The following CNET News.com article discusses various pros and cons of
anti-spam laws:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5059822.html
Some quotes:
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The folly of antispam legislation
By William Blundon
August 5, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
"Many of these legislative goals are laudable. However, they fail to make
several key distinctions. Most people have an implicit hierarchy of what
they consider spam. Illegal, fraudulent and misleading e-mail is spam.
E-mail from an unknown source is "spam lite." Unsolicited commercial e-mail
from a respected company may be spam, junk mail or simply unwanted but
acceptable free speech. E-mail from a company with whom the consumer has an
existing commercial relationship can also be considered spam if it is
simply unwanted or repetitive. These distinctions are highly idiosyncratic
and are not amenable to broad legislation. "
"The economics of the Internet are different from those of telephone
networks or the postal system and do not bode well for any legislative
campaign. Moving a telemarketing operation offshore is an expensive
proposition, while direct mail costs increase dramatically when mail
crosses geographic borders. But it usually costs less to operate a
sophisticated e-mail marketing program from New Delhi than it does from New
York."
"Some spammers now send more than 100 million e-mails per day using servers
known as "spam cannons." Does it really matter where their servers are
located? Most pending spam legislation is designed for consumer, not
employee, e-mail. Does it matter to a spammer if he sends e-mail to my home
or office? Will companies force their employees to register their corporate
e-mail addresses on a do-not-spam list? Will the company do it for them?
What if hackers crack the security on a national database of those
spam-blocked addresses? Ethical companies will comply with any new spam
legislation. Black or gray spam operations will invest whatever it takes to
stay ahead of the technology curve and beyond the arm of the law. As a
result, the percentage of dishonest e-mail will only increase.
Copyright ¬1995-2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
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