4th Circuit Court Sides With a Spammer 154
bulled writes to tell us about coverage on CNet regarding a ruling a couple of weeks back that allows a spamming company to procede with their suit against a spamfighter. The 4th Circuit court ruled that the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, much derided here, trumps the Oklahoma law under which anti-spam activist Mark Mumma sued Omega World Travel for spamming him. The ruling allows Omega World Travel's countersuit, for defamation, to go forward. From the article: "'There's been a lot of activity in the states to pass laws purportedly to protect their citizens' from spam, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. 'The 4th Circuit may have laid waste to all of those efforts.'"
May these judges get nothing but v14gr4 spam (Score:3, Insightful)
duh (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Important Because (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently there is a conflict between various state and Circuit courts as to whether the CAN-SPAM act overrides stricter State laws regulating unsolicited email. The only thing that's going to resolve the issue is a ruling from the USSC, barring further legislation to clarify the issue. If this guy were to push on, he could conceivably bring it before the Supreme Court and get a real decision; more importantly, he'd probably concentrate enough media attention on it so that even if the decision were to go in favor of the spammers, it might make a tougher anti-spam law a campaign issue in the national arena. Right now, the spammers win if people don't make noise.
forward spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:..of course it does. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't bother emailing the judge (Score:3, Insightful)
It will not work. The judge probably has the best spam filter money can buy- an assistant that prints off legitimate emails for him to read, or deletes spam every morning for him.
That's true for just about anyone who is involved in legislation that can stop spam. Except for their home email account, they are probably ignorant of what the real world is like.
Re:..of course it does. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Important Because (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what? I'd have better luck and less stress if I was ONLY trying to filter the stock pumping spam. If the people selling fake V1@gra, fake Rolexes, and fake everything else - all of the stuff that requires you to visit a web site and present payment - were taken down, it would hugely reduce the noise level. But more importantly, it's a matter of principle. Some fights are worth it, just because it sets a more civilized tone to overtly care about it and act with justice in mind that to just put up with it and decide that it will always be part of your life.
I agree that there needs to be a protocol change or two. But there is a LOT of inertia behind good old SMTP. And I'd rather null-route every packet from Romania, and lose the occasional piece of legit mail, than give in and say that some spamming asshat who happens to live there can litter me and all of my users with his trash. *blood pressure up*
Federalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:J. Harvie Wilkinson III - what a surprise... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. CAN-SPAM explicitly permits individual states to "prohibit falsity or deception." In my initial reading, this court conjures up a "materiality" requirement where none exists in statute, effectively saying that forged headers aren't examples of "material" falsity or deception because there's no detrimental reliance on same. The court totally ignores the fact that this type of deception is designed to bypass filtering (upon which many rely).
To be fair, the district court found that these errors were "immaterial" - such a determination being only relevant to this case. Judge Wilkinson essentially gutted the one area where CAN-SPAM explicitly permitted state regulation by holding that not only would "immaterial errors" henceforth not incur liability under CAN-SPAM in the 4th Circuit, but that CAN-SPAM preempts state law in the case of forged headers in plain contradiction to the clear language of the statute (US Sec 7707(b)(1)):
This chapter supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of a State or political
subdivision of a State that expressly regulates the use of electronic mail to send
commercial messages, except to the extent that any such statute, regulation, or
rule prohibits falsity or deception in any portion of a commercial electronic mail
message or information attached thereto.
What part of this unusually clear language requires "material" falsity or deception? Talk about "activist judges."
-Isaac
Re:"In response to your email. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:..of course it does. (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is, there's no real evidence the court is corrupt. I think that's quite a significant jump, and you'll need to provide me with proof of that. Sure, it's made a lot of mistakes, and even so it's more conservative than I'd like, but corrupt? I'm not willing to go that far.
Frankly, the fact is that the court exists to interpret the constitution and oversee it's implimentation. As I can't see any particularly glaring errors in it's interpretation, your "not the type of commerce wich the text refers too" nonwithstanding, (because it's unfounded and irrelevant), it's interpretation stands until altered by a higher court.