US House, Senate Agree on Anti-Spam Bill

Folic_Acid writes "Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, has announced that the House and the Senate have reached a deal to both pass an anti-spam bill, the first ever federal anti-spam law in the United States. Specifically, the law contains: opt-out, authority for the FTC to set up a "Do-Not-SPAM" registry, criminal charges for fraudulent spam, including five years in prison, statutory damages of $2 million for violations, tripled to $6 million for intentional violations, unlimited damages for fraud and abuse." News.com has a copy of the bill and a story.

Unlimited Damages ...!?

[handy_vandal]

... unlimited damages for fraud and abuse.

What the -- unlimited damages ...?!

Holy crap, get ready for the undead legion of attorneys to rise from the grave!

-kgj

Re:The RIAA/MPAA has their mitts in this one too!

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the best government money can buy!

~~~

Oooo...Oooo...I have a question!

[GeneralEmergency]

Aren't those old dudes in the Senate the ones that are buying all that Viagra?

I thought so.

Re:SPAM fines

[proj_2501]

that says INTENTIONAL not INTERNATIONAL

Office Space, anyone?...

[Loki_1929]

"including five years in [Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass] prison"

Bet someone's going to regret pushing all those penis patches (of grow 3 inches! fame).

Re:SPAM fines

[dolo666]

OK, time to go home. *sigh*

Unlimited damages

[Space cowboy]

...reminds me of an NDA from Sony I signed in a previous life. Buried deep in the middle of it was the phrase (from memory)

"Should PARTNER at any time divulge material covered by this agreement, then financial reparation may not be sufficient"...

(No, the NDA wasn't under the NDA - do you think I'd be telling you this, if it was ???)

I never did get clarification on what non-financial reparations would be demanded (first-born son?, ritual dismemberment ?)

Simon.

Re:SPAM fines

[Anonymous Coward]

Most mods are too busy jerking off to tenticle rape anime or NAMBLA porn to notice subtle mistakes.

Re:The RIAA/MPAA has their mitts in this one too!

[nacturation]

Dear Common Thief,

After scanning your network, this is an automated message notifying you that the copyright owner, Meds2U.com, believes you are making unlawful use of one or more copyrighted materials held by said owner. Please cease and desist immediately your unlawful use of these materials, or contact us so that licensing of said materials can be arranged. Under the DMCA, we hereby certify that we act as representatives of Meds2U.com which sells phentermine, Xanax, Viagra, Prozac, Celebrex, and many other prescription medications available at below pharmacy cost to you from http://www.meds2u.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

Yours truly,

Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe
Attorneys at Law

Can you say loophole

[Camel Pilot]

Never underestimate the inventivness of spammers and conartists... For example I could envision a legit spam such along the lines of:

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Dear Sir no doubt you have been receiving messages on increasing your penis size.

Let me take this time to inform you that my company Hammer Inc. has a US Trademark and copyright on the term "penis enlargement" and a patent on our exclusive fully herbal penis enlargement treatment plan. All those other companies are violating our establish copyrights and infringing on our patent. We have very strong IP rights in this area let me assure you.

So therefore let me offer our treatment at an incredible savings, just sign up now and we will give you 30% of list. Your lover will love you for it...

v/r McBribe CEO Hammer Inc.

Re:Not going to sign up for Don't-email-list

[herrvinny]

If that happens, I'm going to give the FCC a very hard time. I'm going to write up a quick program to generate every possible email address (i.e. [e-mail], [e-mail], etc), store the results on a 60 GB hard drive (Will that be enough? I have 8 domains to protect, plus one comcast acct) and send the entire thing to the FCC. Better yet, print out the entire thing, and ship it. How many boxes of paper will that be? Hundreds, at least.

You know, that sounds like a pretty good idea. I am so going to do that if the FCC doesn't exclude by domain. Anyone want to join me? Imagine 40 FedEx trucks unloading hundreds of boxes in front of a FCC building, while scared interns look on "Are we going to have to look through ALL those boxes?"

Priceless.

What, Just Today?

[Greyfox]

Who are you, Pip?! "Oh I say, if it isn't too much of a bother, could you take me off your list? Thank you ever so much!"

Try this on for size next time a telemarketer calls you at work, "Who the fuck gave you this number? This is my work number. You do not call me at my work number! If you ever call me here again, I will find out where you work, I will come there, and I will bitch slap you into the middle of next week! Do I make myself clear?!"

I can't claim credit for this though. I heard this tirade from about 5 cubes over one day when a telemarketer called a contracter at a company I was working for at the time. The level of anger this guy managed to send down the line was impressive. You don't have to be polite to telemarketers. You don't have to listen through their speil. You just need to tear into them like a rabid badger the moment you realize what you're dealing with.

easiest anti-spam bill

[sik puppy]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would end almost all US based spam given one document - a signed pardon.

just visit various spammers, liquidate them, no consequences.

Hell, I'd even make a very large campaign contribution to Bush for that piece of paper, and I can't stand the man.

Simple solution to spam problem

[kaltkalt]

add "sending of unsolicited commercial email" to the already insanely loose definition of "terrorism" in the Patriot Act and let ashcroft lock up all the spammers with no due process.