California Could Get $500/Offense Spam Law 213
Bud Higgins writes "CNN has a story about a law the California Senate passed which will allow people to sue spammers for $500 per unwanted email. This is one of the strictest anti-spam measures in the country and will set a precedent for other states to follow." This bill needs to pass the state assembly and the governor to become a law, though.
Ahem. (Score:4, Interesting)
That is all.
I really wonder how they propose to prosecute this law. I mean, wouldn't it only work in CA-CA transactions, where none of the routing table was outside of CA? Otherwise you'd have that pesky rule about not prosecuting people outside your state under state law.
Do inform me if I'm wrong, though.
Re:Ahem. (Score:2, Informative)
that we could indeed prosecute those outside of
California. Something about long-arm laws and "full faith and credit" and so on... yeah, I know nothing.
Re:Ahem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
1. Get a Hotmail/Yahoo account
2. Get rich.
You forgot (Score:2)
0. Move to California, so changes in California law matter to you.
Of course, you may have taken this step previously.
Laws are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do.
Re:Laws are bad, but spam is worse (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll support the right to post any content you want for all to see, but to send it to anyone using their bandwidth is something different.
Re:Laws are bad, but spam is worse (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad, but spam is worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Laws are bad, but spam is worse (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
People will mod up anything that smells of anti-law or anti-government. Frankly I'm glad the state of Michigan has laws to stop people from using my fax paper to spam me. Or from people calling me at 2:00am with an auto-dialer.
The government made laws for telephone and fax use and somehow I pulled through this age of the apocalypse. I think the Internet will survive the oppressiveness of the government.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do.
Are you also against truth-in-advertising laws that make it illegal for companies to lie about their products in TV commercials? That's a restriction of speech too - of commercial speech - and laws like that are essential for a capitalistic economy to function properly.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Informative)
AOL's commercials don't say they're number 1 because their service is the easiest to use. They say: "So easy to use, no wonder it's number 1!" They are number 1 in terms of number of customers, and they're suggesting that this relates to ease of use, but not stating it as fact. If they did state it as fact, you can bet they'd have fine print at the bottom citing a source that did some kind of study or survey or something.
those ginsu knives really *can* cut through a solid steel block (uh huh), and OxyClean really willl get out ANY stain (um, no.)
Be careful about exactly what they do and do not state, for example "this steel block" vs. "any steel block", "almost any stain" vs. "any stain", etc. If you're still sure the claims made in their advertisements are false, buy the product, try it, and if it fails as expected, talk to a lawyer. Be careful though, because most companies won't actually make false claims - because of the laws against doing so.
boasting (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little uncomfortable with the government passing laws specifically against spam--not because I think spamming is something to defend, I'm just worried about government getting on a roll and meddling in other Internet areas that they have no place being.
Spam should be prosecuted under existing laws regarding theft of service and computing resources. I wouldn't mind a federal law that specifically restates that so there is no doubt and I'd like to see existing laws enforced against spammers, but I'm a little worried about government trying to regulate Internet. They have a hard enough time trying to regulate things they understand let alone things they don't.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is forcing you to have a house. Also, no one is forcing you to have a house on a street.
Fixed.
Here's an analogy: they're sending all their junk mail with postage due. Also, the paper they used cost them nothing, but the ink did cost just a little bit. Better?
(Postage due = your bandwidth bill, paper = email (free), ink = a computer, for the analogy impared.)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Informative)
So you're saying that because I run an email server connected to the Internet that I am obligated to accept postage-due advertisements, which is what spam is? Because I have a mail server I am obligated to receive hundreds of fradulent advertisements every day on my dime and on my time? I am required to subsidize someone else's marketing campaign?
The fact that I run an email server does not give you--or any spammer--the implicit right to abuse it or shift costs to me. Mail servers are accessible via the Internet because they have to me--it does not convey some automatic invitation to subsidize the costs of an advertising campaign much less a fradulent or pornographic one.
While we're at it, why don't we go ahead and have some human refuse unloaded on your front lawn and charge you for delivery? After all, your front lawn is publically-accessible. No-one forced you to have a front lawn so everyone is free to unload whatever refuse they want there because we thought it "might be useful". And charge you, to boot.
RTFA and stop jerking your knee (Score:5, Insightful)
I can print all the leaflets I want. How about I use your envelopes and stamps (and return address) to send them out?
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Spam is assault, not speach. Would I protect the right of skinheads to scream racial epithets at people? No. Would I protect those skinheads right to hold their views on white racial superiority? Yes, although their beliefs are digusting and offensive they have the right to hold them and even communicate them to others.
So spammers can send their messages to people who are willing to receive them. No restriction on the message, just the means used to deliver it.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
It prevented people from sending you unsolicited faxes. That makes sense, right? You pay for that paper. Allowing fax spam would be disastrous...wasted money, wasted paper, and an environmental nightmare.
Now, e-mail spam isn't exactly the same. Your hard drive space isn't as scarce of a resource, and neither is bandwidth. But the principle remains the same: someone is using your resources against your will.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Define scarse.
I have to pay for hard drive space. I pay for my bandwidth.
You forgot to mention time. It's the most important resource of all. My time is extremely valuable.
I shouldn't have to waste any of the three sorting through unwanted, sometimes offensive, commercial email.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... Let's say it takes just 1 second to delete 1 spam, which is not unreasonable if you actually look at the subject to determine it's not spam. Let's say the spammer sent that advertisement to 30 million email addresses, which isn't unreasonable either. So a single spam session to 30 million people, the spammer caused humanity to lose 30 million seconds. That's 8333 hours which is just shy of a year. Or let's say that we call our time worth about $5/hr--less than minimum wage. That spam session that cost the spammer a few dollars at best cost humanity $41,000.
And that's just one spam! How many individual spams do you think are sent per day? By some estimates [gainesvillesun.com], spam will cost the American economy nearly $10 billion this year (I've also seen $8.9 billion mentioned).
Let's look at it more personally. Last month I received 2171 spams. This month I'm on track to receive 3022. So call it 2800 per month. That's 33,600 spams per year. Again, assuming 1 second per spam that's 9 hours of my time that will be wasted on spam this year. That's one work-day, or a nice Saturday afternoon.
Those that say "Who cares? Just click delete. How long does it really take?" are quite clueless. Spam robs time from others and it DOES add up personally, economically, and at the societal level.
That said, I don't worry about spam much. Using some good filters and Bayesian statistics I'm seeing just a few spam per month even though I'm receiving about 3000 per month. What a relief.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Another simple indicator of "reasonable" is that major ISP such as AOL, Earthlink, MSN have recently gone to filtering email for spam.... something they resisted for years.
Als
Re:My prediction... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well if you want to carry it that far then everyones lives and accomplishments are pretty irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. Two centuries from now Bill Gates will be just a name in an encyclopedia with a three line description, as will 9/11, George Bush jr. will be just a picture amongst dozens of presidents, and you and I will be completely forgotten except for the times our great-great-great-grandkids do their family tree.
But in the day-to-day events of my 75 years of life on this planet those 2-3 minutes per day are very relevent, important, and precious to me and I have better things to do than spend an hour a week or 50 hours a year deleting email for garbage that I did not request, would never request, and will never buy.
The problem with spam is that it interferes with your entire day. Junk snail mail is only a once a day problem since you get your mail once a day, and you can immediately recognize the fliers from your actual mail and get rid of the crap. But most of those fliers are useful to many people because they advertise events, announce upcoming sales, and somtimes introduce you to activities that you did not know existed in your area. Imagine how annoying junk snail mail would be if each piece arrived every 50 minutes and you were interrupted from what you were doing and had to answer your door to get the junk mail.
Spam on the other hand is getting more difficult to recognize and you often have to read the message to know it is spam. Send out a million messages with "Hi from Barbara" or "Hey dude it's John" and invaribly they will make their way to someone who is expecting an email for Barbara or John, so they think it is an NB msg but instead waste their time to open it up. If all spam occured just once a day like snail junk email it would not be so annoying, but it's something ppl have to deal with all day long.
Also spam is always selling useless crap that 99.9% of the population never would use and takes advantage of the
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
It's *my* time. Your annoyance is irrelevant. You don't have any business wasting my time - because I say so. Don't like it? Too damn bad.
Max
Re:Laws are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
A perversion of "I disagree with what you say but I'll fight for your right to say it." Spam is commercial speech and as such is undeserving of such allegiance. This has been well established by court precedent in the USA- commercial speech does not enjoy the same First Amendment protections as noncommercial (political) speech. Even if it were political speech, the way it's delivered can matter as well. You can't run around with a can of spray paint before an election and put political graffiti all over buildings, for example.
I don't want the government making laws about Internet content. Its just a bad idea. Tomorrow they might make a law against something you do.
There are two conflicting memes I see a lot concerning crime, legislation, and the Internet:
- Crimes involving the Internet are extra serious and require additional punishment and more savage sentences.
- Anything done on the Internet should be completely legal and unrestricted no matter what.
The first is fueled by simple post-9/11-style ignorance and fear. The second is based on an understandable fear of technically illiterate Senators introducing legislation written by corporate lobbyists. Yet in principle both are equally invalid because they fail to recognize that the Internet is a part of the real world and not some sort of alternate universe that requires a completely separate framework of crazy rules.
Another related meme, common in industry, and illustrative of the same point:
- Introducing the Internet into a business process renders it patentable.
Why does the Internet have this strange effect on people? There is nothing magical about the Internet that makes our ordinary common sense suddenly inapplicable. (You need a little bit of education, more than the average lawmaker has, but that should be it.) Some people simply cannot behave themselves. There is no valid reason that the social and legal principles we've developed for dealing with criminals in the real world shouldn't also work well on the Internet- which after all is merely a part of the real world. There are technical issues involved with catching troublemakers on the Internet that have no counterpart in "real life", but real life has its own set of technical issues that don't exist on the Internet.
If you can't behave yourself and screw things up for the general public, you should be punished. The fact that you're using TCP/IP at some point is irrelevant. It doesn't mean your activities should be branded as "cyberterrorism" deserving a doubled or tripled sentence, nor does it mean that anything goes.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
I touch a fair amount of spam. There is no, zero, zilch consitutional issue for that touching. Same for all the others who do the touching using honeypots - if the spammer wants to assert his consitutional right then he can send directly to the recipient. He has no constitutional right to use my equipment or anyone else's equipment in his spam scheme. The spammers who scream "constitutional right" conveniently forget to mention how they send their spam.
Scelscon's testimony in Washington was that ISPs should be forced to deliver the spam. That's not asserting a constitutional right, that's trying to escape ISPs having the right to control their own networks.
Just because I have an email mailbox there is not created a right for anyone who wishes to send email to that mailbox nor any right to require its delivery. The email mailbox exists for my convenience and is not the spammers nor TrustE's nor Microsoft's nor anyone else's to authorize as a spam destination. I've not granted any such right to TrustE, etc. and I will not grant such a right. "trusted sender" is hogwash, and that's a polite term in place of what it really is.
Of course there's also a court decision that says the ISP is not obligated to accept the spam.
Re:Laws are bad (Score:2)
Now all I need to do is... (Score:4, Funny)
Good luck with that one. (Score:2)
Since all you need is a mail server in Idaho instead of california to spam californians, good luck stopping it.
Even a federal law wouldn't work because then all you need is a mail server in toronto (or anywhere in a foreign country).
That is the whole point of the internet. The ability to communicate.
If anyone really want's to stop spam all that is needed is a new protocol that is backward compatable for a time period and eventually leaves smtp out in the c
Step in the right direction (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Step in the right direction (Score:2, Insightful)
While this will put a big burden on the civil courts for a while if everyone starts suing all their spammers, I'm sure it'll settle down once it becomes clear that spamming is no longer profitable, no matter how difficult tracking the spammer down is.
laws and lawmakers (Score:4, Interesting)
$500/spam... had to be someone important who just _really_ got sick of bestiality advertisements in their inbox or something. (Which, btw, some politicians tend to throw a fit about when they recieve it with inline HTML and pictures, and do things like force you to install half-functional anti-spam software so she doesn't see horse meat anymore.)
Re:laws and lawmakers (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't vote for that shit. they got enough petitions to put it on the referendum ballot. everyone laughed. then it passed.
as much as I hate spam, this law is in the same league. I don't think unsolicited email warrants a $500 civil damage. I think a $10,000 criminal fine for spammers is more appropriate.
Re:laws and lawmakers (Score:2)
Re:laws and lawmakers (Score:2)
Wow, I don't know if I should think of those people as hypocritical or realistic. I mean, beef burger, horse burger, whats the difference? On the other hand, opposing beef for food isn't going to get you anywhere.
Re:laws and lawmakers (Score:2)
The problem is without the $500/violation, you are now depending on the government to enforce the laws against the spammers. By having the civil right of action, it provides an inveptive for individuals to take action and stop these spammers.
Look at the DOL and the EEOC when it comes to the laws that they enforce. Usually, they say that it looks like a violation, go ahead and file a lawsuit on your own, unless it is one of their hot political topi
Should clean up ignore list (Score:2, Funny)
Current law? (Score:5, Interesting)
How often do you actually see this? I get occasional spam with ADV in the subject line, but the vast majority of my spam does not, and I know the spammers aren't targetting me by my location (I don't live in California, but they wouldn't have a way to know that). How much difference will this new law make?
Raising the dollar amount and making it easier to sue makes it much more attractive to go to the trouble of actually suing. Successful lawsuits make spamming much less attractive, thus cutting down on actual spam sent. This is a good thing. However, does anyone know how spam will be defined by this law if it passes? It sounds like this proposed law is simply an extension to an existing spam law; does it include a reasonable definition?
Oh, and to the people who are about to start yammering about how 1) whitelists, 2) Bayesian filtering, or 3) a replacement for SMTP are the only solutions to the spam problem and this law is a waste of time: shut up. The war against spam needs to be fought on many fronts simultaneously, one of which is legal. If done correctly, anti-spam laws do NOT endanger free speech.
Re:Current law? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if there was a law that said you had to use ADV in the subject and spammers were forced to comply with such a simple rule then I certainly wouldn't have any more complaints with them. I'd just add it to my filters and live happily ever after. Afterall, the spammers use the argument that you can opt out of their mailing lists right? Why not just clearly identify that your mail is an advertisement and let the users filter it themselves? Oh right, because everyone would filter your spam and you'd be out of business. So I guess it really is a bullshit opt-out argument.
Automatic opt-out would make spam less annoying (Score:2)
Second, as I said in the last spam discussion -- I wouldn't mind so much if each spammer just sent ONE copy of each offer, and if the recipient didn't respond, remove their address off that list, better yet from that entire topic category. (I don't need 40 copies a week of Herbal Viagra ads, I heard 'em the first time.)
After a while only those people who DO respond to spam offers would be left -- a more valuable target market (ie. people who actually BUY) for
Answer (Score:2)
That is because you, or one of your upstream providers, added a one line filter to insta-delete any email with "ADV:" in the subject. See, it works.
Re:Answer (Score:2)
State Laws Don't Help (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee... (Score:3, Interesting)
Offtopic? Or so ontopic it just looks that way? (Score:3, Interesting)
As I barely answer real emails, I'm guessing that this is the evil bastard child of spam and troll.
Trollspam - gets you pissed by accusing you of sending email. So you open it and great! a web bug just confirmed your addy.
Ha. Yahoo mail blocks HTML.
I would be happy to chase those fuckers down for a ham sandwich, nevermind 5 bills.
Re:Offtopic? Or so ontopic it just looks that way? (Score:5, Informative)
In OSX Mail: Uncheck "Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages" in Preferences/Viewing.
In Mozilla: Check "Do not load remote images in Mail & Newsgroup messages" in Preferences/Privacy & Security/Images.
Re:Offtopic? Or so ontopic it just looks that way? (Score:5, Funny)
Weeeeee! (Score:2, Funny)
Screw the spammers! Weeeeeee!
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2
More useless legislation (Score:4, Interesting)
What lawyer is going to pursue a case where the fine is $500? To even find the identity of the spammer you have to serve subpeonas and all sorts of time and money intensive processes which make such a case impractical.
Add to that the fact that most spammers are small operators that float around from one ISP to another and are incredibly difficult to track. The amount of time to identify and take legal action against such losers makes the payoff a joke. And even if you could engage in some sort of class action suit, most of these spammers don't have any assets in the first place.
This is a total waste of time. I applaud any effort to recognize spam as an issue that needs to be dealt with, but this old idea of small fines has been tried and has proven to be totally ineffective.
The only true way to get rid of spam is to push not for new laws, but enforcement of existing criminal laws which spammers routinely violate, which include hijacking mail relays and third-party computer networks. The government refuses to pursue these cases and even if they nailed just a few spammers for computer break-ins, it would have ten times the effect that these spineless civil laws have in reducing spam.
Re:More useless legislation - NOT! (Score:4, Informative)
Can you say class-action? Given that a spammer may pump out thousands, if not millions of pieces of spam, I'm sure sure that there are many lawyers who would be willing to settle for a small percentage cut of the gross.
However, lawyers really aren't the audience for this law. Spam bounty hunters and rabid anti-spammers like myself can take the tens of thousands of junk e-mails we've been saving against this day, and use those messages, as well as previous research into spammers, and the experience we've built up, tracking down the bastards, past false fronts, multiple layers of redirection, hijacked mailservers, fraudulent accounts, and nail em good.
And even if you could engage in some sort of class action suit, most of these spammers don't have any assets in the first place
We're already spending the time to nail these punks. Getting judgements that we can then sell to collection agencies only sweetens the feeling of satisfaction. Besides, at the very least we can claim the computer that they used to send the spam 8). Eventually, the bigger spammers (the ones with more to lose) will avoid California, and the spammers already living IN California will be forced to leave, lest they be served with a summons when they get sued.
You're right. Existing laws aren't being enforced. So why complain when we get a law that allows end users, rather than resource-constrained prosecutors, to enforce justice against these scum?
Re:More useless legislation - NOT! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's obvious you're not a lawyer. Good luck finding a lawyer who's going to spend a ton of time and money to track down some broke looser who last week was selling Herbalife, and this week is spamming.
Assuming you can fin
Re:More useless legislation - NOT! (Score:2)
#2 - You don't need to hire a lawyer to claim damages under a civil statute. In California, you can file small claims [ca.gov] for any amount less than $5000, which entails a minor filing fee ($22).
Obviously a lawyer isn't going to ta
Re:More useless legislation - NOT! (Score:2)
You need a lawyer to take action. You have to subpeona records in order to even identify who the spammer is. It's a very time consuming process. Look at the situation where the MPAA tried to get the identity of the Verizon user who was doing the P2P violations... they had to take that case to the state supreme cou
Re:More useless legislation (Score:2)
Well, could you file yourself in small claims court? What spammer could stay in business while dealing with hundreds of small claims cases every day?
Re:More useless legislation (Score:2)
That will surely stop the spammers, and in the case of the porn sites, they are usually the ones spamming(i would guess). If the advertizer is sued for using a spamming service(I assume you could, IANAL), then the spammers would have to come up with another source of revenue. And if the advertiser does not wanna get sued all the
If this passes... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Court awards Graveyhead $500,000,000 for 1,000,000 offensive messages received"
Well, I can dream, can't I? Someone's gotta fund this video game I've been spending nights and weekends working on for the last two years! I gotta eat too!
Residence of person or residence of server? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Residence of person or residence of server? (Score:5, Informative)
Ferguson v. Friendfinder, Inc., Case No. A092653
http://www.timothywalton.com/ferguson.html
(Thank you, Mark Ferguson, for going to the trouble of following this case through. For that matter, thanks for starting it.)
Re:Both Residence of person and of server (Score:2)
Note: IANAL. At first, I thought that it might be enough to have switching equipment in the state, but looking down at their reasons for the commerce clause not applying, switching equipment is not sufficient. Further, if AOL accepts mail in NY and then relays it to their CA server for delivery, as I understand i
Re:Both Residence of person and of server (Score:2)
Well, the pigs are on the tarmac... (Score:4, Funny)
How to destroy your business competitor... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How to destroy your business competitor... (Score:2)
No wait, even better-- pose as an employee of your competitor and send threatening letters to the white house... or issue fake press releases... or order 5,000 pizzas sent to thier mama's house...
The point is, if you do spam under someone else's name, YOU'RE still the one committing the crime. It'd be no different than framing someone for any other crime, digital or otherwise. In addition to committing the spam crime, y
With the way California is going (Score:2, Funny)
Fine, fine... (Score:3, Informative)
Digging through fake headers that really came off a home DSL routed through an open relay in China won't be worth it no matter what, no matter what they set it to because you'll never collect it. And the "company" will claim they never sent it, that someone illegally spammed on their behalf. On a good-bad dimension of course stronger fines are good. But it's a cardboard fence against an avalanche.
Kjella
Re:Fine, fine... (Score:2)
You should be happy to know that my home DSL system is receiving relay spam email from Taiwan (not exactly C
Re:Fine, fine... (Score:2)
Every one of the home loan vendors, pill salesmen, etc has to have a way for you to contact them in order to commence with business
Unwanted email? Prove it! (Score:3, Interesting)
- they guess my address;
- they have screened my address from the web;
But how about to protect me from this spam:- I registered to the service, but I didn't want any related spam and the warning about upcoming spam was unclear in a very small font;
- I gave up my emaill address to one company, but they gave it up to another and so on;
- I have subsrcibed to the mail list, but something is broken and I cannot unsubscribe anymore;
No chance yet?Re:Unwanted email? Prove it! (Score:2)
If I only lived in California (Score:2)
I hope this get this through where I live!!
Why the heck not??!! Might as well jump on the sue-happy bandwagon, everyone else is...
Re:If I only lived in California (Score:2)
The second most amount of spam comes from out of state. So how does that work?
Third, who pays for the lawsuit?
Watch out Elmo...! (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong approach (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious solution isn't to penalize the spammer, but the beneficiary of the spam is obvious because an email contact or a phone number or something, eventually, at some point, they have to charge your card to get your money.
The one who benefits from the spam should be penalized since they are the one's paying for the spam and instigating it.
Thanks,
Leabre
Re:Wrong approach (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong approach (Score:2)
Too broad? (Score:2, Funny)
Does that mean if I get my Visa bill by e-mail I can sue?
Good idea, but... (Score:2)
I desparately want to see spammers nailed to the wal
Copycat of Nevada's proposal (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't new... (Score:2)
Washington State has had this requirement for some time now... It's good that stricter spam laws are being passed, but it's not like it's setting a precedent.
Geeze... (Score:2)
Crap... at $500 per spam, I'd be a freakin' bajillionaire by now.
Good! I can retire. (Score:4, Interesting)
[8:58pm] 31 [/usr/local/bin]:jezebel% sudo spam-stats
spam: 2219
clean: 555
skipped: 0
total: 2774
processed: 2774
[9:09pm] 32 [/usr/local/bin]:jezebel%
Out of 2774 emails, 2219 were SPAM.
The machine has SpamAssassin, is using several RBL lists, and pretty tight Postfix anti-UCE settings. Spam is *still* getting through.
At $500 a message? Great. I can pay a lot of bills even if I win against 2 spammers a month.
I don't care if they're relaying it through an open relay somewhere. Most of them are hawking a porno website, and that cashflow has to go *somewhere*
My now unemployed ass (Fuck you, Spherion!) has *plenty* of time to chase spammers down.
Geez, 4 payments a month, and I'm beating out my old salary.
Sounds worth it to me.
It should also be $500 for each message that claims I "opted in" - don't want to pay? PROVE that I opted in. SHOW ME that I opted in and you *verified* my opt-in.
Lying ass spammers.
A total waste of governmental time (Score:2)
Sure, we read news stories about "Joe Schmo sues a spammer and wins", and we see supposed multi-million dollar awards to the likes of AOL and Earthlink. And it does not stem the tide of spam one damned bit. When one spammer stops, 5 more scumba^H^H^H^H^H^Hspammers rise up to take their place.
In the
Re:A total waste of governmental time (Score:2)
In order for spam sent to Americans to be profitable (else why do it), at some point, MONEY has to change hands between an American citizen and a spamvertiser.
And I'd bet that most spamvertisers are American, even if a lot of spam is originating overseas.
It's not hard for an American to buy webhostin
Sue a spammer today! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/19/02042
http://purplecow.com/vaspam/
http://news.com.com/2010-1080-281494.html
AND THE BEST SITE:
http://smallclaim.info/media/playboy.php
Now get to it!
Solution to California's budget problems (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record I also propose deputizing motorcycle riders and bicyclists to hand out $500 tickets per double-parked vehicle in San Francisco.
Re:bad news for the greatest spammer of them all.. (Score:2)
Re:bad news for the greatest spammer of them all.. (Score:2, Funny)
2) Become millionares
3) Use millions to buy X10 cameras and penis mightiers
4) Repeat
Re:bad news for the greatest spammer of them all.. (Score:2)
Re:An Alternative? (Score:2)
Spam is a problem, it will take some small amount of work to fight it.
Re:what causes more damage? (Score:2)
That's your "analysis," not mine. There are other issues than damage to natural resources (which I think you know full well.) Your "argument" is feeble and bogus. Nonetheless you're free to repeat it, free to lobby your state legislators to accept your point of view.
Re:Sorry Fellas (Score:3, Informative)
Spam is: 1) Bulk (yes, more than several), 2) Commercial (a direct solicitation to purchase a product or service WITH A PRICE), 3) Unsolicited (obvious)
We can argue about definitions, of course, but #2 definitely isn't a requirement. A non-profit organization soliciting donations is spam even though it's not commercial. A religious email sent to a million people with a religious me
Re:I learned more from Schoolhouse Rock (Score:2, Informative)
No, The Simpsons dealt with an amendment, specifically to eliminate freedom of speech as it applied to no-good hippies. Simpsons had the Amendment to Be, while Schoolhouse Rock had the bill sitting on capital hill.