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[Junk]Fax.com Fined $5.4 Million 213

Posted by michael from the sometimes-you-do-get-what-you-deserve dept.
Satanboy writes "This article states that a record $5.4m fine was levied on Fax.com after blatantly ignoring requests by the FCC to discontinue the activity of sending unsolicited faxes. This is similar to actions CmdrTaco posted about earlier." The people at junkfax.org are apparently planning a large class-action suit against fax.com as well.
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[Junk]Fax.com Fined $5.4 Million More

[Junk]Fax.com Fined $5.4 Million

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  • for every offense, I could probably download MP3's from LimeWire and XNap faster with the decreased internet traffic.

  • Why can't this apply to SPAM? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:03PM (#4029827) Journal
    I am SURE someone has pointed this out already but why can't the junk fax law apply to SPAM as well? That is, why can't there be a smiliar law drafted that applies to SPAM like junk faxes? SPAM affects EVERYBODY.

    • Re:Why can't this apply to SPAM? (Score:5, Informative)

      by CheechBG ( 247105 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:09PM (#4029852) Homepage
      Simple. The damages in fax blasting as they apply to the consumer are quantitative, a somewhat measurable decrease in toner, paper expense, stuff like that. Bandwidth, especially how much quantitative bandwitdh the inet spammers consume, is not that easily determined. Congress decided to tackle the easier problem, which still got a major nuisance off our backs. I recall at a old job that I was at as a tech how many junk faxes we received for all sorts of stuff.
    • The theory was, years ago, that fax paper was expensive; by sending a junk fax, you wasted somebody's tangible property, hence it is illegal. Spam doesn't waste paper, it wastes bandwidth, disk space and time. Apparently, though, those don't matter enough to warrant making junk email illegal.

    • When the fax law was written people were being charged for receiving faxes as well as sending (by the telephone companies). So spam targets were able to argue they were actually loosing money when receiving unwanted faxes. It's a bit harder to argue you're loosing money from receiving spam.

      Although if you ask me, I'll tell you why: the govt is representing the bussinesses, not the consumer. The receiving end of fax spam were bussinesses (few people have fax at home) thus it's illegal. The receiving end of email spam is all consumers, thus it's ok.

      /me zipping his flame suit

    • In adddition to the tangable costs, enforcement costs are lower for junk faxes. Its alot easier to spoof email headers than it is to spoof phone traces. And there are alot fewer companies that engage in faxing than spamming. Finally, there is the benefits free riding problem. Organizing the limited fax owners to petition congress to make the practice illegal is easier than organizing the large mass of people that the costs of spamming are distributed over. If someone only gets a few spams a day, the costs of deleting them are quite low, vs the time spent learning about bills to make spam illegal and sending evidence of my support of them to congress.
    • Heads up: It is not just faxes and spam to your PC. In Japan there was a major problem with spam email to mobile phones (that costs a lot more than spam email to your PC), and the latest problem is millions of spam hang-up calls to mobile phones - enough to severely overload the network. See this Infoworld article [infoworld.com] today.

      The scam: the spammer pays nothing for the cell calls since no-one answered. The target sees a "missed call" with an unfamiliar caller ID number, they call back and get a phone sex line. In doing so they incur at least cell phone charges plus the operators use anything else they can to persuade/intimidate people to pay more to the operator for the "service".

      This is really large scale, and unlike the US Japan already had rules preventing phone email spam:

      ... the volume of calls started rising at around 10 a.m. in the morning and within 15 minutes the carrier had been forced to place a 50 percent curb on the number of calls that could be made, to keep the network operating. The disruption, which lasted for several hours and affected more than 5 million telephone lines, was traced to a one-giri operator that began making more than 4,000 calls every three minutes over roughly 200 telephone lines.

      For Japan's cell-phone users, the rise in one-giri calls came just as they were getting relief from another annoyance: unwanted e-mail. A new law prohibiting mass e-mailing to random cell phone users went into effect on July 1.

  • Spammers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by delta407 ( 518868 ) <.moc.xahjfrel. .ta. .todhsals.> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:04PM (#4029832) Homepage
    So, wait, if there's only a handful of spammers that account for 90% of the spam in my inbox [slashdot.org], when do they get a 5.4 million dollar fine?

    Surely there are damages. Bandwidth may not be as expensive as paper, but possible productivity used to delete spam is costly. Besides which, the porno spammers could get sued for lots of money by the parents of minors...

    • Re:Spammers (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cmowire ( 254489 )
      The 5.4 million dollar fine is based on the TCPA, not actual damages.

      The problem is that the TCPA hasn't been shown to cover spamming. Which is unfortunate. They really need to superscede it with a law that bans advertisement in all cases where the caller does not foot the bill of the communication -- i.e. making only telemarketing and junk mail legal.

      • Re:Spammers (Score:2, Informative)

        by capologist ( 310783 )
        They really need to superscede it with a law that bans advertisement in all cases where the caller does not foot the bill of the communication -- i.e. making only telemarketing and junk mail legal.

        In some cases, the caller doesn't really foot the bill for telemarketing, either. In particular, I'm talking about telemarketing via recorded messages.

        This practice is very much like spam. When I receive such a call, it consumes my time--if only a few seconds--to interrupt what I'm doing, answer the phone, recognize it for what it is, and hang up. (If I'm not home when the call arrives, I end up going through the same process with my answering machine.) The caller doesn't expend human time making each individual call, but is consuming human time on the callee's end. Overall, the cost to the callee is probably higher than the cost to the caller.

        It's worth noting that in my state (Arizona), this practice is illegal. Nevertheless, I receive such calls frequently.

        • Can you explain what laws you're referring to? I too live in the State of the 3rd degree sunburn, and I'd be interested in learning what's out there legally.

          Time to take some people^H^H^H^H^H^Hscum to court :)

          • Re:Spammers (Score:2, Informative)

            by capologist ( 310783 )
            Can you explain what laws you're referring to?

            Arizona Revised Statues 44-1278 [state.az.us]:
            ...


            B. It is an unlawful practice pursuant to section 44-1522 for any seller or solicitor or anyone acting on their behalf who conducts a telephone solicitation in this state to do any of the following:
            ...


            4. Make a telephone call to any residential telephone using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or the call is made with the prior express consent of the called party.

        • It's worth noting that in my state (Arizona), [spamming telephones using automatic dial announcement devices] is illegal.

          It's also illegal in the United States for anyone involved in interstate commerce. It was made illegal as part of the same junk fax law (47 USC 227 [cornell.edu]), which I refuse to call the TCPA because of the Palladium implications [cam.ac.uk].

        • See, the sad thing is that marketing with a strong regulating element is the only way that it doesn't get annoying.

          Like, catalog merchants are good about this. Because it costs them money to print up a nice catalog, they make sure that they have a potentially willing recepient. People watch TV for the programs, so you *can't* have just commercials, you have to have a program. I attribute the growth of Tivo commercial skipping mostly to the TV programmers losing touch with their audience and putting in enough commercials to reach most peoples annoyance factor.

          The problem is, there's too big of a growth of weird corporate shell structures that makes it possible for a boiler room operation to start up and shut down quickly. So it becomes moderately profitable to run a boiler room operation, get fined by the attorney general/fcc, shut down, start up a new corporation, buy up old corporations assets, do it all over again, etc.
    • Absolutely. As a sys admin, we have had to spend money, and waste our time tooling with postfix to filter spam out.
      Not to mention, them harvesting our e-mail accounts.
    • Besides which, the porno spammers could get sued for lots of money by the parents of minors...

      I'm still waiting for an aggressive district attorney to file criminal charges against porno spammers who send mail to minors - there are a number of different charges that could be brought up. I wonder why it's not been done, yet.

      It's going to take the threat of criminal charges to stop most spammers, I think.
      • Slight problem, and if I were the counsel for the defense, this is what I'd use:

        Since e-mail spam can be made virtually untraceable (bounce it through a Chinese relay or some other such nastiness), it can't be proven that the porn site sent or arranged to have sent the e-mail.

        It would also be fairly risky to actually bring about such a suit...you'd be saying in court that you're not exercising due diligence in monitoring your child's online activities. Which person do you think the Health Department would go after? The nebulous entity with enough lawyers to ensure they don't get shut down and who might not be at blame at all? Or the parents who admitted under oath that they allowed their kids to see pornographic spam and don't have nearly the resources to combat the Department?

        Also, the evidence criteria for taking a kid away from his parents is the lowest in the nation--the prosecution just must prove that the danger exists. In order to get the porn people in trouble, they must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.

        IANAL, but I have had experience with these issues.

  • some people are just dumb (Score:4, Funny)

    by Auckerman ( 223266 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:06PM (#4029847)
    Let's see their business model is illegal. The FCC tells them that it knows what they are doing, it's illegal, and they should stop it. They don't listen. At what point do you NOT beleive the FCC and keep doing it?


    Idiot 1: Hey man, let's send some more junk faxes.


    Idiot 2: Didn't the FCC say we would get hell if we kept doing that?


    Idiot 1: What's the worse they can do? Fine our "company"?!?


    Laughter


    Idiot 2: I hear the Bamahas are nice this time of year.

    • They were just waiting till their political contributions came through and they were let off the hook through some special legislation attached to an anti-terrorism bill. But seriously, isn't this the current American business model when you get in trouble, buy off the politicians. What odds would you offer that "Kenny Boy" is going to do any time?
      • Blockquoth the poster:

        But seriously, isn't this the current American business model when you get in trouble, buy off the politicians

        No, no, the really successful model is to buy the politicians before you get into trouble:
        • Disney and the Pillage the Public Domain Act, er, the Copyright Term Extension Act;
        • software companies and UCITA;
        • Hollywood and the DMCA

        The only trouble is, the shelf life of a politician is pretty short: six years for a senator and only two for a representative. You have to make sure you renew or you might not get your money's worth...
  • Spamming on the internet or via snail-mail is bad enough. You waste bandwidth/carrying capacity and a lot of time. But with fax spams, you completely tie up someone's fax lines and waste their ink and their paper. That's even worse than regular spam: it's regular spam plus DOS plus vandalism (those bastards are writing what might as well be graffiti on your quality paper).

  • They won't care (Score:1, Redundant)

    by yakfacts ( 201409 )
    The company will declare bankruptcy and walk away. They'll just start again and do it until they get caught.

    Some of our junk faxes here try very hard to look like they came from the benefits department at our "home office". But since our "benefits department" is in the next cubicle, I don't believe them.

  • May not hold out long! (Score:2, Redundant)

    by BWS ( 104239 )
    A federal court in the US has ruled that the ban on solicited fax advertising is in violation of the first amendment [politechbot.com](source: Politech-Bot).


    The full text of the ruling is here [uscourts.gov].


    The ruling is currently being appealed of couse, but as it stands right now what the spammers have done is prefectly legal. The FCC fine is a joke.


    You can also read the relevant K5 story [kuro5hin.org].

    • >A federal court in the US has ruled that the ban
      >on solicited fax advertising is in violation of
      >the first amendment[...] The FCC fine is a joke.

      From the initial post:
      >after blatantly ignoring requests by the FCC to
      >discontinue the activity of sending unsolicited faxes.

      See where the problem is?

    • Phone calls take place, in legal terms, at the location of the person who gets the phone call. For now, let's assume faxes work the same way.

      So, the ruling (pointed to by the person to whome I respond) might apply to all of the faxes that Fax.com sent to Eastern Missouri, which may have contributed to the fine, but not to the others. Other courts may (or may not) be advised by this ruling - it is only binding precedent in Eastern Missouri, and coming from a district court, it isn't very strong.

      The company itself is in Alisa Viejo; so, unless someone in the District for Southern California, on the 9th circuit has ruled the TCPA unconstitutional, they definitely have no blanket protection. If Faxes take place at the point of transmission, this ruling provides them no protection at all.
    • I used the world solicited instead of unsolicited. Its suppose to say that the ban on unsolicited faxes has been ruled a violation of the 1st amendment.
    • We have a /. article talking about an unsolicited junk faxer, and this yahoo posts an article talking about solicited ads.

      Where's the "-1 Disinformation" option when you need it? Probably right next to the "-1 Has No Clue" one...
    • Ahhh but I love it anyways...

      The best recourse is to do what I do... many of the faxes have a fax me to remove from the list or Fax this number to order this great package now number.. Call that fax number with an old machine that will allow you to insert a legal length sheet that can then be wrapped back on it's self print "STOP FAXING ME in big letters on the center of the page and start the fax... when it start transmitting wrap the end bac kto the other end and lightly tape it.. let it keep rolling for about 20-30 minutes that will send about 20-30 pages to the other end...

      works great.. I never recieve another fax from each of the companies that I do this to... espically if I use their order fax line number..
  • According to the FCC, Fax.com sent advertisements and other messages on behalf of more than 100 businesses for a fee, sparking 489 violations.

    I wonder how the FCC knows that 489 faxes were sent out? Phone records? Customer Complaints? How does that work?

    Would it be possible to count all the spam a spammer sends out?
    • This is why it's useful to save junk faxes you receive: if you report them, they migth get added to a large case, and then help shut down a junk faxer.

      We get waves of junk fax, all crap -- nothing even marginally businesslike (get free vacations, buy toner cheap, etc.). They all look crappy, all have stupid calls to action, typically no easy way to reply even!

      I started faxing the faxers back saying, hi, thanks for giving us all your contact information; here's the relevant US statute that proves what you just did is illegal and we know how to find you. Never send us anything again, or we'll pursue all civil options available to us.

      Oddly, the faxes have stopped. Who knew that would work. Now if it only worked with spammers!

  • Meanwhile, that law is found unconstitutional... (Score:3, Informative)

    by bons ( 119581 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:18PM (#4029898) Homepage Journal
    Article [politechbot.com]
    ruling [uscourts.gov] Kuro5hin thread on the subject [kuro5hin.org]
    • _A_ court found it unconstitutional. Not _the_ Supreme Court of the US. It's a step forward for spammers and junk faxers, but it is far from the death knell for the law.

      What worries me is that now that candidates for public office are spamming, it makes the 'free speech' argument a bit stronger. But it also ignores a few things.

      First, fax machines are definately not a 'commons' in any sense of the word. By printing stuff on my fax machine, or sending spam to my server, they have committed a trespass.

      Second, there is no possible way to rationally interpret the first amendment as granting the right of trespass. They can send junk email; my mailbox belongs to the federal gov't. But my fax machine is mine. Even if the line belongs to Verizon, the machine is mine. Similarly, even if the IP is only mine temporarily, the server is mine. Mine, mine, mine.

      More stupid judges...
      • First, fax machines are definately not a 'commons' in any sense of the word. By printing stuff on my fax machine, or sending spam to my server, they have committed a trespass.

        Excellent point. In addition, you are paying the cost for their "speech." Clearly the constitution intended for speakers to provide their own soap box, not be required to be given one at someone else's direct, monetary expense.

        Second, there is no possible way to rationally interpret the first amendment as granting the right of trespass. They can send junk email [sic?]; my mailbox belongs to the federal gov't. But my fax machine is mine. [emphesis added]

        Was this a typo? Surely you meant the can send you junk postal mail. Your email box belongs to you. It is a file you own (literally, and in several senses of the word if you run UNIX or GNU/Linux), residing on your hard drive, with data that comes across the internet or telephone connection you pay for. It is not, in any way, owned by the government.

        Email SPAMMERS are exactly like Fax spammers ... they are using your equipment and your resources to advertise their products, at your expense. There is nothing whatsoever in the constitution that bars a well crafted law from banning such activity outright, or from providing harsh remedies for those who do violate such a law.

        Postal mail, on the other hand, is another story, as you correctly point out.
    • You should have waited a few minutes before posting, there were cites in Politech in the very next post pointing to other Federal courts where the anti-junkfax law was upheld. Unless the 8th Circuit upholds the District Court's pro-junk fax ruling, the FCC enforcement continues.

  • The difference between faxing and emailing ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:18PM (#4029901) Homepage Journal
    See I've seen companies like this hold up medical faxes and important contract faxes before. Because usually these things are a few pages. I also know people who have resorted to turning their fax machines off when they aren't using them because of the huge waste. The other thing that is really annoying is that these machines sometimes get the wrong number and will give those wonderful fax tones in your ear when you pick up the phone.

    The damages from faxing are aparent in costs of paper and toner, along with tying up the machine itself. Email while annoying doesn't neccessarily impede you from downloading the rest of your email in a timely manner. The only way I can see a comparison would be if there were more email spams that were attachments that were in the megabytes. Those are always a real treat to download when your on dialup, and I can see where it would be comparable.

    Basically this sets a precidence that will be followed in the future. Spammers beware... we can only take so much. Right now I average about 80 spam messages a day. While I just sort them into the trash, it is becoming a trend which is getting rather annoying. And I can attest that quite a few of them all come from the same PLACE, not the same email server. If it's an advertisement for the same sex site then they should be held accountable, last I checked there wasn't any free advertising packages available.

    • Re:The difference between faxing and emailing ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Steve B ( 42864 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:27PM (#4029932)
      Email while annoying doesn't necessarily impede you from downloading the rest of your email in a timely manner.

      Spam e-mail can fill an in-box memory allotment and cause the loss of legitimate e-mail, just as spam faxes can exhaust a paper roll and buffer and cause the loss of legitimate faxes. The two are exactly analogous.

      • I guess that would be a way to compare them, but what I've seen is fax machines that run out of paper and just turn themselves off and important faxes are missed. I think if someone just goes delete happy then they really need to have a few more patience and set up some type of email filter rules...
    • "Email while annoying doesn't neccessarily impede you from downloading the rest of your email in a timely manner."
      Actually, it does. For one, I am on a dialup, and some of these spam messages are huge. They cost me money. I pay for the time I am connected.

      But the fact is that spam prevents me from receiving e-mail as well - through my Bigfoot.com account. I have the free service, which only allows 25 messages per day. Guess what? One day I was informed that "you have exceeded your quota". The rest of the mail was not delivered! And guess what else? The 25 messages I received that day was pure spam!

      No legitimate mail seems to get through my Bigfoot forwarding address anymore. Spammers are preventing me from downloading legitimate mail!

  • Spam the Fax Spammers Back (Score:5, Funny)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly@ix[ ]tcom.com ['.ne' in gap]> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:26PM (#4029926)
    I have posted this on slashdot before, but the comment fits the article.

    They will hate me for putting this idea into people's minds...but everyone I explain this to gets a kick out of it, so here goes.

    1. Take 5 sheets of black construction paper.
    2. Scotch tape them into a single 5 sheet long sheet.
    3. Place start of "page" into fax machine.
    4. Dial the "recipient".
    5. Watch sheet start going into the fax machine with glee.
    6. Once out the other side, Scotch Tape beginning of "sheet" to end of sheet forming a giant black loop.
    7. Giggle like a teenage girl and show your co-workers. Trust me, the showing co-workers step is needed for the full satisfaction. Choose co-workers carefully.
    8. You Are Done! Not only that, but the recipient is now out of ink or toner.

    Not that I have ever done this...but I know someone who has done this to someone who kept sending them spam faxes.

    I hold no responsibility for your actions yada yada...

    -Pete
    • Before you do this be sure to set your CSID to some BS number so that the recipient does not know who it came from!

      You do NOT want the recipient to see your company letterhead on the top of your 500 page junk fax!
    • Most FaxSpammers do not originate from a fax machine. They would use a PC or a bank of PCs to send hundreds of faxes simultaneously.

      On a related note, wouldn't it seem to you that the fax machine software gurus know about your "Mobeus Fax"? Now, as a programmer, if you know about a specific attack, don't you close the hole? On most machines, the local buffer holds a scan of all the pages BEFORE the machine even dials. Your machine may differ.
      • On most machines, the local buffer holds a scan of all the pages BEFORE the machine even dials. Your machine may differ.

        There's lots of problems with the continuous black page attack, but this one is the most easy to mitigate. Most FAX machines that I've dealt with can disable the "memory send" feature, which results in a direct transmission of the FAX. I do this all the time, since my FAX machine is brain dead and waits 5-10 minutes before even starting a memory send.

        The other problems others have mentioned: no actual printing machine on the other end, expensive toll calls, are hard to get around. I would imagine that "pro" faxsmappers use outbound-only trunks that cannot accept an incoming call, their computers are originate-only. And how do you get their number in the first place, providing they're dumb enough to call from a regular line with whatever machine they have set to accept?

        Better to get their home address, some friends and a couple of fungo bats.

  • READ ME! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:27PM (#4029931)
    We have a few major AP articles on the state of spam today and where it's going, plus we have this tidbit hitting the national news.

    This is an election year in the US!

    Print out these articles and mail them off to your congresscritter [house.gov] and your class II senator [senate.gov] if you have one. Include a letter talking about how spam is an issue to you and how you'd like to see things like this happen to junk e-mailers as well. Maybe talk about how similar the two are (using the recipients expensive communications equipment without permission or reimbursemet). Mail some letters off to anybody else running for those seats that you know of.

    Write them! Now! You don't even have to get up off your asses for this one! Just open the damned StarWrite window and write!

    • Re:READ ME! (Score:2, Funny)

      by DemiKnute ( 237008 )
      Print out these articles and mail them off to your congresscritter [house.gov] and your class II senator [senate.gov] if you have one.


      Mail 'em, hell! Fax it too 'em.

      Maybe three times, just to make sure.

  • Freedom to ignore (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nuggz ( 69912 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:30PM (#4029948) Homepage
    You should be free to say pretty much whatever you want.
    I should not have to pay for your speech.

    When you fax me, I have to pay for your speech, unless I agree to do so, this is theft.

    Free speech is not absolute, Trade secrets, NDA's, treason, libel, slander, fraud and any number of other things are "speech" but that doesn't permit you to do them either.
    • They could be considered to be "stealing" your fax paper, or by circumventing your SPAM filter, hacking. Maybe someone can dream up a DMCA defense against spammers.

      If all speech is free from liability, it would make the DMCA violation stuff interesting to say the least.

      Yeah this is just an infantile link 2 bad things together to cancel them out, and it will probaly never work.
    • Only a "4". Mod him up to a five! My God!, he speak'th the truth!

  • The best junk faxes (Score:3, Funny)

    by Liquidity ( 62369 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:30PM (#4029950)
    My favorite is the one where there is some product information printed out, as if from internal company report or something Then, there are some lines underlined or circled and a note written in the margin somewhere which says something like: "Jim, this is the one I told you about!"

    I guess you are supposed to grab this off the incoming queue and think, "AHa! I've intercepted a confidential memo! Now I, too, will reap the benefits of this secret deal!"
    • We actually caught a company doing this to us a couple of years back, except instead of the fax, they were actually mailing us those magazine ads dressed up to look like articles. Attached to said ad (carefully looking like it was ripped from a real magazine) was a Post-it-note, with our company's owner's name on it, to this effect:

      "David, here is the article I was talking about". Seems pretty personal, until I found the very same thing at several companies we dealt with - all with THEIR company's owner/president/manager's name on it. I guess those business directories for mass marketing really DO have a purpose.

      Of course, nothing beats the latest from Publishers Scamming House: envelopes and contents dressed up with realistic "highlighting" and "handwriting", all carefully printed out from a high-speed color printer. The crossed out "spelling mistakes" and detail of the highlighted lines, all made to look like a real person did it, astounds me every time I see it.

      Maybe it's just me, but such blatant attempts at deception sure come close to fraud in my books. The Better Business Bureau disagreed, however :(

  • That's Harsh (a good thing) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly@ix[ ]tcom.com ['.ne' in gap]> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:30PM (#4029954)
    The fine calls for the company to pay the maximum penalty of $11,000 per violation.

    The FCC is also issuing citations to more than 100 businesses which used Fax.com, warning that they too could be liable to pay the maximum fine if they continue to send unsolicited faxes.

    $11,000 per violation? That's a lot. This will make people think twice before doing it. I especially like how the advertisers may be held liable if they continue as well, although I don't think they should only be punished if they continue the practice. They knew what they we buying for their advertising dollar, or at least they should have.

    -Pete

  • Let Evil Fight Evil. (Score:5, Funny)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:32PM (#4029957)
    Here's a sure-fire way to confound junk faxers and spammers alike:

    1) Harvest phone numbers from spam e-mails and e-mails from junk faxes. (you can find these online)

    2) Figure out where spammers and faxers get their information from and flood these locations with the e-mails and phone numbers you find; USENET and message boards (like slashdot!) are good for this.

    3) Wait for the faxers to start faxing the spammers, and for the spammers to start e-mailing the faxers.

    Problem solved.

  • Yeah! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:33PM (#4029965) Homepage

    There's an apropos quote from Carlin, or somebody. What was it? hmmm... oh, yes:

    "Fuck the fucking fuckers!"

    Maybe congress should pass a law requiring all marketing/advertising/solicitation to be traceable to the advertiser/marketer/solicitor.

    In the case of phone calls: valid caller-ID information, and, on request, phone number and address.

    In the case of faxes and postal mail: a valid phone number and address.

    In the case of email: valid headers, address and phone number.
    • In the case of phone calls: valid caller-ID information, and, on request, phone number and address.

      Actually, if you buy Privacy Manager (TM) from the phone company, you appreciate the fact that almost no telemarketers send valid caller ID info. Without caller ID, the system makes you identify yourself by voice before ringing through.

      These people almost never bother to attempt to manually bypass the filter, so I don't even get a ring. If they were forced to send Caller ID info, I'd have to get up off of my ass to see who's calling.

      • Why do I hate telephone company extortion? If you start with the B.S. of having to pay extra *not* to be listed in the phone book, and you end here, where you have to pay (probably a lot) extra for a service that only blocks telemarketers for as long as very few people use the system. We need to really fight back instead of using the passive system.

        Otherwise, imagine the distant future... Picard standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, which is engaged with several Romulan warships. Suddenly, his communicator chimes in, "Smith to Picard" (notice how he has to use his name).

        Picard: What is it? Make it fast!

        Smith: I'd like to tell you about something very exciting! Is your love life becoming stale? Do you no longer satisfy all of your partner's needs? You can save big on our new "Transporter Assisted" penis enlargement procedure!

        Picard: (thinking) If only we'd gotten rid of Communi-marketers in the 21st century!

        Enterprise: *BOOM*

  • Suing fax.com? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <<ten.elcychtneves> <ta> <kram>> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:37PM (#4029986) Homepage
    The people at junkfax.org are apparently planning a large class-action suit against fax.com as well

    And why? Did fax.com send them 5.4 million dollars of spam-infringing material? :)

    Maybe it's me, but perhaps the Shareholders of companies running spam should get all the email from uce@ftc.gov forwarded to their private AOL accounts.

    That'll show'em.

  • if youre going to do this for faxes because of the fact that it actually cost something for the recipient then it seems only logical to extend the same rules to tellemarketing on cell phones. I think my time is worth something though so I think any advertising not fed to me by my own choice (tv, internet browsing, reading publications with advertising, etc...) is wrong.
    • It is already illegal to make an unsolicited call to a cell phone. For exactly that reason. All the major telemarketing firms cull cell numbers from their databases.
      • Since it is illegal to make unsolicited calls to a cell phone, how does this impact those with land-line phones forwarded to their cell phones? If I receive a telemarketing call on my cell phone that was forwarded when the telemarketer dialed my home phone, is the telemarketer violating a law?

        Not that it affects me, I live in Missouri and our no-call list works beautifully. I have had one telemarketing call since the list was started. A few clicks on the mouse and a lookup of the phone number on caller id and I had it reported to the Missouri Attorney General's No-Call site.

        • If you have it auto forwarding, then its you that is calling a cell phone, not the telemarketer. Your fault, not theirs.

          BTW, a simmilar argument was made for email a few years back, there were some products out there that would auto-forward emails to a fax machine (I even wrote one of em!). This was when email wasn't a primary means of communication, and fax was. They could have business people go grab the pile of faxes, and not have to have a seperate process for emails.

          When spam started taking off, people said "well, If I forward to my fax machine, does that count with the anti-spam-fax law?"

          Nope, because they were sending to the fax, not the spammer.

  • To clear things up with some fax... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:39PM (#4029998)
    The fax of the case are black and white. Fax.com faxed unsolicited faxes, and as a matter of fax, that is bad and they are liable. Those are the fax.

  • FAX,, not EMAIL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:41PM (#4030003)
    The law that was invoked only applies to messages sent to a Telephone Fax machine... and therefore doesn't apply to email. Bummer. Clearly, the law could be extended to include email.

    And although it won't stop all spam, those who spam (and those who try to advertise via spam) will be at risk of significant fines. Plus, recipients will know that the messaging is illegal, and will be more likely to take action to protect their resources versus merely tolerating the crap and clicking "delete".

    • Let's say that I've got a fax-modem in my mail server. Does that count? Is it now a "Telephone Fax Machine?"

      • Let's say that I've got a fax-modem in my mail server. Does that count? Is it now a "Telephone Fax Machine?"

        If you've got a printer connected to it to print out your faxes it probably qualifies. Almost certainly if it prints those faxes out automatically.

        What gets interesting is if it treats a particular email as a fax account and prints said email automatically, especially if the account in question is named 'fax@mycompany.com'. :-)

  • bandwidth doesn't cost as much ... crap (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    how many unsolicited, commercial faxes do you get in a day?

    how many unsolicited, commercial emails do you get in a day?

    i'd guess you get a shitload more in spam than faxes. is the fax law responsible for that? most likely.

    business people and politicians are, generally speaking, stupid when it comes to technology. you have to put things in a $$ perspective for them to notice.

    i've been itching to run for a gov't position here in az because i'm not happy with what my lawmakers are doing for me (re thomas jefferson ~"it's not your right to rebel against an unjust gov't, but your obligation") one law i'd like to pass in spam-friendly (read: no laws against spam) az is to make 1. the spammers responsible *and* 2. the spammer's client. that will send the message right damn quick.

    like the article earlier today ... only a handful of people are responsible for 90% of the spam we get. i'd much rather pay an extra $.00002 a year in taxes for those dickwads to be on welfare, if, after passing a harsh law on spam, it caused them to lose their jobs.

    there are about 9k employees where i work. between all the employees, i'd say it's safe to say we receive at least 50k spam messages per day. assuming it takes 1 second to designate a message as spam, and another second to delete it, that's about 28 hours/day of wasted productivity. not to mention the bandwidth costs (oc-3).

  • The right to privacy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cdf12345 ( 412812 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @08:48PM (#4030044) Homepage Journal
    What happened to the right to reasonable privacy within ones home? I know some *cough cough* public figures have said that we cannot expect privacy in public, what about within our homes?

    Isn't faxing materials into the home a violation of our privacy?

    Maybe we should hold the fax senders under the same standards as telemarketers, after all they are using the same technology.

  • Why the FAX law was important (Score:5, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @09:00PM (#4030092)
    Clearly, a $500 fine per unsolicited fax is a lot of money now... and in 1991, when the law was passed.

    But imagine a world where this law didn't exist. There would be many many more organizations that spam fax materials to every number they can find. IN the end, the FAX would become a useless device, where there would be 99% noise and only 1% light.

    Therefore, congress passed this law to protect such forseen abuse. At the time, FAX machines were the next great electronic technology, and they had to be protected to be a success.

    Now email is on the verge of failure. Many people get 10, 20 or more unsolicited email advertisements per legitamate business correspondence. Clearly, such misuse of email infrustrutre is damaging this new technology. Children can no longer use email due to the pornography advertisements; business people must wade through dozens of junk messages to find the important ones.

    Therefore, congress should act now to protect this new and cost-saving technology. Otherwise, it'll be too late, and email will fall out of favor with the business world.

    • Now email is on the verge of failure.

      Welcome to the world of wild exaggeration! I'll be your host...

  • Wonderful. Now if only the FCC would actually enforce their radio regulations and clean up the land mobile mess.

    If....

    If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.

  • My workplace gets fax spam (Score:4, Funny)

    by vandelais ( 164490 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @10:23PM (#4030456)
    that requests that you fax your interest back to them.

    Step 1) find black construction paper at your workplace.
    Step 2) write "Stop Spamming" in stencil on white paper
    Step 3) Cut out message and tape to black construction paper
    Step 4) fax back message that uses a shitload of recipient's fax toner

    Step 5) Smile and enjoy the rest of day.

  • Is it possible to slow down a fax transmission? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dahan ( 130247 ) <khym@azeotrope.org> on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @11:41PM (#4030752)
    I got tired of junk faxes wasting my paper, so I switched to using a fax modem and Hylafax [hylafax.org]. I still get a lot of junk faxes, but at least I can rm them.

    Anyways, it'd be kinda fun if it was possible to somehow detect a junk fax (maybe an empty TSID is good enough? All the legit faxes I get have a TSID) and then deliberately try to keep the faxer on the line as long as possible, running up their phone bill. Force the modem to 300 baud or something like that :) Maybe request retransmissions too (I don't know if faxes even support that). So is this possible?

  • About spam email... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slykens ( 85844 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @07:56AM (#4032061)
    Fortunately my office doesn't receive too many of these types of faxes, and if we do I don't see them.

    Quite a few people are asking how to apply something like this to email spam. My suggestion is to use whatever anti-spam law may exist on the books in your state and sue the advertiser named in the spam. File it in small claims court, then subpoena their advertising records to prove the purchase of service from the spammer. Even if the suits are thrown out we're still talking about a cost of several hundred dollars per suit to the advertiser. At some point it would have to become more expensive to defend the advertising than to stop it.

    That really is the key here, to make it more expensive to advertise this way than not, and ideally the law should make both the company advertised and the spammer liable. That together with a spam email being prima facia evidence of the crime placing the burden of proving the spam was sent without the advertiser's knowledge on them.

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