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Spam Communications Government Politics

Lawmakers Try to Protect Kids From Spam 332

Posted by Zonk from the dodge-the-pig dept.
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Some states have moved to shield children from email peddling porn, alcohol and other adults-only products, the Wall Street Journal reports. Critics say the laws, which establish a registry of kids' email addresses, are unfair to marketers and could create security risks. The debate echoes earlier discussion about a proposed do-not-spam national registry that the Can-Spam Law urged, but which the FTC nixed. This time, though, the registries are moving forward on a state-by-state basis, and facing court challenges from the adult entertainment industry." From the article: "Few email addresses have been placed on the state registries so far. Earlier this week, Utah's registry had 1,992 addresses, and 62 schools had registered their domain names to block emails to student accounts. About 160 companies had submitted their email lists for screening. In Michigan, 3,658 email addresses have been registered, along with 41 school domains. About 170 marketers had applied for screening."
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Lawmakers Try to Protect Kids From Spam More

Lawmakers Try to Protect Kids From Spam

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  • Just what we need. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:48AM (#14454598)
    More laws.

    • Re:Just what we need. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      yes sometimes we do need more laws. sometimes we dont...

      dont be a fanatic and think all laws are bad

      • Re:Just what we need. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by RandoX ( 828285 )
        Do we really need laws to keep kids from buying whiskey on the internet? What ever happened to parental supervision?
        • > Do we really need laws to keep kids from buying whiskey on the internet? What ever happened to parental supervision?

          Because parental supervision supports the terrorists, and parental supervision hates America. Now get your checkbook out, citizen! It's for the children!

    • Look at this entire room full of laws we have to torment spammers. Every single one of these laws was finely crafted using taxpayer money and the infrastructure of updating all registries, databases, and lawbooks to reflect them is also at taxpayer expense.

      Now. If we could just catch more than one spammer/year (not counting the 68 year old grandmother caught for sending out e-mail advertising her cross-stitch mittens) we might be able to make use of them.

    • Re:Just what we need. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wornstrom ( 920197 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:49AM (#14455242)
      So, if I submit my email address to this database, and just say it belongs to a kid, I can stop recieving v!@gr@ spam?

  • Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:48AM (#14454602) Homepage Journal

    I wonder how many sex offenders work for government.

    Actually, I find this really overreaching legislation unacceptable for a free society. When you become a parent, you must accept the priviledge of parenting -- don't push it off on me.

    When you tax me, regulate me and force me to monitor what your children are doing, you are putting the brunt of parenting on me. I don't want it. I'm responsible and have no had kids before I was ready. Don't ask me to help you, I don't want to.

    I want to run my business utilizing every right I was born with -- including speech. If you don't want my e-mails, you can run a white list and bounce everything not in it. Problem solved, by the free market.

    I want to run my life without paying for the legal system required to enforce these tyrannical laws. I have no desire to put another lawyer in the district attorney's office. I have no desire to put another cop in a nice office in order to do a parent's job. I have no desire to put another judge on the bench to take away the freedoms of the citizens put in from of them.

    Here's a guide to life:

    1. Don't have kids until you can support them yourself (including paying for school, food, clothing and shelter).

    2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.

    3. Understand that raising a child means having one parent at home. If you have a child, stop spending money on toys and vacations and new cars and new clothes. Focus your money on your child's present and future.

    4. Understand that raising a child means constant care. Don't let your child go anywhere without knowing where and with whom. If one parent is home, this is much easier.

    If you can't understand these simple procedures (learned over millenia), don't have kids. I don't want to pay for them, I don't want to raise them, and I don't want to provide free daycare for them. It isn't my kid.

    • Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation&gmail,com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:55AM (#14454668)
      "I want to run my business utilizing every right I was born with -- including speech. If you don't want my e-mails, you can run a white list and bounce everything not in it. Problem solved, by the free market."

      Do it on your own dime...my bandwidth and server space cost me money. Funny how you're all for the "free market" until one of its finer points inconveniences you.

      • Do it on your own dime...my bandwidth and server space cost me money. Funny how you're all for the "free market" until one of its finer points inconveniences you.

        Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money.

        Make a law, and it does.

        Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks. Laws won't stop them. Again, the free market works.

        • Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks.

          I own a house. I am required to maintain my house - including security. Yet there are still laws against people breaking into my house.

          Feel free to send all the marketing materials you want to anybody who wants to receive them. If not enough people want to receive your emails then offer incentives to do so. Free market at work

          • Insightful but off.

            Viruses = breaking into your house (I think we should be able to sue virus spreaders for trespass)

            SPAM = USPS advertising that clutters up your mailbox.

            I don't look at the advertising that comes to my mailbox, I throw it out.
            • SPAM=USPS is an incorrect analogy.

              When unsolicited material is sent to me through the USPS I know that the sending party paid the cost to have it delivered to my mailbox.

              In contrast, when I receive an unsolicited piece of email I know that *I*, the receiving party, paid the cost to have it delivered to my mailbox.

              I pay nothing to have unsolicited material delivered to my physical mailbox, I pay plenty, over time, to have unsolicited material delivered to my virtual mailbox.

              How do I pay you ask?

              Let me count
            • Well, then, since your standard is "breaking into your house", you're on board with my position (the use of ANY technique identifiable as a method of spam-filter evasion makes you liable to prosecution and penalties). I'm glad we're in agreement.
            • Bad metaphor. We don't PAY to receive junk mail. We DO pay to receive your spam. So a better example might be:

              Your Spam = Telemarketers calling collect without the option to refuse to accept.

          • This law covers requested email, not just spam (Score:4, Interesting)

            by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:51AM (#14455258) Journal
            If you read TFA, you'll see that one of the alcohol-sellers said that the law forced them to pay two separate states to verify their entire subscriber list because some kid from Utah _might_ request to subscribe, and it would be illegal for them to accept the subscription. And the combined price for the two states is 12 cents per name, which is really annoying for a free newsletter.

            It's not just about spam - it's about all kinds of speech, and about the technical competence of the lawmakers, who don't understand the implications of the laws they're writing.

        • Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money.



          Exactly how most spammers think.

        • ok, so my server is now secured, but in order for my server to recognize and reject your mail, it still has to clog up my bandwidth to get to it. What you suggest would be the same as you parking 30 trucks covered in ads in my driveway blocking access to my garage. My garage is well secured so you can't get into it, but you are clogging my means of using it with your trucks, on my property.

          Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about making 3000 laws that do nothing to solve the problem. No amount of laws will fix
        • YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money. Make a law, and it does.

          We already have laws that say that if you use other people's property without permission (or against an express prohibition), it costs you money (or, particularly in the latter case, jail time). These laws merely need to be clarified so that they unambiguously apply to the property-rights violation known as "spamming".

        • Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money. Make a law, and it does. Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks. Laws won't stop them. Again, the free market works.

          Are you really this obtuse, or are you just playing the part up?

          Yes, I have to pay for my server and my connectivity. My doing so is NOT an invitation for you to use it for yo

      • Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely (Score:5, Insightful)

        by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:33AM (#14455060)
        You can disconnect your server from the internet if you want to save disk storage and bandwidth... Build your own private intranet (that is what many companies do to avoid paying for unnessicary bandwidth), and you can have all the control you want.

        But PLEASE don't turn the Internet into some over-regulated ultra-controlled medium, like telephone, radio, and everything else. You may think you are oh so cleverly stopping the Spammers by having the Internet micromanaged by the same people who brought you the Patriot Act... but I garantee that it will bite you in the ass and in the long run will cost you orders of magnitude more that whatever your spam bandwidth costs (and probably won't have any effect on Spam whatsoever)!
    • What about the schools email addresses, do you think the state should have the ability to stop people from sending marketing to students at public schools?
      • What about the schools email addresses, do you think the state should have the ability to stop people from sending marketing to students at public schools?

        When it comes to email concerning alcohol, pornograpy, prescription drugs, and other items of an adult nature then the answer is "YES".

        Ideally I would like one big law that prohibits all spamming of everyone, but that isn't going to happen, so I'll happily settle for small laws that do no harm and help protect children.
    • 2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.

      Except, of course, that some of the worst sex offenders can be found in the clergy. And if you think that it's something only Catholic priests do, I have a bridge made out of solid gold to sell you for an unbeatable price!

      And, of course, nothing says that nice, conservative, Mr Simpson around the corner, you know, the one who has six kids, is not a child rapist. He may even be one who is going to sell p
      • You're right here, to a point. Parents who trust clergy or youth pastors to be alone with their kids are idiots.

        I've been working on putting some of my time into mentoring kids. Guess what? I never EVER am alone with them. It isn't because I can't be trusted, it is so they don't lie.

        I've seen VERY successful home schooling programs in my community. One program is about 50 parent-couples who share the responsibility. They do a science day where 3 parents are the teachers (together) for the entire group, a math day, a writing day, etc. They share the burden, but never are alone with the kids.

        I would never let my kid be alone with an adult -- ever. In a church I attend the pastor's kid was abused by a grandparent! These things happen, you have to be smart and be secure in advance. Why should I trust anyone, even a "good Christian."
      • The parent didn't mean to pawn his kids off onto the church and trust them to raise his/her kids for free. What he was saying is that it would be nice, for a change, to be surrounded by like-minded people who were dedicated to raising their children responsibly, instead of being immersed in a culture where it is acceptable for parents to be only marginally concerned with and responsible for their children's well-being.

        You simply don't find that kind of atmosphere prevailing in your community's swinger's c

      • You say that we need a police state because churches, schools, neighborhoods are all somehow filled with rapists, child molestors, and serial killers just waiting to exploit or murder your children first chance they get. We should trust no one!

        The only problem with your theory (well, other than having a unrealistic paranoid nightmare view of the world), is that the $25,000 a year cop you are now puting your faith in to protect your children is in no way more trustworthy than your clergy, or neighbor, or who
      • Except, of course, that some of the worst sex offenders can be found in the clergy.

        This statement can be true of any group.

        * Some of the worst sex offenders are parents.
        * Some of the worst sex offenders are school teachers. ...
        * Some of the worst sex offenders are pastry chefs.
        * Some of the worst sex offenders are kitten vivisection practitioners.

        and so on...

        You don't see/hear/read about many parents that are sex offenders; similarly unless there are previous convictions, you don't hear about the next-door
    • The problem of course is that there are a lot of parents that don't parent. And its a question of whether society wants to try and impose legislation to do the job of less involved parents, or if we want to deal with children growing up with a basis that we now generally don't agree with.

      I'm going to mention two things before I get flamed. First, I understand that legislators really don't do much to help the situation, and only impose more silly, ineffective laws. Second, I understand that people have dra
    • Oh please, like some parent stands a chance against all those marketers sloshing their emails, and their kids email boxes full of porn and other adult-only products. Come on let us be realistic...those markets will mass mail anything and anyone - they don't care and they need to be punished. This is not overreaching...this is not the gov't telling me how to raise my kids....this is the gov't helping me out by making it harder for jackasses to email my kid a picture of some girl having sex with a cow and s
      • Oh please, like some parent stands a chance against all those marketers sloshing their emails, and their kids email boxes full of porn and other adult-only products.

        WHITE LIST. How hard is it? I help parents at my church set up e-mail accounts for the kids, and there are numerous services that let you set a white list and then lock it out completely. If you want to go further, you can set up white lists for browsing, or join an ISP that white lists content for your kids.

        Yea, but accidents do happen as
        • WHITE LIST. How hard is it?

          OPT IN LIST. How hard is it?

          I don't push my views on people.

          If you believe that spam is protected by free speech then you believe in pushing your views on people.

          • OPT IN LIST. How hard is it?

            A white list is VOLUNTARY. An opt-in list law is COERCION.

            If you believe that spam is protected by free speech then you believe in pushing your views on people.

            What country were you born in?

            "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
            the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"

            NO LAW means NO LAW.

    • Some Points (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfr ... om.net minus bsd> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:03AM (#14454766) Homepage Journal
      Just some short points:

      1. Don't have kids until you can support them yourself (including paying for school, food, clothing and shelter).

      The average cost of raising a child is $250,000.

      2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.

      The church essentially does what you advocate against the government doing. namely, raising peoples children for them.

      3. Understand that raising a child means having one parent at home. If you have a child, stop spending money on toys and vacations and new cars and new clothes. Focus your money on your child's present and future.

      Raising children has always entailed both parents working. The single working parent was a concept largely confined to 1950's america. Across the globe and throughout time, both parents have usually needed to work to support a family.

      4. Understand that raising a child means constant care. Don't let your child go anywhere without knowing where and with whom. If one parent is home, this is much easier.

      See previous point. Also along these lines, in the past, children often worked from quite a young age, usually alongside their parents. The modern school system is in essence an alternative to this, enabling parents to work, without simultaniously supervising their children.
      • Have to disagree with point #3. If women "usually worked" through out history 9excepting when Dwight Eisnehower chained them barefoot in the kitchen) why was it considered a societal upheaval when women started to work in large numbers in the lat teens and early 20's? If they had been working all along, why would anyone notice? Were they fooled by nostalgia for the 50's that hadn't happened yet?

      • Re:Some Points (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Slime-dogg ( 120473 )

        The church essentially does what you advocate against the government doing. namely, raising peoples children for them.

        Functionally the same, but symmantically different. For one, you are going to meet and know those people whom your children are going to be exposed to. You are going to pay out of your own pocket for your own kid, if expense is involved. You are not leaving your kid in foster homes/gov't daycare, where you have no clue of the environment your child is in. You are not leaving the finan

    • I want to run my business utilizing every right I was born with -- including speech.

      This crock is the single most abused concept of the freedom of speech: your freedom of speech does NOT guarantee you an audience, and all unsolicited email marketing is an intrusion on my right to be free from such things.

      There is NOTHING that guarantees you the right that your marketing messages will arrive in somebody's inbox. NOTHING. The Supreme Court even ruled on this once upon a time: see Rowan v Post Office.

      If

    • If you want to run a business you should keep a list and only send mails to those people who want to recieve them.
      It should not be my responsibility to keep unwanted solicitations away.
      You are stealing my time by sending me this crap, and even with your solution my time and effort to keep it away. But I'll meet you halfway, if I can come to your business and steal your supplies and goods as long as you can steal my time and effort, I could accept that.
    • While I agree with the premise of your rant - people MUST take more responsibility for their children - in practice this is impossible.

      You cannot "watch" a pre-teen/teen 24 hours a day. This will lead to an unhealthy relationship and resentment. Even with filters, etc. this child will see some bad stuff by accident. Yes, it is the parent's responsibility to educate and explain what is seen, but as a parent, I would prefer to have those chats with my children when we collectively are ready, not when some spa

    • Re:Read: Lawmakers try to replace parents entirely (Score:5, Insightful)

      by OYAHHH ( 322809 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:24AM (#14454964)
      Bull,

      To your entire premise!

      You and everyone else would be highly offended and possibly out for blood if it were legal to approach children on the sidewalk in front of their house, show one's genitals and then say "Buy viagra, see what it does for me!"

      The approach by spamming porn marketers is absolutely no different. Slightly, and I'm not sure if that portrays the right meaning, less obnoxious, but the same approach.

      It is in EVERYBODY's interest to have a certain level of sanctity in our society for our children. And that means everybody has to chip in to some degree and be willing to live under a reasonable ruleset that keeps perverse material away from everybody's children.

      To say that it is the parent's responsibility is a cop-out and totally un-acceptable. Otherwise, you might as well digress to my example at the beginning of this rant where children would not be able to play in their own front yard with any certainty that they would not be molested by the first pervert that happened to come along.

      Get real, grow up!
    • "3. Understand that raising a child means having one parent at home."

      No it doesn't. Raising a child means providing for the needs and growth of the child, be they physical, emotional, or mental.

      This can be done without having one parent stay at home.

      Your blanket assumption that one parent has to stay at home for this to happen is old-fashioned BS. Extended families, etc, are often better means of child care than having one parent stay at home when there is not enough money.
    • You have to understand that there is a huge contingency of activists and lobbyists who want the government to take a direct role in raising children. They see the school system as the avenue for this. Just look at how schools are moving away from core-curriculum studies to social programs. Laws like these are a way to have what appear to be well-intentioned bills passed to enhance this move towards social "indoctrination," for lack of a better word. You start talking about having one parent at home, you're
    • Many goverments favour family with kids above families without kids, so I agree with your: If you can not take care of a kid, then don't get one principle.

      This law however is useless. The real spammers are starting to be legalized this way by telling that they can not spam kids. SO keep this law, and you do not do anything wrong??? That is nice. I see some "people" starting "marketing" companies now with that in the back of their minds, and send out all the Viagra mail to anybody as long as they did not p
    • I don't understand, the first half of your post declares that everyone should have the freedom to live and bring their children up as they please and the the secound half proscribes a very objectional 'guide' about specifically how parents should raise children. If you ask me it represents perfectly the typical hypocracy of current day right-wing America.

      For starters, how is a child meant to learn how to live a full independant life if (especially when they reach their teens) they have to first check off wi
      • If you ask me it represents perfectly the typical hypocracy of current day right-wing America.

        I'm no right winger, I'm just offering my point of view. I would never force my point of view on you through law, but that is what you want to do to me -- force your point of view by making a law. Left wing, right wing, they're both part of the same side of the coin actually: the authoritarian side. I'm an anarchocapitalist [blogspot.com], I'm on the other side of that coin.

        For starters, how is a child meant to learn how to li
    • There are not as many as you would think, as most goverments DO screen people that have conact with chilren.

      Is the process perfect? No of course not, but it is being done and does help.

      Btw, in this day and age our #3 is not all that practical. it may have worked for generations past and is a nice idea, but today it just doesnt work for the average middle class citizen.
    • If you don't want my e-mails, you can run a white list and bounce everything not in it.

      No, if I don't want your e-mails, I will run a basic spam filter. If you use ANY filter-evasion technique whatsoever, then (in a just society) you get to spend the next 1-5 as the Bride of Bubba, just as if you'd attempted to similarly violate my property rights (e.g. by picking my front door lock).

  • How do I get on the list? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohnNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:50AM (#14454615) Journal
    I mean, I am an adult, but I could sure do without the adult-product spam mail. Seriously, does anyone want to know where they can get more booby mags and silly sauce? How are they going to regulate who gets on these lists? The button [utahkidsregistry.com] you click says "Household E-mail address."

    Is this an abuse of the service? Probably. But it would bring me great joy to watch some spammer take a $1K-$5K hit for each e-mail sent to me promising the enlargement of my genitals and/or mammaries. From the article:
    The Utah Division of Consumer Protection has cited one Web site for allegedly violating the law. It says a Web site called HoneyI------TheBabysitter.com sent a sexually explicit email last month to an address on the registry, and the state is seeking a fine of up to $2,500. The site's owner couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
    Now that's satisfying!

    If you're wondering what adult products qualify for you to file a complaint: Under the law, marketers are prohibited from sending messages containing or linking to any products or services that are illegal under Michigan law for children to purchase, obtain, view or participate in. These include, but are not necessarily limited to: Alcohol, Tobacco, Pornography or Obscene Material, Gambling, Illegal Drugs, & Firearms

    On the converse, I'm guessing that if I did get on the list my Spongebob spam would probably increase.
    • Do what I do: use your whitelist, spam filter everything else.

      Seriously, it is all you need. There are at least 20 services out there that will help you filter spam without trying to use some heuristics or algorithms but actual processes that work.

      Don't ask the law to try to filter it, you'll be very sad by how the law gets converted into pro-spammer.

      • There are at least 20 services out there that will help you filter spam without trying to use some heuristics or algorithms but actual processes that work.

        Well, you bring up a good point.

        The problem is that my 12-year old airhead cousin isn't going to know how to do this. And she's not going to stop using her angela@britneyspears.com e-mail address.

        Why don't you list these 20 services and link them? Why don't you also reveal how much they cost and then tell someone under 18 that they have to pa

    • Now that is obviously "Honey, I shrunk the babysitter"
    • I tried and stopped at the point that it required me entering a zip code and declaring that I really live there. Lying on government forms = jail time.
    • You know, oddly enough, I've only ever had a problem with pornographic spam on the accounts I've, er, "misused." I've run my own email servers for quite awhile and never really had any major problems with those that I, well, never used to sign up for porn--including the "free" email accounts I don't physically control.

      With limited exceptions of scatterbombing, they gotta get your address from somewhere... Ahem.
      • You've obviously gotten lucky.

        I went for years with zero spam at my work email address, because I never let it get out into the wild. One day, a few years ago, I screwed up and posted to Bugtraq with that address, and it ended up on all of the websites where Bugtraq gets archived. Other than that one leak, and maybe a leak or two to another mailing list, I don't believe my email address has ever gotten into the wild. I've certainly never used that address to do anything porn-related.

        Today, I get about 10
    • purchase, obtain, view or participate in. These include, but are not necessarily limited to: Alcohol, Tobacco, Pornography or Obscene Material, Gambling, Illegal Drugs, & Firearms
      I am confused about the firearms. I hunted with my dad and grandfather looooong before I was 18. I hunted from about 12 on. Many kids hunt. At a young age I would have been very interested in a firearms email.
  • Those poor innocent spammers trying to make a living sitting there in a makeshift shack shivering in front of an empty table with nothing but a meek candle for warmth..

    WHO I say! Who will think of the spammers?!
    • Hey, the spammers can get PCs using [fill in your favorite chip maker] CPUs, and they'll stay toasty warm. I used to heat one of my labs with a couple of Sun-4s, and another one with a VAX 11/780. (Actually, I'd happily recommend that they get a VAX to do their spamming from - it's much more efficient, though a lot slower, and some of them will get electrocuted trying to install 208-volt 3-phase power....)
  • Another email list for spammers to harvest? Or maybe even more questionable people currently spending their time talking to the FBI in chatrooms?

    Sounds silly and ineffective. Bet some legislator got good press from it though. :)

  • The problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:52AM (#14454642)
    It will only work for senders in the US, and that's assuming it would work at all. For the rest of the world, it's a free list of valid email accounts.
    • As far as I can tell the technical details from the WSJ article, it's not a simple list - there's some contractor that receives the data in encrypted form and manages the list, and if you want to validate against the list you need to pay them about $5 per 1000 addresses, and you get feedback about whether they are or are not on the Utah list, and there's a similar deal for $7/1000 for the Michigan list. So if you're selling politically incorrect material, whether it's porn and gambling spam or whether it'

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:52AM (#14454645)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • hand wring

    I like. That could work politically. I also wonder how easy it would be to get myself put on the children list. :-)

  • NOT!

    An email registry of kid's email addresses? You mean there will be one-stop shopping for addresses of the people MOST LIKELY to be interested in my porn-site?

    After all, as a foreign porn spammer, I'm VERY concerned about abiding by US law.

    The people are idiots! The only thing saving the kids is that they often don't have easy access to daddy's credit card so there is less incentive to market to them.

  • The EFF is one of the parties opposing the law (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chriss ( 26574 ) * <chriss@memomo.net> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:56AM (#14454685) Homepage

    So think twice before "death to all marketers".

    FTFA: The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group for the adult-entertainment industry, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Utah in November seeking to bar the state from enforcing its law, saying it is invalid under a federal anti-spam law and violates free-speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Several groups said they plan to join in filing a legal brief in the suit opposing the Utah law, including the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, a marketing trade group; Beverage Solutions Inc., a beer-and-wine seller; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights advocacy group.

    While protecting children from spam is a noble goal, Utahs method of forcing companies to have a third party check their address databases against blacklists (and having to pay a lot for that) will only catch a small part of the spam, while resulting in a giant overhead.

    What worries me most is the definition of "inappropriate sales pitches", which can be heavily fined. What is inappropriate? I run a website for free language training, aimed at adults and kids. What happens if a kid requests the newsletter, but the kids school or parents have put its email address on the blacklist? If some right wing christian decides that teaching children the french names of bodyparts is indecent, will I be fined for making an "inappropriate sales pitches"? Smells like CDA [wikipedia.org].

    Chriss

    --
    memomo.net [memomo.net] - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

    • What worries me most is the definition of "inappropriate sales pitches", which can be heavily fined. What is inappropriate?

      This is precisely why the penalties should apply to spam generally (as a violation of the property rights of the recipient), not to specific types thereof.

  • List methodology? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by midicase ( 902333 )
    I think the list systems are backwards. It would seem to me that no one wants spam and that everyone would would want to be on a do-not-spam list. To maintain a list of almost everyone would be unwieldly and expensive. The same idea applies for the do-not-call lists for telemarketing. Why not reverse the purpose of the lists and make them "OK-to-spam" list and "OK-to-Call" lists? All twelve people that like that stuff can voluntarily submit their info.

    Oh wait, that would make sense.

  • Got it all backwards they have (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:57AM (#14454707)
    I don't know why you would bother creating a registry of kid's names & schools that is most likely to be unsecure, infringing on privacy rights, burdening the innocent individual, and is impossible to verify.

    How about just stopping the spam with huge fines for the offenders and/or putting them out of business permanently?

    I would like to know one person here who thinks that spam emails are a legitimate way to do business.
    It is like the electronic equivalent of harassment and email vandalism.
  • Oh great, here's another transparent attempt to take away more of our rights in the name of protecting our kids from some vague evil. Is anybody actually fooled by this bullshit?

    Come on, speak up. Do we really need to trample everybody's rights to save children from porn spam? Has any child actually been harmed by spam? If so, I'd like to know about it, 'cause it sounds like some virulent spam!

    And do we really need a database of childrens' email addresses? That sounds like a pot of gold for all the pedo

  • Registry of kids email addresses! Great Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:05AM (#14454789)
    After all, having an available registry of confirmed emails of children is a god send for many marketers. Nice of the government to subsidize the market research so that advertising agencies can be 100% sure that their spam for toys, or candy, or xbox games is going to the target market!

    Sure, the list is only supposed to be available to "authorized third party auditors" or translation: a bunch of minimum wage data entry people. Which means that it will be available to just about anyone willing to pay a few bucks! And don't expect this info not to be given to military recruiters, or anyone the government WANTS to market to your children.

    And marketers are not the worst type of people who could have this information!
    • Doesn't even have to be that hard. I'm assuming, although I didn't see where the article said, the marketers send their list to the state and the state sends them back either a clean list or a list of addresses that they have to remove. Should be pretty easy to just send a huge list and make a kids list from the 'prohibited' email addresses.

  • I'm Liking an "Internet License" (Score:5, Funny)

    by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:07AM (#14454800)
    Like a driver's license. You can apply for it when you are 18, so your being on the 'Net means de facto you are an adult (at least legally/mathematically). All the chatroom entrapment theatrics drop to zero. Signal-to-Noise in places like, well, Slashdot increases dramatically. Would-a-been script kiddies spend their formative years in the high school Drama Club, where they not only have an aptitude but may actually pick up some social skills as well. L33t Sp33k is killed before it can grow. People with any predilection to dress in Goth 'fashion' or smoke clove cigarettes receive no encouragement via Usenet, and so Light returns to The Land. Music ceases to be marketed like jujubes. Instant Messaging, the electronic equivalent of the juvenile pinging of small stones at one's bedroom window, loses traction in business and people start picking up phones again. No metallic object is ever again manufactured in 'Hot Magenta.' The list of benefits go on and on...

    Note to moderators: I am kidding. Mostly.
  • I never thought I'd find more spam preferable to less spam, but seems like it's happening. The stupid ageist government should give me back my spam!
  • This is absurd, if a school decided to implement an email system, then they should have looked into investing in a filtering system to go along with it.

    It isn't the governments job to refine the processes and products of the private industry, which is essentially what they are doing. (more and more every day)

    They have essentially said "This email thing would be alot better tool/product if we modified it like *this*". But wait! Email was never their technology in the first place! Why would we need them
    • Not that I totally disagree, but some of us have a reluctance to pay for certain services that seem kind of like extortion:
      - Protection money ( to Police/Fire/Ambulance or people who work like them)
      - Virus/Adware/Rootkit scanners
      - Spam removal companies

      etc. Giving money to people to protect you from "other really bad people" only encourages the recipient to ensure the problem continues to exist and is increasingly dangerous enough to warrant periodic increases in price.

  • Ah (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ravenscall ( 12240 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:14AM (#14454880)
    Yet another wonderful way to desensitize our children to the tools of a police state.
  • The EFF has a long history of being on the wrong side of the spam problem. They showed their true colors when they joined spammers in their suit to overturn the laws designed to help stop spam.

    When people ask me why I refuse to join the EFF, I just point at their spam policies.
  • There about a dozen posts so far pointing out how this gives spammers/pedos a list of kid email adresses. RTFA you stupid morons. Spammmers that want to comply have got to send their list to the state and the state does the checking. The spammer never gets the registry.

    As for keeping it secure. Gee, what would pedo do with a list of email adresses when during the same breakin or electronic theft he can get the complete details of every kid? The state already keeps full listing of every kid in the state, ad

    • As for keeping it secure. Gee, what would pedo do with a list of email adresses when during the same breakin or electronic theft he can get the complete details of every kid? The state already keeps full listing of every kid in the state, adding a list of emails is not going to be any big deal.

      Umm.. contact them? Even if you have all the background info, you still need a contact point like an IM name, e-mail addy, cell phone or similar. They're not going to send a letter with the postal service. Perhaps the

    • Re:Slashdot idiots (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Legion303 ( 97901 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:46AM (#14455200) Homepage
      "Spammmers that want to comply have got to send their list to the state and the state does the checking. The spammer never gets the registry."

      Not that I think it's a problem, but it's absolutely trivial to get a list of kids' addresses in this scenario. I send this list to the sanitation group:

      lolita@aol.com
      swinger@yahoo.com
      bgates123@msn.com
      sjobs@apple.com
      [...]

      They clean it and send me the "allowable email list" back:

      swinger@yahoo.com
      bgates123@msn.com
      sjobs@apple.com
      [...]

      Oops.

    • Re:Slashdot idiots (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RexRhino ( 769423 )
      For someone so quick to call everyone morons, the most basic grade-school logic seems to have escaped your mental abilities.

      I send a massive list of emails to this government office, and they tell me which of those emails to remove from the list... I take that list of names they tell me to remove, and now I have a confrimed list of the children's emails (or at least a huge chunk of the list thereof).

      If I was a marketing company, I can send in my half billion name list of email leads, and find out which are
  • White or black lists are far too simplistic and prone to abuse. Naive Bayes classifiers are better, but still a hack. An asymmetric encryption system would be a far more complete solution to the problem of unsolicited mail.

    Why doesn't everyone just use mail clients that only accept incoming mail encrypted with the user's public key? No authentic mail would get labeled as spam, and real spamming would become too resource intensive. It would not be too difficult to make the whole encryption process total

  • There is no such thing as "unfair to marketters!" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:25AM (#14454974) Homepage
    Look! We pay for, or someone pays for, our email service. It is NOT for "marketters" to exploit. It would be a different story if email wasn't a "pay for" service. Internet access and ultimately email 99% of the time falls neatly into that category and should be EXEMPT from marketters demanding "fairness." The fact that email marketting ever got established as "common" is unfair to those who pay for their email service.

  • No one has parenting skills anymore.

    A kid plays violent games and then brings a gun to school to even some scores, and they blame the video games. They don'tblame the parents how did not monitor the child's habits, see the warning signs, take preventative measures. Parents howl they need a rating system, then blatantly ignore it, letting their kids do pretty much whatever they want.

    My wife see it time and again -- children who are running their homes. Their parents are afraid to punish them for fear of

    • I agree with most of your post, but then I read the following:

      Kids walk around dressed in mismatched, mis-sized clothes. Where di they get them? Most of them don't have jobs, so it must be dear-old-mom-and-dad who are letting them dress like hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates.

      What does this have to do with anything? You think the style of kids clothing is a problem? They aren't dressing like "hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates" because those people can't afford new clothing in the latest style or fad. Even

  • I believe that this is officially called the "Encourage Pedophiles to Start Marketing Companies Act of 2006"
  • "The states let parents and schools register any email address accessible to a child, at no cost. Each month, companies must pay to have a designated third party examine their marketing lists for addresses that appear on the registries. The cost for a business can total thousands of dollars, and violators face stiff fines."

    That is unfair. I propose that instead of these monetary obligations to sanitize their email lists, marketers be allowed to police themselves. Then, if caught sending adult-oriented spam
  • Just ban spam totally.. THAT is the solution.

    No 'do not email list' or other nonsence. Until they pay me for my time and resources, spam should be 100% illegal.
  • Well, lets see. You have the email addresses of millions of kids in a single location (well, a single location for each state at least). Anyone can get the list, otherwise small legit companies won't know who to exclude. Then my friend in Nigeria gets them, and cons kids into giving out mommy and daddy's credit card info. What a great idea.
  • I work in schools, and I have had complaints from various staff who receive explicit emails ranging in topic from enlarging various body parts to men/woman copulating with animals. If staff can get such emails, I'm sure students could too. And try and have Mrs Crabapple explain to little Jill what that lady on the email is doing to the pretty horsie.

    Adding school domain names to a global blocklist doesn't sound like a bad legislation to me. It's easier to check than a DNE (Do-not-email) registry and not s
  • Why do we feel the need to shelter our children from the brutish reality of the world?


    I know 'kids' in their 20s who still feel the need to hide their lifestyles from their parents. Sheltering children sets up for a lifetime of dishonesty between parents and children.

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