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Part of the solution: laws that workPart of the solution: laws that workPosted May 6, 2004 3:11 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216)Parent article: 82% of email is spam Part of the solution will need to be laws that work. Unsolicited bulk email (UBE) needs to be made simply illegal. No more winking at "marketing approaches" -- just treat it like the theft of service that it is. Unsolicited email is not the same as unsolicited paper mail, because the sender pays almost none of the costs, so we shouldn't expect that unsolicited bulk email is permitted the same way that it is with paper mail. Will people disobey the law? Sure. But after a few people lose all their money, or go to jail, this exploitation will quickly reduce to levels that can be handled by current technology. We need both laws and technology. One without the other is like fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Europe is already leading this way; they've already passed these kinds of laws. But without cooperation from the US, it won't be enough. Once there are only a few rogue states, their cooperation can be more easily acquired... by refusing to accept any of their email until they update their laws. This is just like the computer break-in laws a few decades ago; at first, many people didn't even understand that break-ins were like trespass. Then, over time, laws were passed to forbid people from harming others using computers.
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Part of the solution: laws that work Posted May 6, 2004 4:33 UTC (Thu) by jamesh (subscriber, #1159) [Link] As well as making spamming ilegal, you'd probably need some kind of penalty for having your products advertised via spam. Otherwise companies will just blame it on over-eager affiliates, or similar.Of course, the penalties for having your product advertised via spam would need to be a fine rather than jail. In the case where it really is done by a third party without consent, the company should have some way to recover the fine from the spammer.
Part of the solution: laws that work Posted May 7, 2004 21:09 UTC (Fri) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link] you'd probably need some kind of penalty for having your products advertised via spam.Some people have proposed the death penalty for spammers. Most such proposals are probably somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I used to think that the death penalty for spam was too severe, but after a small amount of back-of-the-envelope analysis, I'm not so sure. A single spam campaign easily wastes 10 seconds each of the lives of 100,000,000 people. In total, that's more than a third of a human lifetime. So one spam campaign is equivalent to murdering a 50 year old person. The death penalty (or life imprisonment with no possibility of parole) thus seems entirely reasonable.
Part of the solution: laws that work Posted May 6, 2004 11:30 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] Forging paper mail sent out using someone else's address is rightly considered a criminal act of deception. The same should apply in the email world. Spammers would be less willing to do this if they faced jail time when caught. Suitable laws should also making those whose products are advertised in this manner criminal associates and conspirators. It would be easier to trace spammers if those obtaining advertising services in this manner could only avoid jail time by actively assisting the authorities in tracing those sending out this stuff.Blacklisting and blocking can become much more effective when spammers have to use their own domains and give valid return addresses.
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