara, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and the Netherlands as of the last time I checked my spamtrap, should check out the following URLs:
Believe it or not, there have been billions lost to this scam, from people who should have been smarter. (And less greedy.)
Commerce? (Score:2)
Re:Commerce? (Score:2)
Educating Businesses (Score:5, Interesting)
We tried to explain how this doesn't really help generate traffic, and how it generates bad will, and how some states now have laws against unsolicited email.
The final kicker was to have the following conversation with the company founder.
Me: "How often do you get spam email?"
Him: "All the time."
Me: "Do you read any of it?"
Him: "No."
[awkward 15 second silence]
Him: "I get it.".
Re:Educating Businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
"No, I don't -- but somebody must, or there wouldn't be so much spam email being sent."
(sigh)
Re:Educating Businesses (Score:2)
Re:Educating Businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
A day later the internet provider's legal department responded to my client with a flat "we will kick you in an instant if you do that".
That helped...
(It also helps wearing my vote against spam [politik-digital.de] t-shirt when explaining clients why spam is problematic...)
Re:Educating Businesses (Score:2, Insightful)
Once a crook always a crook. Same goes for unscrupulous business people, big AND small.
Spammers = Crackers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:3, Insightful)
Free Speech does not extend to using others properity against thier wishes. If someone wishes to use the domain, the equipment, and the bandwidth that I'm paying for, then they can damn well pay me for advertising.
Spammers want free speech as in "free beer" not as in freedom, and they seek to gain this "free" speech by transfering the costs of the ads to the people recieving thier garbage by driving up the costs others pay for maintaining e-mail services.
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:2)
Also, you are not forbidding one's excercise of free speech, you are forbidding the vandalism and tresspass on one's property. Big difference.
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL
If you buy, rent, lease, or contract for a service, it's chattel. If it's chattel, it's property.
If you rent a car from Avis, and while you are parked in the parking lot for Home Depot, and I put a lock on your car so you can't drive it, then I'm commiting a tortious interfearance with your contract with Avis, and depriving you of the use of something you paid for.
Even if I unlock it before you come out, it's actionable, because you MIGHT use it and you paid for it.
If I put a govenor on your rental car to keep you from going over 25 MPH, still a problem. I'm keeping you from using your rental car the way you leased it.
When you "buy" internet access, you are buying a service from someone. If I send you spam, you can't use that bandwidth while I'm sending. When I send you spam, it takes space in your mail box, depriving you of the use of that space. When you download your mail, I'm using space on your system to store spam, space you can't use for anything else until it's deleted.
As you can see, every phase of sending spam once it hits your ISP is depriving you of something you paid to use, never agreed to let me use, and is stolen every time I send you spam.
I've seen spammers try to use this arguement, and they get shot down pretty quickly.
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:5, Insightful)
Many spammers argue that free speech constitutes that banning spamming is a violation of protected free speech.
This is a straw argument to avoid the real issue.
First, commercial speech is not protected by the US constition [abuse.net] in the way free speech by US citizens is.
Second, wether I like it or not is relevant.
The right to free speech means that the government or its officials cannot forbid citizens the freedom of expression.
It does not mean, however, that citizen A has to listen to another citizen B's speech forced upon him. Free speech also does not mean that citizen A has to allow citizen B to talk freely on A's property.
As a cinema owner, I can expell a weirdo who stands up in the middle of the film and reads from the communist manifesto. As a newspaper editor, I can decide which letter the paper publishes and which not. As an internet provider, I can decide if my mail servers filter spam or not.
And finally, the very method of spamming is illegal over here in Germany and I have successfully brought a spammer to court here (although with very little financial consequences for the spammer). It's good to see that US courts are seing the light, as well.
Re:Spammers = Crackers (Score:2)
In some cases, it one might be able to throw fraud into the list as well.
Poetic Justice (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad he cannot pay the fine.
The only guys who actually increased their male package size by 300% are the dudes who are going to [beep] him in jail.
The law says...! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I am misrepresenting myself through name, address or other contact information, there are many who say this would amount to fraud and deception.
The anit-spam law does nothing more than spell out the forms of fraud and deception that are not permissible and identifies the consequences of those acts. Fraud and deception in business has always been immoral and almost always been unlawful. Like so many other laws written in the past 8 years, there isn't anything really new about them -- they merely attempt to clear up the "grey areas" associated with using newer technologies to perpetrate old crime.
That said, I hate the DMCA and all it stands for -- they go too far. But just as I have said, this is nothing new -- Copyright violation is really nothing new -- it was illegal before and it's illegal now.
Now maybe my support of anti-spam and my position against the DMCA might seem contradictory except for my view on what law is for. Law should protect the rights of all the people. When it starts to protect or create the rights of a minority at the expense of the rights of the whole population, there is a serious problem with the philosophy of law. Anti-spam law protects the rights of the whole population. The DMCA creates new rights [powers?] for a minority at the expense of our rights to fair use and criminalizes the whole nation for trivial and common acts of the public.
If your state doesn't currently have anti-spam law, write a letter to your law makers about it. It takes about as much time and effort as writing an email... in many cases, it's the same effort -- send them an email!! Anti-spam is something the whole city, state and country can get behind and might be a really cool [modern] 'issue' to talk about while campaigning for re-election. Use your voter's leverage to get things done. That's ultimately what "campaign contributions" are allegedly for anyway... money to use to get you to vote for them. Just tell them you won't vote for them unless you get the kind of law you are interested in. After that, no amount of campaign contributions would help them get re-elected... then the gravy train is over for them.
You're reading this... you're taking lots of time you could be spending writing to your law makers... are you still here? You're still reading this aren't you. You lazy-ass! Complacant cow. Say something! Do something and quit complaining that there's nothing you can do when you can. If you've already done it, do it again... are you still reading? Why? Crap...
When some people discover the truth, they just can't understand why everybody isn't eager to hear it.
Re:The law says...! (Score:2)
I just thought I'd point out that all our civil rights laws are based on this premise. The rights of minorties were being violated and new laws were written which affected the entire nation and in some cases the entire world. Just some food for thought.
Re:The law says...! (Score:2)
Assumptions assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad math. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actual Text of Law... (Score:5, Informative)
profit? (Score:3, Funny)
I rarely see spam anymore (Score:2)
Phew! (Score:5, Funny)
Madhouse: Satirized for your protection [insaneabode.com]
Legal Solutions Practical? (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as I hate spam, I don't think laws against it will help. Most spam is already illegal because it is fraudulent or because it was sent by illegally(?) breaking into a private mail server to do the mail relaying. I think the real solutions are technical and social:
As a side note (rant), I personally believe that it is wrong to for companies that we do business with to send marketing materials via email unless you specifically ask. Sometimes I want product announcements from a company, so I will sign up for such lists. But such lists should be opt-in (not opt-out). Web forms that require you to register and have a "add to mailing list" checkbox should have that option *disabled* by default.
As for why email spam is worse than snail mail spam, there are two simple answers: 1. Email is (almost) free to send, and therefore the bulk if junk email is much greater. 2. The way email is used is very different. If you have your email client alert you while you are working to tell you that you have a message, and that message is spam, your work was interrupted for nothing. This does not apply to snail mail. [This is also why I think telemarketers are even worse than spammers -- they are more intrusive.)
Appeal not worth the effort (Score:2)
Re:How will billg make out? (Score:2, Funny)
Didn't you know? Bill Gates sends tons of spam. It's how he recruits beta testers [stiller.com] for Windows.
No, it's your argument that's silly (Score:5, Insightful)
You may think it's silly, but it's the law. All law is location-based... think about it! By your logic, you couldn't prosecute someone for transmitting child porn because he can't be sure of the location of the recipient (whether that should be prosecuted or not is another question, and one that I won't debate here; it's clear that it can be prosecuted, which is what counts).
If there's a risk of breaking the law, the onus is on the perpetrator to ensure that he's sending his stuff only to places that he's allowed to send it. The fact that it's hard to do that isn't the law's problem... maybe that'll give the spammers a little less incentive to spam in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No, it's your argument that's silly (Score:2)
It would be very hard to prove that promoting penile enlargment to somebody's 70-yr-old widowed granny or a 13-yr-old with a hotmail account would be considering a viable commercial activity.
There is a way (Score:5, Informative)
Yes there is. Washington State has a registry of e-mail addresses [waisp.org] that residents can sign up for.
Registration of your Washington E-mail address on this site makes sure would-be senders have some way of finding out you own a Washington E-mail address. Your rights to take individual action under the law and the state's right to jurisdiction are protected when you register your E-mail address.
Re:There is a way (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm...do you actually have to be a Washington resident to sign up?
Re:this war on spam is silly (Score:2)
Re:text of the article (Score:2)
100,000 to 1 million emails a week...let's say 500k. 500k emails a week is 2 million a month, for fifty responses? That's one response per 40000 emails.
Re:text of the article (Score:2)
You are ignoring the spammer's logic. He got something (1000 to 2000$/month, according to those numbers) for basically doing nothing at all.
It's like telemarketing
Exactly. I still wonder why telemarketing is still so big in the US. "But it works" say the marketing people, but yet the only thing everybody agrees on is that it sucks.
Re:text of the article (Score:2)
http://groups.google.de/groups?selm=36332314.7314