[PLUG] Spam law update

Colin Dabritz colin at dabritz.org
Sun Oct 20 07:17:02 UTC 2002


    May I chime in with something I have considered for a while?  Oregon
already has a 'no spam' law for telephones, called the oregon 'no-call' law
www.ornocall.com, where you can be put on a list they are required to check
before making a call to anyone in oregon.  It makes solictications illegal,
with a few cevats (covering the obvious, like prior buisness relationships,
and non-profit organizations).
    We could campaign for a no email-spam law and win.  And then campaign
for a no snail-mail spam law and win.  And we could campaign for laws
against sticking flyers on your door, and in your car windshield wiper.  And
then we could campaign again when television ads go digital and are targeted
directly at individual viwers.  And 50 years in the future when the next
communications medium goes big (telepathic advertising? *shudders*).  And we
could keep fighting every single step of the way.  But perhaps there is a
better solution.
    What I want is a 'no direct contact for buisness purposes without prior
consent' law.  It would make ANY directly targeted advertising illegal
unless that buisness has prior consent, either in writen form, or the prior
buisness thing from ornocall.com.  The details are fuzzy, but think of the
advantage.  If a law such as this had been passes when comsumers got fed up
with cataloges and junk mail at thier door, and soliticors on the phone,
then it would have automatically applied to the unforseen format of 'email'.
We could be the first state with a 'no harassment of consumers' law.  How
cool would that be?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Shepard" <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
To: <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 5:25 PM
Subject: [PLUG] Spam law update


>   I've decided to put off lobbying for an Oregon anti-spam law until after
> the elections. No sense lobbying someone who may not be in a position to
> help. Depending on who wins, I think that we can get 3-4 sponsors of an
> anti-spamming law; house and senate.
>
>   What encourages me is the article in today's Oregonian reporting that
> Washington has successfully procecuted its first spammer under its law.
This
> is a 28-year-old from Salem who sent about 300,000 spam mails soliciting
> sales of his $40 book on how to make money on the Internet. Under
Washington
> law, each incident can result in a fine of $20,000 plus the cost of
> procecution. The judge dropped the conviction to a single incident and
> lopped a third off the restitution of costs. The defendent now owes the
> state of Washington $96,000.
>
>   With precedent set across the river, it will be easier to garner support
> among the legislators. I look forward to getting gowing on this next
month.
>
> Rich
>
>
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