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Spam Government The Courts Your Rights Online News

Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S. 322

Posted by timothy from the just-a-bill dept.
goats_in_boats writes "A new bill (PDF or HTML) was presented to the Governor of Michigan that would require spam sent to residents of the State to be identified as such. Highlights include the requirement that unsolicited email 'Include in the e-mail subject line "ADV:" as the first 4 characters' and that 'a person who violates this act is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year or a fine of not more than $10,000.00, or both.' An article in the Detroit Free Press calls the bill 'the most stringent anti-spam law in the nation.'"
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Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S. More

Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S.

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  • Already getting ADV (Score:5, Funny)

    by forsetti ( 158019 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:00PM (#6387273)
    Funny I see this now -- all day today I have been receiving SPAM with "ADV:" in the subject line. I was wondering what this was about! I guess it is safe to set up my filter now.....
  • Doesn't California have the same requirement, albeit with a lower fine, and the requirement of ADV:ADLT for XXXspam?

    • the detroit free press and fearmongering. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:38PM (#6387546) Homepage Journal
      i don't like spam. it is annoying and a waste of bandwidth and disk space. however, the detroit free press article is a flagrant piece of fearmongering. here's a short quote (don't worry, it's short enough to classify as a "thumbnail"):

      One mother told me that when she found pornographic messages in the family's e-mail, she immediately suspected that the teenagers in her house had been up to no good. The broken trust took weeks to repair.

      and that's the basic tone of the whole piece: spam is a trojan horse rolling sexual material into the living rooms of godfearing, wholesome americans.

      of course, it's not worse than the detroit free press who provides for the solicitation of prositution.... [mistuffhunt.com]

      • Re:the detroit free press and fearmongering. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:01PM (#6387697)
        and that's the basic tone of the whole piece: spam is a trojan horse rolling sexual material into the living rooms of godfearing, wholesome americans.
        Which part of the above do you disagree with?
      • ....spam is a trojan horse rolling sexual material into the living rooms of godfearing, wholesome americans.

        Bull droppings! Every godfearing person on this planet knows that its that rock-and-roll music that's turning our youth into devil worshipping sexfiends. I feel sorry for all the fresh young 18-15 year old girls who were tricked into exposing their soft creamy privates and warm welcoming bosoms by high-volume high-energy hell-borne drug known as rock music. Girls-Gone-Wild indeed!

      • Re:the detroit free press and fearmongering. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jdreed1024 ( 443938 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:15PM (#6387774)
        I'm not justifying the newspaper's stance, but consider this: How much of your spam is porn (or, "stuff kids don't need to see", to include the Viagra, russian brides, and breast enlargement stuff)? In my case, quite a bit. In fact, now that the mini-RC car and Iraqi playing card crazes have died down, I'd say about 70% of the spam I receive is of an adult nature. And of that 70%, at least 50% has a subject line that gives no indication of this (ie: "Missed you last Tuesday", "Fred gave me your e-mail"). And if I had kids, you can be damn sure I'd be upset about it.

        Now, if I were a parent, I'm clueful enough to know that a e-mail from "Candi", with the subject line "Forgot your IM?", and pictures of naked chicks attached does not mean that my kid has been soliciting sex online. But a lot of folks don't understand that. So the situation described in the article is not that far-fetched. (Again, I'm not justifying it.)

        On a related note, I think "adult" (porn) spam will get worse before it gets better. Why? Because I'm willing to bet it's the product that gets the highest response rate. Mortgages/loans? Even Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel knows that you get a loan from a bank, not from joe@spammer.com, who advertises with the professional subject line "Reduce your rate by 5pct ashdjkas zhgyaia qhuiehi". Pyrmaid Schemes? OK, grandma who just got a new e-mail account and gets screwed by Publisher's Clearing House anyway might participate, but not that many other people. The other products? Who's going to by a mini-RC car from some guy online, when you can get them cheaper at the local toy store? How many people are clamoring for the "Banned CD" from the guy who "is contributing to the moral decay of society"? With the exception of the adult goods & services, everything else can be purchased at a brick & mortar store. The viagra and other stuff lends itself to the faceless environment of the Internet, and before too long, I think you'll see that it will be the only thing they're selling.

    • Re:CA? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Quothz ( 683368 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:27PM (#6387828) Journal

      Yes [spamlaws.com].

      Other states' laws are available at the same site [spamlaws.com].

  • Out-of-state (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:01PM (#6387278) Journal
    How does this apply to out-of-state offenders Vs in-state recipients, or in-state offenders Vs out-of-state recipients. I've never really figured out how US law works... too many different states with local discrepencies :-)

    Would sure be nice if you could nail any spammer from anywhere in the US if you're a Michigan system... I bet it'd be a good place to set up an email server too.

    • Re:Out-of-state (Score:2, Informative)

      by taped2thedesk ( 614051 ) *
      I think hold up for out of state spammers vs in-state receipients, and I believe it applies to in-state spammers vs anyone...

      This is the explanation [slashdot.org]I got when I asked the same question about a California law, regarding newspaper advertising.

    • Re:Out-of-state (Score:2, Informative)

      by rbabb ( 134729 )
      There are many cases on the books that basically say if someone can have ANY expectation of being hailed into another state, then they can be supeonaed and must appear in the calling court to defend themselves or face summary judgement. I think the really binding one involved the mother on the partridge family and an editor and writer from a tabloid. I know one case to start with is International Shoe vs. Washington.

    • World's biggest spammer. (Score:5, Funny)

      by geek4ever ( 525253 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:59PM (#6387680)
      If I don't recall, one of the world's biggest Spam Kings lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan (about 1.5 miles from my house in fact) And no, I'm not planning an asassination. ;-);-)

  • ADV: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6387279)
    Now we just need a few more laws in different states, mandating a different set of initial 4 characters. SPM:, AVT:, etc... That would make it reasonably difficult to send nationwide SPAM with any guarantee of legality.

  • Can this be effective? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by taped2thedesk ( 614051 ) * on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6387280)
    I live in Michigan, and am quite pleased to hear this... but I do have to wonder about the effectiveness the bill will have.

    1. Enforcement: How will they actually prosecute (or even find) spammers that violate the law? I'd say there's a pretty good chance that there will be quite a few complaints. Assuming they're even able to backtrack and find the spammers who violate the law, a large number of violations could render this law unenforceable. It takes a good amount of time to review the violation, try to track down where the e-mail came from, etc. If they can't effectivly track down violators, the law won't do much.

    2. Interstate/International commerce: While this should affect spammers in all states (as explained in another post [slashdot.org]), how will this hold up with international companies? Does this stop a company in the US from sending it's spam through a Canadian e-mail advertising agency? Does it apply to non-US companies at all? I'm far from a legal expert, so if you have any ideas please share them.

    • Re:Can this be effective? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by michaelp99 ( 183106 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:11PM (#6387348)
      Wouldn't it be more effective to after the companies that the SPAMers are advertising for? Though I haven't researched how SPAMers make their money, but I assume that they all require a credit card if they want your money. IF it is a legit credit card transaction, you can trace it to who collects the money. At that point you have the person to sue....

      Of course you need to enter a credit card number... anyone want to volunteer theirs?
      • 1. Spam loads of people using the web address of you competitor.
        2. ???
        3. Profit.

      • Re:Can this be effective? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:31PM (#6387849)
        Wouldn't it be more effective to after the companies that the SPAMers are advertising for?

        I've been asking them same question, but taking it a step further and wondering why we're not bothering to enforce many of the existing laws against fraud, bad advertising and so forth as a means to reign in the spam problem instead of the less palatable email regulation laws we've been seeing proposed (and endorsed by many people who otherwise won't run software that isn't GPL'd).

        All the recent articles I've read about spammers basically indicate that spamming is a contract business seperate from the people selling products. As you say, eventually most of this involves a highly tracable financial transaction between buyer and seller, which should enable easy nabbing of people conducting these transactions.

        Get enough serious convinctions for fraud and should be able to put a significant dent in the spam business; do that, and you should curtail a lot of spam.
    • I can't really answer the first one, though I'd assume that there will be some sort of "cyber expert" who will be responsible for finding guilty parties and levying the punishment.

      As for #2, it's longstanding legal tradition/law/constitutional (too lazy to recall which) that states shall respect each other's laws across boundaries. e.g. marriage licenses from a given state are good in any other state (for heterosexuals, anyway). So, I'd imagine that other states will not interfere and may even assist in

    • Enforcement: How will they actually prosecute (or even find) spammers that violate the law?

      They won't.

    • Re:Can this be effective? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by David Hume ( 200499 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:26PM (#6387448) Homepage

      1. Enforcement: How will they actually prosecute (or even find) spammers that violate the law? I'd say there's a pretty good chance that there will be quite a few complaints. Assuming they're even able to backtrack and find the spammers who violate the law, a large number of violations could render this law unenforceable. It takes a good amount of time to review the violation, try to track down where the e-mail came from, etc. If they can't effectivly track down violators, the law won't do much.


      I suspect they will handle this the same way that the IRS handles enforcement -- i.e., a relatively small number of well publicized prosecutions against high profile defendants where they really destoy the defendants.

      2. Interstate/International commerce: While this should affect spammers in all states (as explained in another post), how will this hold up with international companies? Does this stop a company in the US from sending it's spam through a Canadian e-mail advertising agency? Does it apply to non-US companies at all? I'm far from a legal expert, so if you have any ideas please share them.


      I have no doubt that Michigan will take the position that it has personal jurisdiction over any person or company that intentionally sends e-mail to Michigan residents in violation of the statute. I have little doubt that the courts will uphold this assertion of jurisdiction. Traditionally, when a business specifically solicits business in a state via mail or advertising specifically targeted to residents of the state (e.g., advertising in local newspapers, local TV and radio stations, etc.) it is held to have submitted to personal jurisdiction in that state.

      As you can see, this could become quite a mess of conflicting and overlapping state laws. If it does, I suspect that Congress will have to step in and enact federal legislations that preempts the entire area.

    • Re:Can this be effective? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by homer_ca ( 144738 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:45PM (#6387585)
      Considering that spam king Alan Ralsky lives in West Bloomfield, MI, and that Ralsky has bragged numerous times to news reporters about the millions of advertisements that he's sent, I would say yes this law would be successful in either landing the Spam King in jail or run out of the state.

    • Re:Can this be effective? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Hao Wu ( 652581 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:00PM (#6387689) Homepage
      A commercial is a commercial. I don't care if you're selling deoderant, furniture, or penis enlargement pills. I want none of them on my property or obstructing my view in any way.

      If you with to place them peripherally, that's a legitimate ad. If it's directly in my line-of-vision when I'm trying to do something like check email or sort through my snail mail, then you are asking for a retaliatory response from me. This law is one such response.

  • He who is willing to sacrifice freedom... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jkeegan ( 35099 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6387283) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, Jefferson wasn't barraged daily with details on how to grow his penis.
    • I stand corrected on the source of the quote, and I'll even correct the quote itself:

      "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserved neither liberty nor safety."
      -- Benjamin Franklin

      Always thought that was Jefferson (even did a quick google before posting to verify it - it sucks when a majority of the people get it wrong).

      I myself love the quote, which is one of the reasons I'm so tempted/torn/troubled with anti-spam legislation. In the end, I do in fact strongly beli
      • Sorry, this isn't nearly the flame it sounds like.

        How, exactly, is forcing all spam to have a subject line that starts "ADV:" abridging freedom of speech? The spammers are just as welcome to spam away, as long as they put those 4 little characters at the beginning of their subject line. That's it. It doesn't legislate what is contained in the body or even the rest of the subject of the email.

        I'm not completely disagreeing with you: government regulation is generally a bad thing. However, in the past

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why is this being pushed so hard? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <`andrewvc' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6387284) Homepage
    As much as I dislike spam I find it disconcerting that so much focus has been put on it by politicians. Our current government has major structural problems which have been getting little press as of late (such as the bush mandated discrimination against pro-homosexual bureaucratic policies). The fight against spam is trivial, yet has a powerful hold. I think its largely the result of common support from all consumers + it makes politicians look technologically adept and forward thinking. In short, it's low hanging fruit, an easy win. This question has been asked a million times, but, why can't we focus on what's really going on.

    • Re:Why is this being pushed so hard? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Spam doesn't just cause an annoyance; it is a major burden on the internet infrastructure. It takes up bandwidth and system resources, not to mention the fact that many spam filtering programs accidentally filter out spam that is important, which is of course a major problem.

      There are certainly some major issues that the government needs to deal with, but spam is indeed a problem that needs to be taken care of as well. At least they are doing something. :p

      • Something nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by poptones ( 653660 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:58PM (#6387675) Journal
        In government, doing something is often worse than doing nothing. As evidence I cast a hairy finger toward a law called the DMCA. And another called COPA. And another...

        It would be nice to see someone enforce these laws. Every one of these spams leads to someone making money from them - that's why spam exists. Every one of those websites selling viagra knock-offs, or porn, or selling mailing lists can be traced to someone who profits from these sales. Those are the people paying for the spam; make them accountable - cut off the money - and the spammers go away.

        California has had "antispam" laws for quite some time - can anyone point to a single prosecution of these laws?

        Well, at least "something" in this case isn't worse than nothing... yet... but the way Michigan has been heading, that end seems inevitable.

    • Because there are problems more serious than X is not a valid reason not to address X. Bad, bad fallacy. And, FWIW, spam is ruining the internet, has already made email useless, and is costing our economy $10 billion a year (or so they say).
      • yes yes, I understand this, but seriuosly, this legislation is being pushed LIGHTNING FAST, not PATRIOT act fast, but fast. The way I view it your analogy doesn't work. Why? Because all these little chickenshit problems get more public mindshare than the important ones. Spam articles abound, articles on say, congolese massacres never make the headlines. Hell, liberia's pres resigned today and it only got to the bottom of the front page in the LA Times. I dont' know if this reflects something bad about the p
        • Stupid little chickenshit problems that both republicans and democrats can agree on (spam is bad, kiddie porn is bad, drugs are bad, etc.) get solved, or at least addressed, very quickly because it's easy and requires no political capital to be spent. That's not a bad thing, it's better to get little chickenshit things done than nothing at all. You presume only one problem can be addressed at a time.

          Blame the press for sticking the Libera/Charles Taylor stuff at the bottom of the front page. What was
          • I was really rallying against the press in my reply. Obviously bi-partisan supported initiatives will go through faster. My real beef is with the constant press on the topic, its not necessary. I simply feel that it could be better spent. Of course I do realize that my position has been said over and over, that the people never hear the 'real issues'. So its not like I expect anything.
            • I'd agree with that. The media as a whole is a waste of energy. Much like spam, it only exists because advertising, for some stupid reason, does actually work. The press nowadays justifies its worthless coverage by saying "we're just covering the stuff the people say they want to hear about." That's bullshit, because the media has a duty to tell the people what they want to hear about. If the media doesn't tell them, they'll never know. The media has a duty to put the Liberia stuff on the front page,
    • as harassment? Then it's a federal thing and I can nab all those jerks!

      On another note, I haven't gotten a single spam since I firewalled off the nation of China from incoming smtp connections.

      From what I've heard, AOL's policy of denying access from everyone with less than a T3 line isn't nearly as successful. This jerks don't remember whitelist requests by their victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsubscribers, and they don't honor whitelist or rewhitelist requests by syadmins. They don't offer any explanation f
    • I was just listening to some talk radio on the way home, and this guy (who is completely unsavvy with technology) was rambling about how bad spam is getting.


      It's not just an issue with the tech-savvy (OMG, why aren't we using IPv6?!?!?) but it occurs across the board with every e-mail user. Yesterday, even my grandmother was complaining about all the spam she gets. Almost everyone is feeling it, and so they complain.

  • Exemptions seem to be missing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RollingThunder ( 88952 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:03PM (#6387286)
    (a) "Commercial e-mail" means an electronic message, file, data, or other information promoting the sale, lease, or exchange of goods, services, real property, or any other thing of value that is transmitted between 2 or more computers, computer networks, or electronic terminals or within a computer network.

    I can't quite decide if this covers donations and political messages, the usual exemptions you see in these bills.

    I'm guessing the word "commercial" was inserted in there to make the exemption implicit. A shame.

  • What if (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ken@WearableTech ( 107340 ) * <ken@kenwillia m s j r . com> on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:05PM (#6387300) Homepage Journal
    What if a Michigan citizen is checking his e-mail from a server in London, from a hotel room in Tokyo?

    Michigan never enters the scope. Who and what has to be in Michigan for this to work?

    • Re:What if (Score:4, Informative)

      by mooredav ( 101800 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:55PM (#6387657)

      Who and what has to be in Michigan for this to work?

      Read the article [michiganlegislature.org]:

      Sec. 4. (1) A person who sends or causes to be sent an unsolicited commercial e-mail through an e-mail service provider located in this state or to an e-mail address held by a resident of this state shall not do any of the following:

  • Nice To See... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Goo.cc ( 687626 )
    but I don't see these laws really doing much about Spam, especially since people can just spam from other states or countries. I think that we will need to change the way Internet email works before we see some real relief.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pjdepasq ( 214609 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:06PM (#6387308)
    With offshore spammers and the like, who the f#(* is going to be able to enforce that?

    If they can/do, I think a law should be passed that bans spam for .gov and .edu domains. It would help keep the spam from clogging up the government machines/networks (it's likely clogged enough already with them folks doing "work"), and would help keep the porn spam from getting to kids. (Plus I work at a univ. and it would help me!)

    • With offshore spammers and the like, who the f#(* is going to be able to enforce that?

      The core issue in spam legislation is making sending of spam illegal, not to protect the citizens living in the state or nation the legislation is passed in. If sending spam is illegal in those offshore places, there's actually some chance that it can be enforced.

      Now, of course for many people Michigan is a place somewhere far away. This Michigan law might help those people in getting the far-away spammers living i

  • ADV: A wee bit tough ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:08PM (#6387325)
    Mental note to self: 'Put ADV: in front of anything just in case'

  • How is "unsolicited" defined? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:08PM (#6387326) Homepage Journal
    Well, I have to say I finally got a Bayesian Spam filter when the Outlook plug in came out so, for now, it's like back in the days when no one knew my email. Only 1 in 20 spams scores less then 98%, and only one in a hundred regular messages score more then 3%. It's fantastic!

    That said, I'd still be for this law, as long as it was fair. That is to say, if the sender had a 'reasonable' expectation that the person expected to receive mail from them (i.e. opt-in, or if you signed up for a service from them and never opted out). Similar to the 'business relationship' in the Telemarketing laws.

    One important thing is to make it clear that you can't sell "lists". I've been sent spams that said "Cd of Opt-in emails" or whatever. It's like, come on. I don't know if I would want to send people to jail for screwing up like that. Jail and very harsh Spam fines should be reserved, IMO for habitual offenders, you know the lowest of the low types like Ralsky, etc, who relay and proxy scan, forge headers, etc.
  • 15 and 19 year sentences for first time drug offenders, and you can now go to jail for spamming ?

    • Re:Nice. (Score:3, Funny)

      by neitzsche ( 520188 )
      Well, it's not boiling in oil (for spamming,) but it is a good start.
      • I know this is marked as funny, but I sense that the general consensus is that no punishment is too cruel for spammers here. Does an unmarked spam really warrant possible jail time? Unsolicited, unmarked ads for pornography that can potentially be seen by children is a big problem, but there are already decency laws on the books that could be used to prosecute these cases and hold the senders criminally liable.

        Another problem I see is that this law cannot be enforced... the problem spammers will just mo

  • The question now is whether Hotmail etc will start automatically filtering out ADV: spam. If they do not, or if (more likely) they market ADV: filtering as a pay service, then most technically illiterate folks will still be drowned in spam. The spam will just have a slightly different subject line.

    (NB: The scientifically standard 'average punter' is kept in a tube of inert gas in Geneva).
    • as long as filters are available and there is a uniform spam identifier to filter out, the fact that some people will be too dumb/uneducated/lazy to use such a filter is not society's problem. If MS wants to charge hotmail users for a spam-free hotmail (excluding MS spam, of course), then that's just fine so long as hotmail is not the only way human beings can receive email.

  • Don't tell them (Score:5, Funny)

    by SugoiMonkey ( 648879 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:19PM (#6387397) Homepage Journal
    If I was thrown in prison for such an offense I'd be sure not to let any of the other prisoners know. I can see it now: "Wha' chu in for?" "Well...nothing bad...really." "Yeah?" "I was a spammer." "YOU SICK BASTARD! GET HIM BOYS!" The picture just is not very pleasant.

  • I'm moving to Michigan! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:21PM (#6387414)
    Now, do I need to change my email address or will this automatically work when I cross the border?

  • Piece of junk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm all for wiping out Spam, but this law is a giant piece of junk. I run a small business. I solicit business by email. Lots of people do. Now you're telling me that if I try and solicit any work from a client that happens to reside in Michigan that I'm going to get hit with a $250,000 fine? Nope.

    For those who didn't RTFA:
    (a) "Commercial e-mail" means an electronic message, file, data, or other information promoting the sale, lease, or exchange of goods, services, real property, or any other thing of

    • Re:Piece of junk (Score:5, Insightful)

      by veddermatic ( 143964 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:33PM (#6387502) Homepage
      No, if you wish to solicit by email, you have to put 'ADV:' at the begining of your mail. What's so hard about that?

      Then you are in compliance, and you don't get fined, and people who don't like spam can filter you out.

    • Re:Piece of junk (Score:5, Informative)

      by Snocone ( 158524 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:33PM (#6387506) Homepage
      I'm all for wiping out Spam, but this law is a giant piece of junk

      No, this law is measured, reasoned, and appropriate. If you don't think so, you are a deceptive and fraudulent scam artist who fully deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law -- and beyond it by tattooed burly fellows named Adolf in prison, as well.

      Asshat.

      I run a small business. I solicit business by email. Lots of people do. Now you're telling me that if I try and solicit any work from a client that happens to reside in Michigan that I'm going to get hit with a $250,000 fine? Nope.

      Yep.

      You will be in violation of this law only if you do not comply with Sec. 3. For those who don't bite at trolls like you enough to check it out, here's the text:

      Sec. 3. A person who intentionally sends or causes to be sent an unsolicited commercial e-mail through an e-mail service provider that the sender knew or should have known is located in this state or to an e-mail address that the sender knew or should have known is held by a resident of this state shall do all of the following:

      (a) Include in the e-mail subject line "ADV:" as the first 4 characters.

      (b) Conspicuously state in the e-mail all of the following:

      (i) The sender's legal name.

      (ii) The sender's correct street address.

      (iii) The sender's valid internet domain name.

      (iv) The sender's valid return e-mail address.

      (c) Establish a toll-free telephone number, a valid sender-operated return e-mail address, or another easy-to-use electronic method that the recipient of the commercial e-mail message may call or access by e-mail or other electronic means to notify the sender not to transmit by e-mail any further unsolicited commercial e-mail messages. The notification process may include the ability for the commercial e-mail messages recipient to direct the sender to transmit or not transmit particular commercial e-mail messages based upon products, services, divisions, organizations, companies, or other selections of the recipient's choice. An unsolicited commercial e-mail message shall include, in print as large as the print used for the majority of the e-mail message, a statement informing the recipient of a toll-free telephone number that the recipient may call, or a valid return address to which the recipient may write or access by e-mail, notifying the sender not to transmit to the recipient any further commercial e-mail messages.

      (d) Conspicuously provide in the text of the commercial e-mail, in print as large as the print used for the majority of the e-mail, a notice that informs the recipient that the recipient may conveniently and at no cost be excluded from future commercial e-mail from the sender as provided under subdivision (c).

      If you do all this, you're cool, and the law has no effect on you, so quitcher whining. If you don't, then you are a Horrid Evil Spammer Who Should Be Repeatedly Anally Raped and fully deserve all the penalties of the law and more. If you disagree that these are reasonable penalties, then you are either a really bad troll, or a complete asshat. Pick one.
    • Now you're telling me that if I try and solicit any work from a client that happens to reside in Michigan that I'm going to get hit with a $250,000 fine?

      Hmmm... if they're your clients then I would assume you've already got some sort of "business relationship"? In that case:

      Sec. 2(h) ...An e-mail is not unsolicited if the sender has a preexisting business or personal relationship with the recipient.

      where:

      (g) "Preexisting business relationship" means a relationship existing before the receipt of an

    • Re:Piece of junk (Score:3, Insightful)

      by forgetmenot ( 467513 )
      So you're all for wiping out spam, as long as it isn't yours. Nice.

      Somehow I don't think the companies selling penis enlargers are big multi-nationals. Hell, they're probably tiny garage businesses who don't care about their reputations, so maybe they should be exempt too?

  • The ADV: is not of much use. (Score:3, Informative)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:25PM (#6387445) Homepage Journal
    The ADV: header isn't really useful, since the spam will be deleted only after the delivery, at the target machine. And let me cite after CAUCE:


    Some junk emailers say, "Just hit the Delete key!" Unfortunately, the problem is much bigger than the time and effort of one person deleting a couple of emails. There are many different places along the process of transmitting and delivering email where costs are incurred. In the Internet world, "time" equals many different things besides the hourly rate that many people are still charged.

    For example, for an Internet Service Provider, "time" includes the load on the processor in their mail servers; "CPU time" is a precious commodity and processor performance is a critical issue for ISPs. When their CPUs are tied up processing spam, it creates a drag on all of the mail in that queue -- wanted and unwanted alike. This is also a problem with "filtering" schemes; filtering email consumes vast amounts of CPU time and is the primary reason most ISPs cannot implement it as a strategy for eliminating junk email.

    The problem is also compounded by the fact that ISPs purchase bandwidth -- their connection to the rest of the Internet -- based on their projected usage by their prospective user base. For most small to mid-sized ISPs, bandwidth costs are among one of the greatest portions of their budget and contributes to the reason why many ISPs have a tiny profit margin. Without junk email, greater consumption of bandwidth would normally track with increased numbers of customers. However, when an outside entity (e.g., the junk emailer) begins to consume an ISP's bandwidth, the ISP has few choices: 1) let the paying customers cope with slower internet access, 2) eat the costs of increasing bandwidth, or 3) raise rates. In short, the recipients are still forced to bear costs that the advertiser has avoided.

    "Time" also makes for some other interesting problems, especially coupled with volume. Recent public comments by AOL are a useful point of reference: of the estimated 30 million email messages each day, about 30% on average was unsolicited commercial email. With volumes such as that, it's a tremendous burden shifted to the ISP to process and store that amount of data. Volumes like that may undoubtedly contribute to many of the access, speed, and reliability problems we've seen with lots of ISPs. Indeed, many large ISPs have suffered major system outages as the result of massive junk email campaigns. If huge outfits like Netcom and AOL can barely cope with the flood, it is no wonder that smaller ISPs are dying under the crush of spam.

  • Most spam uses a forged sender address (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:29PM (#6387475)
    From the article's paraphrasal of the spam bill, I would say that it misses the mark. The problem is not advertising per se, but email designed to trick you. The leading trick is a fake sender address.

    Almost all spam uses a fake sender address. Usually the sender address is bogus. Pernicious spam uses a real, forged sender's address. Not only is this difficult to detect, it causes the victim of the identity theft to receive rejection messages and hate mail. I have been the victim of such identity theft and it isn't pleasant.

    I support legislation making it a criminal offense to forge the sender's address, and a lesser offense to send email (especially in quantity) with a bogus sender address.

    I believe that legitimate advertisers and freedom-of-expression devotes can agree that forgery has no legitimate purpose.

    If emails were signed, it would be much easier to bring pressure to bear on the senders of undesirable email to cease and desist.

    • Section 4 of the bill covers this:

      • (a) Use a third party's internet domain name or third party e-mail address in identifying the point of origin or in stating the transmission path of the commercial e-mail without the third party's consent.
      • (b) Misrepresent any information in identifying the point of origin or the transmission path of the commercial e-mail.
      • (c) Fail to include in the commercial e-mail the information necessary to identify the point of origin of the commercial e-mail.

      I think it is essential that these sorts of requirements be part of any anti-spam bill. While requiring that the header contain ADV: is nice for the user, what about the operator of the user's ISP? And in particular, what about the operator who runs an honest ISP, does not allow relaying through their servers, yet still gets overloaded with incorrectly directed complaints when a spam shop uses their domain in part of the forged headers? I don't see nearly enough attention paid to that concern (disclaimer: I operate an ISP).

  • Great. (Score:3, Funny)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:33PM (#6387508) Homepage Journal
    When the extridition kicks in Michigan will be PACKED with pencil thin, big (thick and long (and hard due to herbal V.I.A.G.A.R.I.A)) dicked, instant millionaire Asians . . . all posing as Nigerians.

    Glad I don't live in Michigan.

    -Peter

  • This is just a disguised opt-out proposal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pslam ( 97660 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:36PM (#6387528) Homepage Journal
    This is not a good thing. Oh yeah, everyone can simply filter out by "ADV:" - like that'll stop people actually sending spam, stop the enormous bandwidth usage (the majority of email is spam for some ISPs), and make the whole practise less attractive. On the contrary, I expect nothing less than the big spammers sending even more, and when their ISPs turn on them they'll sue with reference to the legitimacy as written in law. I expect no less than every single business in the afflicted states sending you endless amounts of spam. After all - it's legal, so it must be ok. The boards of directors can sleep well at night, marketing can happily smoke some more crack, and the only people with a frown on their faces are the few who remember a time when you didn't fuck with the beautiful creation that was the internet and the people that inhabited it.

    Don't believe the hype - it's just another opt-out proposal. Opt-out is a flawed scheme only ever pushed by people who are naive to both the technical and practical issues. It's an enormous waste of resources (bandwidth, energy, people's time), and at the end of the day it's only partially solved just one of the issues at the expense of ensuring that we'll never solve any of the others. This really is a case of "the slippery slope exists and it will happen".

    Like all the other opt-out schemes, all you have to do is opt-out of those 50 million emails you're about to receive. Legitimately. Enjoy your day.

  • All of this spam is advertising some product that a business is selling. Why not hold these businesses responsible for the spam? I don't think the claim "oh, we didn't know that SpamMasters was going to use spam when we hired them" should be a valid defense. The businesses hiring these scumbags are just as responsible.

    Then let's work on a solid replacement for SMTP that makes the assumption that people are going to attempt to abuse it.
    • The problem with this is that not all products being advertised in a spam were actually *authorized* for any sort of mass mailout.

      This happened to me once. I wrote a shareware program, and had decided that I was not going to rely on any sort of spamming procedure to inform people about it. I relied entirely on word-of-mouth and search engine placement as my advertising source.

      One week, I received a large handful of angry emails with regards to the software, chewing me out for spamming them. Reviewing

  • This law's fatal flaw (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbs0902 ( 566885 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:40PM (#6387560)
    From Sec 3 of the Act:
    "an e-mail service provider that the sender knew or should have known is located in this state or to an e-mail address that the sender knew or should have known is held by a resident of this state"

    Requiring willful conduct or intent as this law does (in Sec 3, not Sec 4) puts a huge burden on the prosecution/plaintiff. With email addresses that have no physical correspondence to the receipt's real address, how is the spammer supposed to "know or should know" if the resident is in Michigan? Once this, nearly unprovable, element is part of the crime, the crime becomes nearly unenforceable. And, all the draconian requirements that got this law the press coverage may be ignored.

    I guess the real battle is "can you assume that if a Domain Name is registered to a MI address that the email server is physically in MI?" After all, the Domain Name's mailing address may be a corporate headquarters and the server may be located in Florida.

    Sec. 4 of the Act is a good old strict liability requirement (no intent or negligence needed to prove the crime). But, the requirements imposed by Sec. 4 aren't that odd, just standard "truth in advertising" applied to email.

  • So now email advertisements must be flagged with ADV: subject line, or something similar, and people will be able to configure their mailboxes to reject those messages. But suppose you buy stuff on a regular basis from Amazon - how can you give them permission to email you recommendations for new books? You won't even see their emails because they're deleted automatically. Maybe the law can be worded in such a way to exempt businesses with whom you have a relationship. But that means AOL Time Warner can
  • to control spam. As it is now, email is still somewhat unregulated and protected by first amendment rights.

    Spam can be controlled with properly configured mailers, good filters, and good habits about who you give your address out to. (plus blacklists, whitelists, etc)

    Legislation being applied to this area could potentially open the door to more regulation in this area, and I'd rather not take the chance.

    I get almost no spam at all at GMX [gmx.net]. the site may be in German, which I cannot read, but they have a v
  • With the internet being worldwide, how will anyone know who is a Michigan resident. This may be able to be struck down, since it almost equates to a state making laws outside its jurisdiction. If a spammer spams from outside the state, who is going to prosecute? What happens when mail is sent to a hotmail account? The servers are not in MI. It will be impossible to enforce fairly, if at all.

  • The problem with laws like this one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bweinman ( 121947 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:58PM (#6387676) Homepage
    Any law that says you must label spam (e.g., put ADV: in the subject) has two major flaws:

    1) It only addresses half the problem, and it's not the important half. It does nothing to ease the burden on the mail servers that must transport the spammer's trash.

    2) It sanctions what would otherwise be an illicit act.

    As it is today, the act of spamming may or may not be illegal, but once a law is enacted that says "label it", the spam becomes sanctioned by law. Without that law, a hosting company can dump a user for spamming. With the law, it becomes more difficult because the spammer can say "I followed the law!"

    IMHO: We're better off without laws like this.

    --Bill
    • I'm a Michigan resident currently but my primary e-mail server resides squarely in Arizona. Needless to say, I'm wondering how this law could be interpreted about situations like that.

      1) It only addresses half the problem, and it's not the important half. It does nothing to ease the burden on the mail servers that must transport the spammer's trash.
      I agree wholeheartedly with this comment, but it really needs to be leveraged with your comment in number two. As mentioned in other posts many mailer server

      • As mentioned in other posts many mailer servers are able to prematurely reject an email once they've received the subject line and drop the connexion and the rest of the content.

        In practice, that just doesn't work very well. Most SMTP clients will continue to retry a message that fails after DATA and before <CRLF>.<CRLF>. I don't see it directly addressed, but section 4.2.5 of RFC-2821 implies that a hard failure (e.g., 5xy) is not really valid in the middle of DATA.

        --Bill

  • Oh, the hand wringing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by domovoi ( 657518 )
    I'd just like to point folks to this [spiked-online.com] in hopes that we can collectively steer this topic where it ought to be with our elected officials. Alternately, we could take Lessig [stanford.edu] up on his bet. [stanford.edu]
  • I live in Michigan, I hate spam. However politicians need to stay out of this, once they start playing internet cop where will it end? They cannot govern something on a global scale.

  • ..if it's enforced (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Happy go Lucky ( 127957 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:33PM (#6387857)
    There's a good reason why this was written as a criminal statute rather than civil. Good for the spambags, anyway.

    A criminal statute allows for jail, true. However, only one class of people can actually file criminal complaints: law enforcement. Peace officers and prosecutors.

    You can call your local police department to make a complaint. However, except for certain types of crimes (Domestic violence and protective order violations in my state-most are similar) there is no law prohibiting us from sending the complaint straight to the shredder. As a point of Federal law (Federal district court ruling for WA DC, sustained on appeal) the police and prosecutors do not have a duty to any one particular person.

    In other words, not much will change. A few cases may be filed. Most, however, will end up sitting in some detective's inbox until the statute of limitations expires. My department doesn't even have enough detectives to cover all of the stuff that needs detective followup: if a burglary/auto theft/just about any nonviolent property crime isn't thoroughly handled by the patrol officer taking the initial complaint, it'll languish marked "inactive-open pending leads" forever. The info-hogs can only follow up on the leads in the bluesuits' reports.

    Now, take a wild guess how many patrol officers are qualified to handle these. I may be the only one here. And I spent today (a relatively quiet Monday dayshift) taking cold crime reports, three neighborhood disturbances (two of which weren't even criminal and one was petty enough not to charge anyone with anything) one unwanted subject (started screaming in a McDonalds and didn't leave when the manager invited him to eat elsewhere) and a drunk driver.

    When I work swing shift, my normal shift, I'm running from call to call to call. It'll be close to midnight before I have time to follow up on a funny email. I think my time from 11 PM to end-of-shift is better spent on drunk drivers.

    In other words, most cops will consider this to be a waste of time that could be better spent on areas where someone might actually get hurt.

    That's why it's CIVIL spam laws that actually matter. The clown who wrote this law knows we won't be able to really do much, living in the real world and all. A civil law, OTOH, with a private right of action, would make the spammers shit themselves with fear and consider career changes. That's because a victim with the legal power to act may actually do something, when the police don't have the resources.

    Some will complain that it's not their responsibility to do anything, even when the whiner is also the original victim. Who has the moral responsibility to act is an open question. However, the real question IMHO is 'if you don't give a shit, and you're the victim, then why should I care?' And if someone can't be bothered to take an interest in his own life, then I've got better things to do than fix his minor annoyances for him.



  • To open up a PO Box!

  • I'm the Mayor of Hardassville.
    In my town we have the death penalty for spammers and telemarketeers.

    We don't play no steenking games in my town!

  • Spam is a growing problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:56PM (#6387989)
    I've had the same email account for 20+ years. Two years ago, spam was a minor annoyance. One year ago it was annoying enough that I started using spamassassin. This year it is annoying enough that I can cope only by using spamassassin with a bayes filter. Next year?

    Let me quantify my statements. In June 2002 I received 732 legitimate email messages and 375 spams. In June 2003 I received 683 legitimate email messages, and 1872 spams. in June 2004, I expect to receive 700 legitimate messages; how many spams? Let's start a pool!

    Technology is cool but not a panacea. I ran a personal version of Spamassassin 2.60 on my last 15 months' email. Every decision was fed back into the automatic learning process, and every incorrect decision was corrected manually. Here are the numbers:

    total legit: 13726
    total spam: 11441
    false positives: 11
    false negatives: 272

    These numbers look good (2.3% of spams slip through under the radar and 0.08% of legit mail gets trapped). But they aren't that good. The numbers mean that one or two spams a day get through right now, and who-knows-how-many next year. Hardly an adequate approach to keeping offensive material from my eyes. The numbers also mean that I would have missed 11 legitimate messages in the last year or so had I not sifted through the crap.

    While I'm not holding my breath for a legislative panacea, I believe that something has to be done to check the uncontrolled growth in the volume of spam being sent. Receiver-end controls won't cope.

    As I have mentioned in a previous comment, I believe that the volume can be abated by prohibiting deceptive email, as opposed to trying to adjudicate the consensuality of the relationship between sender and receiver.

  • Why this won't work (an example from Japan) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by achurch ( 201270 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:30PM (#6388473) Homepage

    Aside from the significant limitation imposed by this being a state law (who can tell if a particular E-mail address belongs to a Michigan resident or not?), this law will likely fail because as soon as users (or providers) start to filter ADV:, the spammers will stop putting it in the Subject line, and there are too many of them out there for law enforcement to go after.

    Japan enacted a law similar to this in July of last year, requiring that all UCE have a subject beginning with the Japanese equivalent of "ADV:". Spammers started following the law pretty quickly; so far so good. Then, last October, cell phone provider NTT DoCoMo started up a service that would let users reject such mail at the server. Having been subjected to lots of cellphone spam until then, I was very delighted at this, and as soon as I switched it on my spam level dropped to roughly zero.

    Until this past May, when spam once again found its way to my phone. The spammers seem to have realized that adding the mandated text makes their mail not reach its destination, so they've decided to just ignore the law completely. I spoke with someone at the agency that handles spam complaints, and was told that "we're doing what we can, but there are so many of them it's hard to keep up."

    C'est la vie, I guess--or should I say, shikata nai desu ne...

  • This is a bad law that will be misused (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fname ( 199759 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @12:32AM (#6388758) Journal
    This is a very bad idea. The law is draconian in its punishment (1 year in jail) for so minor an infraction (1 spam!?!) that it is guaranteed to be misused. This will be a political tool and nothing else. Whenever the government wants to stick some guy in jail, they'll discover some ancient SPAM message and stick the guy in jail.

    This law is overeaching and overbroad, and the slashdot community should be ashamed for cheering it. Karma be damned,
    • Due to the US constitution, you cannot be tried on a law made ex post facto (spelling?). This means that if an act was legal when you did it, you cannot be convicted because laws changed after-the-fact. Thus the government can only go after the person if they spammed AFTER the law was inacted, thus your "ancient SPAM" idea wouldn't work. Unless G.W. Bush declares the REST of the constitution invalid of course.

      • Re:This is a bad law that will be misused (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fname ( 199759 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @12:58AM (#6388856) Journal
        Absolutely correct. I didn't write quite what I meant.

        More along the lines of 5 years from now, the state discovers that John Q. Public once sent an email to a Bill Grudgeman asking him if he was interested in a deal on widgets. The whole story? Mr. Public sent the email b/c Mr. Grudgeman has a website describing how he uses similar widgets. John Q. wrote him a personal, friendly email asking if he was interested in a new supplier.

        Grudgeman's friend is embarassed by John Q.'s investigative website, and remembers this old email. Grudgeman presents it to his local D.A. (sister-in-law's neigbor), who is looking to "make spammers pay" before the upcoming election. John Q. is charged, and faced with a year in jail, pleads out for 90 days and the $10,000 fine.

        Justice indeed.

        • Re:This is a bad law that will be misused (Score:4, Interesting)

          by forkboy ( 8644 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @01:45AM (#6389001) Homepage
          I don't think a personally written message destined for one recipient is considered spam, it's just salesmanship. The problem isn't with individuals mailing other folks based on some sort of market research or indication that they might be interested (i.e. from your example above) the problem is with people hawking their wares by sending out millions of emails to randomly harvested addresses.

          I don't think even OUR shitty justice system could mess this one up.

          • From the law:

            (h) "Unsolicited" means without the recipient's express permission. An e-mail is not unsolicited if the sender has a preexisting business or personal relationship with the recipient. An e-mail is not unsolicited if it was received as a result of the recipient opting into a system in order to receive promotional material.

            Spirit of the law be damned, this act will be badly misused and put some ordinary citizens in jail when the polic can't prove the drug case that they are pursuing. Bad law-

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