OT - US House Passes Anti-Spam Bill

Some good news.... from CNNmoney

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's a step in the right direction.

Bob S.

Reply to
Bob S.
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I hope. Given the possibility of simply moving operations out of the US, I'm inclined to wonder. As it is, my most consistent SPAMmer is the Nigerian scam. I get at least 5 of these a week, and am reaching the stage where I'm giving careful consideration to setting up a robot "F... you, scum sucker" reply. Though with my luck, it would go out to a couple of my best editors instead.

But, seriously, an awful lot of this crap is already offshore and out of the jurisdiction of US entities.

Charlie Self

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

Nah. No teeth in it at all.

From the article:

Simply allowing individuals to go after spammers like they can junk faxers would put an end to the problem. $500 per spam, and it would go away in less than a day.

Reply to
Howard Lee Harkness

Don't do it Charlie. In fact, never respond to spam for any reason. When you do, your email address goes from the list that it is being sold on to the "proven active" email address lists that are sold. That means you will get massive more amounts of email.

Frank

Reply to
Frank Ketchum

AOL allows 7 e-mail addresses. I guess I could fire back from one of those, then dump the name. But it really isn't worth the effort. Just erase and go. AOL's vaunted spam fight is mostly BS: it took me just a couple months to fill the filters.

Charlie Self

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

Yep. I'd say at least 90% of what I get (or got before my ISP got their filters working right) is from an overseas ISP and references an overseas website.

The bill is just another political grandstanding exersize.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

No. The bill regulates spam, rather than prohibiting it. It preemtps state laws (like CA) that do prohibit spam--thyus legalizing spam throughout the US.

This was NOT necessary to protect legitimate email marketers because legitimate email marketers do not send unsolicited bulk email. It is an attempt to legitimize Unsolicited Bulk Email.

It would have been a step in the right direction 5 years ago but today it is a step back.

Reply to
Fred the Red Shirt

"Bob S." wrote in news:dHywb.96616$1N3.66804 @twister.nyroc.rr.com:

Actually, nope. It's a step backwards since the penalties it provides for and it's definitions of spam are WEAKER than provided in many of the laws introduced by states....and it OVERRIDES state law.

There is some suspicion that it was actually bankrolled and pushed by spammers......

Reply to
stickdoctorq

snipped-for-privacy@spamcop.net (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

there are legitimage bulk email marketers?

Reply to
stickdoctorq

This is what an account at

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is for. You can generate limited life e-mail addresses for this kind of stuff on the fly. It's absolutely wonderful! For instance, snipped-for-privacy@spamgourmet.com will let exactly 3 messages come through and then it evaporates. Great stuff!

Chris

Reply to
Chris Dubea

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This gets my vote for Wreck Tip of the Month.

Art

Reply to
Wood Butcher

*DEBATABLE*, for a number of reasons.

just for starters:

1) It pre-empts all _stronger_ state-level legislation 2) There is *no* 'right of private action'. i.e. *you* CANNOT go after the b*stard that's flooding your inbox. the State ATTY GENERAL has to prosecute. Wanna bet on the odds of -that- happening? 3) "by definition" under this statute, it's only spam *after* you tell them to stop mailing you.
Reply to
Robert Bonomi

All your points are moot.....if you live in a state that has no laws against spam. So while you may not think its any good, it's better than what we had - which was zip. We must start someplace and after 6 years of froggin around, it is a step in the right direction. I didn't say it was good, better or best but at least now we have something to throw darts at.

Bob S.

Reply to
Bob S.

Despite the vigilante tactics of SPEW, and the rbl's, spam continues to increase. The acid test of any anti-spam measure is how much less UCE ends up in your inbox ... my bet is that this bill won't make one whit of difference.

Reply to
Swingman

Vent On

Guess we have a bunch of defeatist here....nothing will ever make a difference or ever get started to them but they sure can bitch and complain cause the gov't didn't do something for them.

Damn right it won't make a difference unless you help make it happen. Since when is it totally up to the gov't to do everything? Remember that little motto, "We the people...". Not to put to fine point on it but if you're not part of the solution then you must be part of the problem.

Vent Off,

Bob S.

Reply to
Bob S.

Bob S. responds:

And what is the solution, Bob? If I knew, I might be able to be part of it, but to date, I've yet to hear of a thing in which I can, or would, participate.

Charlie Self

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

There _were_ laws on the books in about 30 states. I happen to live in a state which had one, albeit a moderately weak one. That law will be 'invalid' as of the first of the year. along with the one in WA that let a recipient sue for $500 for -each- unsolicited email. And the one that was just enacted in Calif, that let a provider sue for something like $100 for each unsolicited message received on their server, to something like $250,000/day/sender.

I'd have had -no- objections to the Fed. legislation *IF* it had left the state-level laws _alone_. But it didn't.

And, we're going to be "stuck" with this POS legislation for _years_. After all, the Congresscritters _have_ "addressed" the problem. It's "solved".

It won't be "deserving" of Congressional attention "again", for _years_. (It usually takes Congress 7-10 years to 'revisit' something. The 'fastest' instance I know of -- excluding 'funding' legislation, that is -- where Congress reversed itself on legislation was 4 years.)

Watch and see.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

Couple things.

1: never send a "click here to remove" button. it just verifies your address to them and they can resell it as a "verified" address. 2: never click on any links in the message. some of those will also verify your email. 3: run your email in a restricted zone and have it not parse html. If i include an image called: "charliediy.gif" in html and i see that that image was accessed in the web logs, i know your email address is valid. 3a: use a Filter on your mail. if you do, you worry less about 1-3. 4: never buy anything from them. people spam because it gets results. even a small responce is worth it, because for the most part, spam is free to send so the ROI can happen with few responces. 5: if the new bill has reporting procedures, use them. (to report the spammer to the authority) 6: If the spammer is advertising a third party product, inform that third party about it and pressure them to do something about it. (cut off the supply of goods to the spammer, etc) 7: track the spammer down by looking at the "Received" headers of the message.
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help here. Report them to their ISP. (although you'll find huge amounts come from overseas.)

ok... so that's more than a couple. hope it helps.

Reply to
Philip Lewis

*ALL* states have legal codes that -can- be used. Threre are civil torts for things like 'theft of services', and "trespass to chattel". These _have_ been *successfully* used to sue spammers.

"Maybe it's 'better for some'. It is *definitely* _worse_ for many others. Which was _un-necessary_. Pass the federal legislation *without* pre-empting state laws, and you have the 'best of both worlds'.

Care to guess *why* Congress _didn't_ do that? Hint: the -main- motivation was to disembowel the aggressive state-level laws being enacted.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

I've been doing all those for some time, except tracking spammers: unfortunately, I have to spend some time having a life. It helps, a graet deal more than I expect the government intervention to help, but all of it only reduces a problem that seems to be increasing almost daily.

Charlie Self

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

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