Politics Spam Legal in US

Azhria Lilu

Azhria Lilu

Captain
This is a very opinionated article from The Spamhaus Project, an anti-spam group.

United States set to Legalize Spamming on January 1, 2004

Against the advice of all anti-spam organizations, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed the CAN-SPAM Act, a bill backed overwhelmingly by spammers and dubbed the "YOU-CAN-SPAM" Act because it legalizes spamming instead of banning it. Spam King Alan Ralsky told reporters the passage of the House bill "made my day". Spammers say they will now pour money into installations of new spam servers to heavily ramp up their outgoing spam volumes "all legally".

CAN-SPAM is expected to pass the Senate next week and be signed into law by President Bush on January 1, just in time to kill off California's strong anti-spam law which would have come into effect on January 1 making spamming illegal in California. With the passage of CAN-SPAM, spamming will be officially legal throughout the United States, CAN-SPAM says that 23 million U.S. businesses can all begin spamming all U.S. email addresses as long as they give users a way to opt-out, which users can do by following the instructions of each spammer. Anyone with any sense would of course realize that if CAN-SPAM becomes law, opting out of spammers lists will very likely become the main daytime activity for most U.S. email users in 2004. The second main activity will be sorting through mailboxes crammed with 'legal' spam every few minutes to see if there's any email amongst the spam.

If CAN-SPAM becomes law, from January Europe and the United States will have opposing legislation, as Europe has already introduced legislation making spamming illegal. But 90% of Europe's spam problem originates in the United States where spamming will now be legal, therefore Europe can expect the levels of incoming spam from the United States to more than double during 2004 as U.S. spammers ramp up their output under America's new YOU-CAN-SPAM law.

What this will do for relations between Europe and the United States, is easy to predict with millions of European Internet users already angry at being deluged in American "make-penis-fast" spam. From December 11, spamming will be illegal in the UK, but with 90% of the UK's spam problem originating in the United States, British users will continue to be flooded, now with 'legal' spam from the U.S.

Some spammers are claiming that CAN-SPAM not only allows them to spam legally but that it protects them further by also making it illegal for anti-spam systems to block their spam. In fact, while CAN-SPAM is an abysmally poor law, at least it does have some parts which attempt to address the issue of blocking spam, specifically it states that the law does not impact an ISP's ability to determine and enforce its own policies for transmission of email (i.e: through the use of blocklists or whatever means the ISP likes). This means that spammers cannot sue ISPs for blocking the mail they send claiming that the ISP must accept and deliver it based on the Federal law.

The fact CAN-SPAM makes illegal the use of open proxies or any form of resource misappropriation as well as use of false headers, specifically impacts spammers such as Michigan's Alan Ralsky, as all of Ralsky's spam is sent out with false headers, all through stolen open proxies. So CAN-SPAM does at least give us the law we need to put Ralsky and most of the ROKSO spammers in jail.

To avoid jail, spammers will have to spam from their own resources, readily identifiable IP addresses, rather than steal 3rd party relays and proxies. The problem there, which from January will affect all U.S-based spammers, is that their IPs are constantly listed on the SBL ("Spamhaus Block List"), Spamhaus' free anti-spam system used by ISPs throughout the Internet to reject incoming spam from known spam sources. Therefore one effect of CAN-SPAM we will notice, is that CAN-SPAM will channel spammers straight into Spamhaus' filter which means that in 2004 our SBL system is going to be in even greater demand.
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Basically, I don't think that "CAN-SPAM" will do any good :(
 
Well, my dad's obsessed with the parental controls on AOL so I doubt this will affest me personally very much. However, I don't see how this could pass through the same legislature that made the "Do Not Call" list. Actually, I read somewhere that there were plans to make a "Do Not Spam" list. I'll try to find the article.

I found it!
From FoxNEWS.com

Bush Signs 'Can Spam' Measure

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed legislation Tuesday meant to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail pitches that irritate Internet users and drain the economy.



"Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, are annoying to consumers and costly to our economy," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said after Bush signed the bill. "This will help address the problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of spam by establishing a framework of technological, administrative civil and criminal tools, and by providing consumers with options to reduce the volume of unwanted e-mail."

The bill was among several Bush was signing during the day. He signed several others previously but was posing at official signing ceremonies for them throughout the day.

In the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, Bush signed the so-called "can spam" legislation. Passed by Congress earlier this month, the measure outlaws the persistent techniques used by e-mailers who send tens of millions of messages each day to peddle their products and services.

The bill supplants anti-spam laws already passed in some states, including California. It also encourages the Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of e-mail addresses and includes penalties for spammers of up to five years in prison in rare circumstances.


The only problem is, it would only be for people in the US since it would be national, not international.
 
But the problem is that "CAN-SPAM" defines spam as spam only if you get it and you unsubscribe and they keep sending you it.

In other words, it makes it legal to send bulk email to people you don't know.

In my opinion, spam is any email that is unsolicited and bulk.

In other words, by my understanding, the Do-Not-Spam list would require that you be on that list AND that you ask each spammer individually to not get any more email from them. At least that's how I understand it.
 
Just last night, my computer got attacked by spam so bad that I had to shut it down completely, go back in, and completely delete all cookies and temporary internet files from my computer before I could even get on the internet. And this makes twice this has happened since fall. I say we come up with workable "Can Spam" legislation. :angry:
 
Charlie said:
But the problem is that "CAN-SPAM" defines spam as spam only if you get it and you unsubscribe and they keep sending you it.

In other words, it makes it legal to send bulk email to people you don't know.

In my opinion, spam is any email that is unsolicited and bulk.

In other words, by my understanding, the Do-Not-Spam list would require that you be on that list AND that you ask each spammer individually to not get any more email from them. At least that's how I understand it.
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Hmm... I'm not sure how it would work. But I think the CAN-SPAM legislation in a big mistake. That would be like making it legal for telemarketers to try to call you again after you told them to stop. People should have a right not to be contacted if they don't want to be. Those spammers are wasting people's time because the people have to take the time to delete all the emails. :diespam:
 
I find it ironic how Bush has spoken out against spam yet he's expected to sign it :blink:

The only spam I get is from Circuit City because I think when I entered a contest for my dad, I used my email address. Other than that and occassional newletters from places I signed up at (though I wouldn't consider them spam), I don't get spam. Benefit of barely anyone knowing your email addy :P
 
AliasALIAS said:
I find it ironic how Bush has spoken out against spam yet he's expected to sign it :blink:

The only spam I get is from Circuit City because I think when I entered a contest for my dad, I used my email address. Other than that and occassional newletters from places I signed up at (though I wouldn't consider them spam), I don't get spam. Benefit of barely anyone knowing your email addy :P
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Word to the wise: Don't put your email address on a site when it gets actively crawled by Google. Bad idea.

I'm considering changing my email address, but I have so many accounts tied to it that I don't think I can.
 
Itz the MT said:
rockisdead said:
Itz the MT said:
Sophie said:
You're kidding me about KaZaA ??!! How can it be possible ?
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The Dutch judge said so... It's still illegal in USA though.

Source

:P
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I think I'm gonna move to Holland!
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Our country is full already.. haha that's another issue. :lol:

But now I can legally say that I have 3406 MP3's. :angelic:
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Well you're on ana american website. So how can we know where we can tell it or not ?
 

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