[PLUG] House Passed the Anti-Spam Bill

[Grish]

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AthlonRob wrote:

| It looks like we're getting darned close to the thing becoming law.
|
|
| What do y'all think about the thing, though?  It seems, on its
| face, to be completely un-enforceable.  I don't think email is as
| easily traceable as a phone call.


Blatently stolen from a posting on slashdot:

Here's what's going to happen after February 21:

~    * You're going to get tons of spam, and from major companies. This
~      becomes legal, even in states where it used to be illegal.
~    * The headers will be correct. There are penalties for forging
~      headers.
~    * The spam won't necessarily have the company name, just some
~      unsubscribe URL and a P.O. box for written "opt-out" requests.
~    * You can go through the motions of "opting out", but it won't do
~      much. "Opt-out" is interpreted narrowly, on a "per sender"
~      basis. "Sender" is defined narrowly - /"The term `sender', when
~      used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means
~      a person who initiates such a message *and* whose product,
~      service, or Internet web site is advertised or promoted by the
~      message."/ (from S.877) Note the "and"; it's not there by
~      accident. Each combination of spammer and advertiser may be
~      considered a different "sender". That clause could even be
~      interpreted to completely let third-party spammers off the hook.
~      So advertisers get to throw away the opt-out list every time
~      they change spamhauses. There's even a "separate line of
~      business" exception to make this explicit - spammers with both
~      "Viagra" and "refinancing" spams don't have to use the opt-out
~      list from one with the other.
~    * You can't sue. Only the FTC and the U.S. Justice Department can
~      sue.



|
| Does anybody else see the proposed Do-Not-Spam list as one of the
| worst ideas EVER?  Sure, like they aren't going to harvest email
| addresses from the list....


Yes. Even if the law does good in the U.S., we can't really enforce
spam comfing from other countries. Even if the spammer is in the US,
and the exploited server is in another contry, it'll be work to trace
it back, and in some cases, we won't be able to trace it back (due to
uncooperative foreign admins).

It'll be a large database of good e-mail addresses that foreign
spammers (and spammers who are savvy hijacking unprotected servers in
countries that don't care, or have spam-friendly providers) will be
able to exploit.

I, for one, won't be signing up.

| It should be interesting, I think...


May we live in interesting times...
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