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[Asrg] 0. General - News Article - Anti-spam laws

2003-08-05 11:32:10
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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