California Anti-Spam Law Approved 179
Metroid72 writes "Zdnet reports that "A California anti-spam bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, a first step toward the passage of a law that would give people the right to sue spammers." I guess there's light at the end of the tunnel"
Anti-Spam (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Anti-Spam (Score:1)
Re:Anti-Spam (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Anti-Spam (Score:2, Interesting)
My uncle works as a personnel manager at the corporate offices in Austin; I asked him how they felt about 'spam'=='spam'
He said that a small minority of the execs there are pissed about the comparison; most don't care, but that a fair number of them find it hilarious and consider it free advertising.
*shrugs*
One thing I do have to say; Hormel doesn't,uh, use spam as a means of advertising. Not sure how true that is, but there you go....the irony is still thick.
(posting anon b
Re:Anti-Spam (Score:2)
Describes it perfectly
Script to fill referenced website logs with crap (Score:2)
How do people feel about scripts to fill website logs with crap? Here's mine, quick and dirty, written in about 30 seconds because I was pissed off:
#!/bin/bash
COUNT=0
while [ $COUNT -lt 10000 ]; do
lynx -dump http://www.resumeagencies.com/recruiterspage.asp?Y OU_FILL_MY_MAILBOX_WITH_UNSOLICITED_CRAP_AND_I_WIL L_DO_THE_SAME_TO_YOUR_WEBLOGS
sleep 1
let COUNT=COUNT+1
echo $COUNT
done
Note the fact that I'm calling what I hope is a dynamic page, so with luck, I'm wasting the
Re:Script to fill referenced website logs with cra (Score:2)
How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:1)
I can't find a copy of the law yet, but it is not a citizen's job to prosecute a crime. You should be able to tell the police or whatever agency has been set up to administrate the problem, and they will find the criminal. If, on the other hand, this is a tort (you can sue the spammer for damages), then you would have to find him/her to serve him/her a summons.
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Informative)
California requires you to serve the other party in the state - if they're in Nevada, you can't serve them, and therefore you can't sue them in small claims.
If you have a big enough case to justify higher level courts, you can server outside of the state.
But IANAL, so don't trust me :)
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:1)
Still, baby steps I guess.
I look forward to the first d
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Informative)
Read a story [purplecow.com] about how a guy here in VA filed and won.
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:2)
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:2)
You can't sue someone where the money isn't.. they just show the court how much they earned in your state $0, and you can divvy that up from there
At least that's how it works if you try to sue internationally anyway.. follow the money
Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:2)
You are not required to take the word of an opposing party without proof.
Of course getting a judgment here and not getting it paid is a pyric victory.
I don't need any anti-spam laws! (Score:1)
Re:I don't need any anti-spam laws! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't need any anti-spam laws! (Score:2)
please learn that stopping it AFTER it arrived at
the destination isn't solving the problem one bit..
Re:I don't need any anti-spam laws! (Score:1)
Re:I don't need any anti-spam laws! (Score:3, Insightful)
alrighty then (Score:5, Funny)
Re:alrighty then (Score:1)
give Nigerian spammers my acct# to pay judgement? (Score:2, Funny)
So when I sue the Nigerians who spam me, will they want my bank account number to deposit the funds for the judgement? I figure that I can sue them for $16 million dollars by now.
yay! (Score:1)
Haha, sure, ok. (Score:5, Funny)
Long way (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but it's waaaay over there, very tiny. Just a speck.
Until something like this gets approved at the federal level, at least.
And I know that won't do much good for overseas spammers and so on, but perhaps it will increase the cost of doing business.
In those case, we can only hope that other countries will do the same. China and Korea, especially.
Re:Long way (Score:2)
Re:Long way (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Long way (Score:2)
Re:Long way (Score:2)
Collecting on any judgement is another matter.
Sounds pretty similar to Junk Fax Federal Law (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, what we need is some legal consolidation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now, what we need is some legal consolidation (Score:1)
Have you, or someone you know, been spammed? (Score:2)
Re:Now, what we need is some legal consolidation (Score:2)
A copy of the bill ... (Score:5, Funny)
What use is the ability to sue spammers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What use is the ability to sue spammers (Score:2)
[C]hances are they already have their operation sorted out 'legally' offshore already.
What you may not realize is that moving offshore won't do any more. Now that the United States is building a precedence for going after evil-doers, spammers will surely be targeted for 'liberation' after Iraq. Being overseas just makes it easier.
suing spammers CUSTOMERS (Score:3, Interesting)
Not True (Score:3, Informative)
I've been getting about 20 spams/day, and did some checking into where most of it comes from. And 90% of it comes from the USA.
About half of that was coming from various domains that turned out to be owned by emailhello.com. To their credit, I sent them a mail requesting I be removed from their lists, and that I not be forwarded onto anyone else. They replied saying they'd remove me with 48hours, and true to their word, they did.
This speculation that most spam doesn't come from the USA is uniformed f
Re:Not True (Score:2)
Well, that hasn't been my experience so far. It's dropped to single figures now.
One thing I do to hide the fact there's a 'live person' on the other end is to *never* read the spam I get. Most spam comes with embedded html, and if you look at the raw source (which I only do with the ethernet cable out) then you'll see that many of the links to the graphics and such point to the innards of a remote database. Resolve the link, and you validate your address.
I run Mac OS X, and Mail.app grabs just about e
In fact .. (Score:2)
I can tell you that I'm almost certain where my email address(s) have been picked up from. I kick started my new domain about 3 years ago. So I was totally spam free in the beginning. That continued until one day I started posting to a Newsgroup and forgot to create an alias for the first post, using my real address instead. Almost immediately I started getting spam. Just one post, just one stinkin lapse of concentration was all it took. I could have kicked myself. After that I used aliases which I
Technology, not laws (Score:2)
No, this is by definition a technology issue, and must be solved by technology. Trusted servers, trusted users, accountability, e-stamps, etc.
We just don't need more useless laws filling up the books, law enforcement time and money, and user harrassment.
But I will admit one thing, if ever I expected a useless law to come from anywhere, they left coast is the place.
Re:Technology, not laws (Score:3, Funny)
Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.
To quote someone from the discussion of the national do-not-call list administered by the FCC, "I'm looking forward to the national do-not-spam list, administered by the U.S. Army."
(Note for the humor-impaired: I'm not serious about the above)
Re:Technology, not laws (Score:2)
The useless anti-sodomy laws come from the conservative south.
The useless "covenant-marriage" law comes from the conservative south.
The useless "defense of marriage act" comes from conservatives in the east coast.
Think.
light at the end of the tunnel (Score:4, Funny)
Re:light at the end of the tunnel (Score:3, Funny)
And then hilarity ensued (Score:1)
Geeks asleep at the wheel (Score:3, Interesting)
Before we cheer legal solutions (which will have their fair share of downsides) maybe more people should take technological measures.
Also have a look here: Annoying spammers with OpenBSD's pf [benzedrine.cx]
Slides explaining how Bayesian email filtering is successful [sourceforge.net]
PS: I know people might say, but what about the economic cost of spam, blah blah blah. Read the slides. If no one ever gets spam, people will stop sending it, and the economic cost goes away.
Good luck!
Re:Geeks asleep at the wheel (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't do anything at all to stop spammers. Even if all that spam wound up in your inbox, you'd never give a penny to any of the people who sent it. Neither would 99% of the other recipients. Sp
Re:Geeks asleep at the wheel (Score:3, Interesting)
A while ago, one of my clients was sending out a newsletter that was labelled as SPAM. It took me just over an hour to look up the tags that Spam Assassin found that it violated, and rework it so that the SpamAssassin score dropped from like 16 down to just 3. (The most common minimum threshold is 5-10)
This is an opt-in newsletter, but don't think that spammers can't
Re:Geeks asleep at the wheel (Score:2)
Maybe because we're not all paranoid anti-government freaks? I cheer when anyone helps in the fight against spam!
Before we cheer legal solutions (which will have their fair share of downsides) maybe more people should take technological measures.
We've been working on technological solutions for a decade and a half, and the problem is worse now than when we started. And many of the more drastic technological solutio
Microsoft asleep at the wheel! (Score:2)
Personally, I'm using POPFile, and it works great.
Great!! (Score:1)
People? Businesses! (Score:1)
I expect that businesses will be able to prove their case much more effectively, having to deal with millions of spam messages over very short periods of time. It's much easier for a business to prove damages, what with server
Pro-war spam multiplies (Score:2, Interesting)
Strangely enough none of the Peace movement organizations have spammed me. Perhaps even more stange, or suggestive, is that all of the peace groups are non profit, while all the pro war psam seems to come from some business hoping to sell some thing or another (offensiv
Re:Pro-war spam multiplies (Score:2)
Re:curiously enough (Score:2)
If memory serves, my filters now frown upon just about any e-mail that passes through either country, unless it comes from certain blessed domains or uses similarly blessed keywords.
Quick! (Score:2)
"spam laundering" (Score:1)
Re:"spam laundering" (Score:2)
I don't think the issue is whether it is legal or not, but whether there is any way to catch the spammer. If the spammer's connection to the offshore server is encrypted, there won't be any way to trace the e-mail back to him. As you point out, using offshore bank accounts to launder money is illegal, but it happens every day, because if the countries in question have good banking privacy laws,
How effective is this? (Score:1)
Re:How effective is this? (Score:1)
A server with open
Can an ISP use this to sue? (Score:2)
What happens when someone like me, or a website postmaster, is the one to sue? Or even better, a major ISP systems administrator?
Can an ISP use this to sue?
Imagine an enormous ISP honeypot, all routed to one person, and then that person sues the same spammer again and again, each time making a $500 dent.
Would this make any difference?
Che
Yes, but which one? (Score:5, Informative)
SB 342, "Unsolicited email advertisements" [ca.gov] (Florez)
SB 186, "Privacy: unsolicited e-mail advertising" [ca.gov] (Murray)
SB 12, "Electronic Mail Advertising" [ca.gov] (Bowen)
AB 567, "Unsolicited electronic mail advertisements" [ca.gov] (Simitian)
For those about to rejoice, remember this is simply the first step. It still has to finish going through the state assembly, and then get signed by Governor Davis. Let's get some of this stuff pushed through for the better of the anti-spam community, shall we?
Fine and dandy.... (Score:3, Interesting)
While this article is good news, it will not stop the constant migration of spamming operations to foreign countries who need the money.
There have been more and more people moving towards a newer solution which is very simple. Just ignore the spam. If more and more people ignore the unsolicited emails, eventually the Spammers will lose revenue or lose interest. By establishing all these forceful "spam attacks" we are just flaming the fire and provoking more spam. This is exactly the kind of media attention these spammers thrive on.
my two cents
Re:Fine and dandy.... (Score:2)
For example, some U.S. company decides they want to spam the world, and contacts an overseas spam outfit. You get the spam. You may not be able to sue the spam outfit, but you can bet your backside that you hvae the right to sue the America
Full Text of anti-spam bill below: (Score:3, Funny)
Wouldn't it be easier just to make it legal to... (Score:2)
B: kill them
C: hunt them down with intellegent S&D droids with lazer guided missiles?
Still, I seriously wonder if the ability to sue them for spamming will really stop them... I mean, they can probably find good ways to stay very anonymous.
But this probably does screw over all the big spamlords.
Of course... (Score:2, Informative)
Could be a whole new employement niche, Spam Collection Agent.
"Hello, you bad old spammer you, I'm here to tow away your server."
California has had antispam laws for years (Score:5, Informative)
The new law appears to be more protectionist than previous ones, which required either (a) opt-out by the recipient, (b) status as an ISP, or (c) evidence of fraud.
--Tom Geller
Founder, SpamCon Foundation
1337-speak spam? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, this seems amusingly similar to the evolutions of spellings that led to 1337 5p34k. IRC would filter out some words like "hacker" and disguising these words with numbers and intentional misspellings was a way to get past the filters and avoid breaks in communications. They're using our own cleverness against us. :)
law for ISPs (Score:1)
It also makes logical sense for AOL or MSN that has huge database of the servers that sent the mail, and the number of people affected.
If such a law is drafted it should make sure that the end user ends up getting price breaks, or re
What if? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What if? (Score:1)
In all seriousness, I don't share the slashbots elation. This is yet another law against communications on the internet.
Espescially how 'spam' is defined. It's not just the nasty people who stuff your pipe full of porn pages.
If this trend continues, watch for mailing lists to go the way of 'net radio. It'll be too expensive to run the $OS-project list because some jackass
Some good points and some bad points (Score:1)
Existing law prohibits a person or entity conducting business in the state from e-mailing or causing to be e-mailed documents ...
This bill would remove delete these provisions and would instead prohibit the sending, as defined, of a person or entity from initiating an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements advertisement either from Calif
Re:Some good points and some bad points (Score:1)
When is the ISP liable? When they expressly condone spam, or do it themselves - OK, fine.
When one of their users spams, and they dont prevent it? Ok, I guess.
When one of their users 37337 linux box is r00t3d and is used as an open relay? Umm.. ok
When one of their users is the victim of a joe job, in other words forged return addresses pointing to the ISP? Ok.. (maybe in this case they could prove innocence, but that doesnt save them legal costs and hassles).
So push that law. Ens
Approved, or just a first step? (Score:2)
California Anti-Spam Law Approved ... A California anti-spam bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, a first step toward the passage of a law...
So, if it's just a first step, then it isn't really approved then, eh? (All the same, I hope that it is signed by the governor and put into law)
Are we maybe taking the wrong approach? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems society may be taking the wrong approach to this whole spam thing. We keep focussing on the guy actually sending us the e-mail. We seem to be overlooking the fact that there is someone out there who is trying to sell something to us (or scam us). If it weren't for this seller/scammer the spammer would have no reason to send us anything. Instead of attacking the spammer why not attack the root of the problem: the guy who is paying the spammer to spam. The way I look at it the spammer isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He's doing it on someone's behalf because they are paying him. The person doing the selling is likely much more accessable than the actual spammer because one would need to actually contact them to buy the product being advertised. In contrast to suing the spammer why has suing the company/person who has hired the spammer been cosidered?
Easiest solution of all. (Score:1)
rob
Coincidentally (Score:1)
Sorry (Score:1)
Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2)
That still fails to address the real problem with SPAM. Sure its inconvient for it to be cluttering up your inbox, but realistically the cost of deleteing it is trivial. However, for an ISP, or a person running their own mail ser
Government crackdown on spam (Score:2)
global treaty (Score:2)
worthless (Score:2)
Unintended consequences (Score:2)
:0 Have a nice day.
How long until... (Score:3, Funny)
How long until I start getting spam from lawyers wanting to sue other spammers on my behalf?
More Lawsuits are Not the Answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously this is not the same as product liability, which for all its evils, in many cases has made us safer in our homes, cars, and places of work.
Physicians know very well the nightmare involved in any kind of malpractice action.
While the Calif. legislature's intentions are good, the problems with this law will prevent it ever having its intended effect.
The only think it
Sue the sender only? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most spam is sent out through a 3rd party, who usually hides behind all kinds of nifty little things like hijacked SMTP servers and spoofed IP addresses. My freinds dad was a spammer, so I'm quite aquainted with thier operations.
Let's say, I recieve a spam from penis enlargement corporation. I try to sue, PEC just points out that the spam wasn't sent by them, it was sent by "insert spam company here" and they're off the hook.
The law needs to include the customer of the spam house, otherwise it's going to be ineffective.
Re:Sue the sender only? (Score:2)
I believe you must mean spoofed headers, becaue actually spoofing IP through an entire TCP session is too difficult. Now the SMTP server receiving the message with spoofed headers would still be adding an additional header stating the source address of the message. So it is likely that the IP of the computer where the spoofed header was produced will itself also be in the final header.
However if an open proxy is used to connect to the open SMTP relay, the original source can be hidden. The pr
Law is fine, but could we get a little tech help? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I know that *unless* you do/can authenticate with your email server now, this will break a few setups. And it's not the end-all of spam solutions. But it'd sure be a good help.
Kjella
Horrible Slashdot Posters Sued (Score:1)
I now fully expect people to begin holding a trial against me for my stupidity. Dang it!
don't worry about the spammer, get the advertiser (Score:5, Informative)
Some cases will be more tough to prove, but with a little case law, you can win. One difficult case would be something like mortgage lead spams. The spammer and website are offshore, and once they have your information, then they sell the leads to numerous companies that 'claim' to not know how the information was obtained, however this will not be a valid excuse. I haven't seen the text of the bill (will a karma whore please post it if found), but I hope the wording is like that of the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991). In order to be sent a prerecorded commercial message or commercial fax, one must have a prior business relationship or have given prior *express* permission to receive such. Express permission cannot be sold nor purchased. Those of us that run our own email servers or use catch-all domain forwarding or other such service will be able to track all emails quite easily where you can simply create a new account for every location you post, web site registration, sweepstakes entry, etc so that you can decidedly trace the method a company used to obtain your address. A company trying to suggest that you must have 'subscribed or requested at some point to be added' will be shot down faster than my advances on prom night.
You don't have to worry about stopping the spammers per se, but the people that are knowingly paying others to send the illicit ads. The spammers protect themselves decently well just like junk faxers and scamming telemarketers, but when you hit their source of money, then you cut the body off the head of the snake. If the business think they were unfairly treated, then they are free to go after the spammers they paid to send the junk. States can pass all the bills they want, but until the public has rights to collect damages that have been made themselves, such laws or bills will continue to be toothless. Washington's law, from what I understand, has been decently effective. I simply do not see how Congress can site idly much longer on this issue. This is something that is affecting more people than before. The junk fax problem was quite so widespread when Congress acted in the early 1990s. Senator Disney did well with the TCPA, so maybe an anti-spam bill would be considered someday. It would see the best time to pass this is on the heels of the implementation of the FTC/FCC regulations. Awareness will be at an all time high and the same arguments DMA, Fax.com, and other scum will try to usee will have already been shot down with fresh case law or interpretation of regulations. While some people get in the news for winning spam cases using the TCPA, it seems most of those involved default judgments (like the recent Sears case). I know this isn't an junk email list, but thought some would be interested in the obvious mirroring of aspects of the TCPA. Interesting aspect is also the additional penalty 'read: tax' going to state coffers, that will be included even if it is a private action.
Re:don't worry about the spammer, get the advertis (Score:2)
With one caveat. Express permission can be sold/purchased in the form of a merger, buyout, or other absorbtion of one company by another. If I say that I want info about when the next version of Foo from Foo Systems, Inc. comes out, and they get bought by Real-eBar, and form Real-eFooBar, Inc I still want said information about the Real-eFooBar product.
It's important to be extremely precise when defining these thing to avoid unnecessarily preventing le
Re:Yes! Finally! (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Yeah right.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but don't forget that spammers usually want to sell you something and in order to do that they have to include some form of contact address or phone number in their spam.
Tracking down the people behind the products or services being promoted should be pretty straight forward -- proving that it wasn't a joe-job however could be a whole lot harder.
Re:Cost-benefit analysis (Score:2)
Step 1: get the faxspmammer's fax # (try *69)
Step 2: take 3 pieces of black construction paper, and one roll of 3M Scotch brand tape (or whatever)
Step 3: tape the 3 pieces of paper together in one long strip
Step 4: Fax it to the offender
Step 5: When the first sheet is through, tape the end of it to the exposed end at the other side.
Step 6: ??
Step 7: PROFIT!!
Toner 'ain't cheap.
Re:$500 per violation (Score:2, Insightful)
Much of the spam I receive at the moment is highly pornographic - not a problem for me, but I have a two year old daughter. In a couple of years, she'll be using the 'net (albeit from behind some kind of transparent filtering proxy); how would you feel if your child was being sent pornographic mail?
OK, so I'll be closely monitoring her email account when I set one up for her, but why should I have to do this? It's not as though I have to open every envelope sent to her through the post.