Supreme Court Lets Virginia Anti-Spam Law Die 77
SpuriousLogic sends in a CNN report that begins "The Supreme Court has passed up a chance to examine how far states can go to restrict unsolicited e-mails in efforts to block spammers from bombarding computer users. The high court without comment Monday rejected Virginia's appeal to keep its Computer Crimes Act in place. It was one of the toughest laws of its kind in the nation, the only one to ban noncommercial — as well as commercial — spam e-mail to consumers in that state. The justices' refusal to intervene also means the conviction of prolific commercial spammer Jeremy Jaynes will not be reinstated." Jaynes remains behind bars because of a federal securities fraud conviction unrelated to the matter of spamming.
Re:Supreme Court doesn't rule on everything (Score:4, Interesting)
Israel handled it by making mails advertising a paid service without prior communication illegal. As politicians are not advertising a service that the email receiver directly pays for, it is legal. This past election, I actually abstained from voting because the party that I intended to vote for sent me spam.
For whatever reason.... (Score:3, Interesting)
...the Virginia General Assembly didn't take this up during its session this year (runs Jan through early March-ish).
There wasn't anything preventing them from amending the law so it complied with the court ruling. They didn't do that.
Maybe they were waiting for the appeals to be fleshed out. Or maybe it was more important to ban smoking in restaurants to please Governor Timmah. And put in prayer in schools. And strengthen the drunk driving laws. And take up the state song issue again, and....
Not sure.
It might be onn tap for next year. But I'm not so hopeful. The Virginia politicians, with the exception of Rick Boucher (who is starting to waver in his party's mantra of hopeychange), who spearheaded smart Internet laws are gone.
So, with that, hope those of you who voted for the new crew like spam, and taxes on every single thing you purchase on the net.
Re:Supreme Court doesn't rule on everything (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not picking nits, IMO.
I get unsolicited Mexican spam several times a week. I speak just enough to know that it's a scam service offering to extend my car's warranty.
I also notice that when I go to the store, almost every single label has both English and Mexican* on it even though as of now the Hispanic population is only about 15% of the over-all US population. (source: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/011910.html [census.gov] )
I wouldn't move to Italy and expect them to have every label in English, (hell, maybe they do, but I doubt it) I'd expect to learn the language of the country I'm living in, not create my own culture and ignore the language of the country I'm in. I know this sounds xenophobic, and some mod's probably going to call this flamebait but it's not intended to be, merely my observations, having lived in and around Hispanic population centers for much of my life. (San Diego, NM, Texas, and now Northern VA)
*I call it Mexican because it isn't Spanish. "Spain" Spanish and Mexican "Spanish" are not the same, and while the root structure is the same, the slang and many of the verbs are not.
Re:e-mail is just too cheap to send (Score:3, Interesting)
We've all seen that "fixing the spam problem is impossible" form letter. In fact, I think I've even posted it here on slashdot and probably on usenet back in the day.
But I think parent is basically correct: the only practical way to end spam is to make it unprofitable. Ending the rewards for spamming is truly impossible. Criminalizing it is possible, but ineffective. Filtering hides the problem but doesn't fix it. Technical solutions will at best result in an arms race, because there is so much money at stake. Increasing the cost of sending spam is the only way.
The the problem is figuring out how to make spammers pay without destroying email as a communications tool in the process.
Having every email cost a cent (given to the recipient) will go a long way. Micropayments won't be needed because the transactions are already intermediated by ISPs, so they can handle the payment differences amongst themselves in bulk, and then charge their customers accordingly.
Most senders of email will send and receive roughly the same amount of email, so they will not be affected much. They will get a quota from their ISPs, and if they send a lot more than they receive, they will have to pay for it. In an ideal world, people would be cut off after they hit their quota, so if they were zombied, they wouldn't rack up thousands of dollars in email sending fees. I would hope that getting cut off from sending email for the rest of the month would help motivate people to clean up their PCs, too.
Bulk emailers (newsletters, confirmation emails, etc.) will need a separate system. Some of them can simply pay for it (I'm sure Amazon can simply charge you an extra five cents to pay for the confirmation emails they send you). Maybe others can require return confirmation, or even pre-confirmation. If they don't get an email from you, you don't get emailed your newsletter, etc.
Re:Supreme Court doesn't rule on everything (Score:3, Interesting)
*I call it Mexican because it isn't Spanish. "Spain" Spanish and Mexican "Spanish" are not the same, and while the root structure is the same, the slang and many of the verbs are not.
I'm with you so far... and I even agree with your post. But:
I also notice that when I go to the store, almost every single label has both English and Mexican*
If you won't dignify the Mexican language with the name "Spanish", how can you call what USA-blokes speak "English?
That's not picking nits, IMO.
But I am :)