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Spam United States Your Rights Online

Michigan Governor Signs Anti-Spam Bill 36

Posted by timothy from the we-hates-it dept.
mrtaco01 writes "Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm signed today a law billed as the 'toughest in the nation' against spam. It makes it law in Michigan that all unsolicited email contain 'ADV:' as the first four characters in an email, contain contact information and a way to opt-out of subsequent mailings. Violations are subject to a $10,000 fine. The press release announcing the new law is found here. It will be interesting as to how this law has any effect on laws in other states or even possibly a federal anti-spam law. It will be more interesting to how well the State enforces this,or how it will be enforced."
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Michigan Governor Signs Anti-Spam Bill More

Michigan Governor Signs Anti-Spam Bill

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  • I am into older hardware and chips and things.

    Sometimes the only way I can find info on a piece of equipment or a chip is to search the old USENET archives. Often there are only partial threads of info about a particular topic.

    I have had good luck sending email sometimes to people who participated in the discussion, sometimes as long as 6-8 years ago. Some messages go into 'a black hole' but I have gotten important info from people who I've contacted in this way.

    Now Michigan is saying that because it's

    • Granholm has done the ridiculous again, but I think she's aware that it's unenforceable. By passing legislation like this, Michigan officials have posed publicly as if they will do something about spam, but when you really look at the legislation, it's short-sighted, unenforcable, and simply doesn't apply to anyone outside of Michigan. Sure, there are some spammers in Michigan that may get nabbed, but this isn't going to significantly impact the amount of email anyone gets, and most likely won't stop you fr

    • The press release states "unsolicited commercial email."
    • You just posted a whole rant based on the off-handed description of law by a slashdot poster. You might want to review the actual law for descriptions of what constitues "unsolicited email" in the posters wording.

      Without reviwing it myself, I can count myself a pretty sure that just initiating an email exchange doesn't require you to put ADV: in your email, since every other email on the net would be required to have it.
  • Well, that does sound good to me! I don't really see any downsides to it, although I'm sure people will find something to point out...

    I realize it probably won't directly affect the amount of spam I get in my inbox that much; I don't know how much spam originates from Michigan. But it's definitely a step in the right direction!
    • I suspect it violates the guarantees of freedom of speech under both the constitutions of the United States and of Michigan. That's a bit of a down side.

      I don't like spam either, but I'm not sure that there's a great deal that can be done to get rid of it. At least not that can be done to get rid of truthful spam.
      • Freedom of speech does NOT cover traffic that is passed on AT OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPENSE through email systems...

        • Yes it does, all else being equal.

          Just like how it is legal for people to, without permission, trespass on your property for purposes of knocking on your front door in a reasonable manner to sell you things.

          Or to fill up your mailbox with junk mail depriving you of space within it to accept other mail, and using up your valuable time in having to decide whether to throw it out or open it, and having to carry it all.

          Or to call you on the phone with offers at a reasonable hour, which keeps you from using t
          • Freedom of speech is a right, but there are no guarantees for a platform for that speech (my mailbox).
            • I agree. (with regards to the mailbox -- there are guarantees for other platforms for that speech, or else the freedom of speech would be worthless)

              However, until you revoke people's access to your mailbox as a means by which to contact you, it is implicitly open to them to use for that purpose.

              If you don't want some people sending you mail, all I'm saying is that you should give them some sort of reasonable notice as to your wishes. I wouldn't tolerate people that violated such an explicit ban.

              But I don

              • Sure. Personally, I feel that it should be made illegal for people to contact me at my mailbox for the purposes of UCE. Their speech remains free, my mailbox remains clean.

                It is unreasonable for me to have to opt out of every promotion that hits my mailbox. For every product that may comes out, there are how many resellers and how many spammers to promote the stuff? My job of notifying spammers becomes a never ending task.

                I don't see any reason why we cannot close e-mail to UCE (Unsolicited commerci

                • The problem is that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. This includes commercial speech.

                  The government can regulate it to an extent -- the advertising might have to be truthful, nutritional or medical information might have to be included on some products. But overall commercial speech is only a shade less unrestricted as everything else is.

                  And I mean, what's the difference between your not wanting to be contacted for UCE, and your not wanting to be contacted with political or relgious speec

                  • But the government can control advertising. When is the last time you've seen a tobacco product advertised on TV (assuming you are in the US)?

                    As far as cost, traditional methods shift the primary cost on the seller... the cost of the call itself the cost for telemarketer salaries, the cost for bulk mail processing. The cost to send UCE is almost nil. If you sum the costs for ISP's and individuals, it does become quite expensive. One by one, no, but over time, yes.

                    The government can regulate this typ

                    • I pulled this quote from the CAUCE web site, by the way... thought I would mention that. The opinions you find there in their FAQ are in line with my own.
                  • Sorry for so many responses from me... after I posted, it hit me that you mentioned a centralized database. I do think that would work well assuming that there were significant legal penalties for violators. I do like that idea.

  • This does not solve the problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AngryPuppy ( 595294 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @11:09AM (#6452733) Journal
    There are still servers that have to store the UCE until it gets filtered, not to mention the extra traffic that is generated. Ultimately, consumers are still the ones footing the bill for this garbage as provider pass their costs on for the extra server space and bandwidth needs. All this does is provide an easier filtering tool. It does not stop them from sending it in the first place... something I never opted-in to in the first place.
    • I have to disagree.

      Let's go with what appear to be your premise. The spammers all abide by the law and make spam easy to filter.

      If this were to happen, then I disagree with you and I believe that this does solve the problem. Not by direct cause and effect, but indirectly.

      If spam were all easily and effectively filtered at the client side, after the bandwidth, storage, processing and forwarding costs have already been incurred, then this will still kill spam. The effective filtering is simplified

      • You make a good point, but to quote you:

        Now some might argue that some few will not apply effective filtering. So spam will still reach a few, and some of them will reply or even fall victim to the spammer's scams. So spamming will still be profitable, some would argue. This will greatly increase the volume of spam, even though it is all filtered. But then think what happens. For those poor souls who are NOT filtering, the incentive becomes tremendous to begin filtering. So the greater volume the spamme

  • Now if only Canada would adopt the same legislation..


    Now the lusers that send spam in the first place will be forced to go back to clicking on banners for pennies to make their money.

  • > It will be more interesting to how well the State enforces this,or how it will be enforced.

    Hmm, 10K per spam... I think I'll apply to work for the Michigan Spam Swat Team. I've used nmap a couple of times. ;)
  • One important question isn't answered in the /. article or in the press release: Does this law, like state 'Do Not Call' lists, apply to all email sent to addresses in Michigan, or does it only apply to email sent from Michigan addresses?

    Sure, there are limits to the jurisdiction of the former kind of law, too (good luck enforcing it if the spammer is outside the States) but it would be massively more effective than the latter kind. How many spammers can figure out which of their target addresses are in Mi
    • One important question isn't answered in the /. article or in the press release: Does this law, like state 'Do Not Call' lists, apply to all email sent to addresses in Michigan, or does it only apply to email sent from Michigan addresses?

      There are typically FOUR physical addresses related to any single spam - the address of the sender, the recepient, of the sender's customer (the web site advertised, etc) and of the computer used to send the spam (which belongs to the spammer for legal operations, but cou
    • 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:

      Similar text heads section 4

      http://www.michiganlegislature.org/documents/200 3- 2004/billenrolled/house/htm/2003-HNB-4519.htm

  • Al Ralsky? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @12:48PM (#6453640)
    The first question that comes to mind is how this affects the operations of Michigan-based super-spammer Al Ralsky. Does anyone know? I think this is a good way to figure out whether or not this law helps solved the problem.
  • Well, see I am a little concerned here. For the most part, I suspect that this law is well intentioned, and perhaps even well-drafted.

    But something that you may miss at first. Take a look at the annoying spam you get. Look at the e-mail headers. How many of those, do you suppose, accurately reflect the spammer? Any? probably, Most? doubtful.

    Now, I recall reading proposed legislation somewhere to ban header forging, but again... if the header lies about where the mail came from, and it was sent throug
    • "Putting some junk in the subject telling me it is spam doesn't make it go away. Yes, I can auto-delete it, but I've still got to download it."

      Not necessarily. If this approach worked (not sure that it will), you might end up being able to choose from your ISP e-mail in which "ADV" spam is filtered (by the ISP) before it ever gets sent to you. Or imagine relays that filter out "ADV"s automatically. Then you would not have to download it.
  • It's worth reading Ray Everett-Church of CAUCE's comments [politechbot.com] on another opt-out based anti-spam bill:

    'Any legislation that permits all of America's estimated 23 million small businesses to legally send everyone at least one email cannot be considered anti-spam. And any bill that limits a consumer's recourse to clicking an opt-out link 23 million times isn't going to make our lives any better. ....

    Opt-out laws have let the problem grow to the state it is today; no one in Congress can supply an adequate expl

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