Joseph Reagle <
[email protected]> writes:
> On Wednesday 03 April 2002 12:21, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> > Q: Is this illegal?
> >
> > A: He didn't think so, at least in the US.
[]
> Our assholes are purposefully forging headers and From addresses to send
> unsolicited email. In fact, their service is intended to make it very
> difficult for an ISP to take an action against such a spammer, "Forget
> problems with ISP 's your IP address will never be shown in our e-mail
> headers." This is definitely against the law in some US states [a]. I'm not
> sure if its against the law under Federal or Massachusetts law but I have
> contacted and spoken with the FTC and the Middlesex's District Attorney's
> Special Investigations (Computer) Investigator. The FTC doesn't speak about
> any pending actions (they are so weak the typical result is a consent
> degree that does not constitute an admission of guilt) so it's hard to say
> if they would take any action. (They typically need to receive lots of
> complaints.) I hope to hear back from the Middlesex DA or Massachusetts GA
> as to whether this is presently violating any local laws.
>
> Ian, did you find out which state they are based in? If we were lucky,
> they'd do it to Janet and she could get some money out of them [b].
The State of Maine (where I reside) has been bouncing around some new
legislation ideas concerning spam [c].
Basically the law would be that they [spammers] would have to include
Adv in subject line and a valid email address or website link in the
message. Pretty weak to begin with but was sailing along fine until
some clown started mucking with it making it less effective. One of
the reasons he cites is how other states' legislation has been
ineffective and Maine should wait for the US government to address
it.
A more effective law would require no forged headers and a valid From
or Reply-to in addition to Adv, that way I could filter out and
automatically return fire to those that actually comply or comtemplate
suing those that don't if the return volley bounces. I actually know
a few people in the Maine legislature and am tempted to offer consult
them but figure they probably have too many people involved to begin
with.
I would be surprised if Congress were to pass something useful in a
timely manner as they have flailed to date. They should have the fore
sight of spammers going multinational and making the end customer
who's site is being advertised legally and therefore also financially
responsible for the tactics the spamming company they are employing
are using regardless of the country of origin of the spam.
I do have to agree that the various state laws have not served as much
of a deterent given the ongoing volume and practices. Yes there have
been a few people like in the article Joseph cites that have been a
small nuisance to spammers. It won't be until significant numbers of
people or class action law suits are started that there will be an
economic decision to comply with commercial email laws. EU or US may
someday actually figure out how and when to properly legislate items
relating to the internet, their track records so far are pretty
muttled.
> [a]
http://spamlaws.com/state/summary.html
> [b]
http://www.woodyswatch.com/windows/archtemplate.asp?4-13#watchdog
[c]
http://www.portland.com/news/statehouse/020402spam.shtml
--
Ted Guild <
[email protected]>
http://www.guilds.net