Re: [Asrg] Article - New anti-spam proposal in the House of Representative

At 3:27 PM -0400 5/23/03, Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
>solicitation. There is no requirement for an "ADV:" notice in the 
>subject line, which other proposals would mandate. If the recipient 
>chooses to

I've never seen the point of ADV.  If all commercial mail uses it, 
then it's not good to block just based on it--in which case the 
spammers will use it too, in order to make themselves look legit.

>unsubscribe, the person sending the e-mail may not make contact 
>again until a three-year period has elapsed.

I've not seen other proposals address this.  Not as good as requiring 
confirmation, but a reasonable way to keep people from just creating 
"new" lists.

>* An Internet service provider (ISP) could sue for damages of $10 
>for each e-mail sent to someone who "opted out," up to a maximum of 
>$500,000. Lawsuits

Is there a standard definition in use for ISP?  What happens to all 
the companies that just buy a pipe?  What if I have a co-lo for my 
mail server?  Does the hosting provider sue?  This seems problematic. 
(On the other hand, maybe ISPs could attract customers by advertising 
that they'll sue for you if you have a spam problem :-).

>* False or misleading header information would be banned. State attorneys

That's going to need clarification too.  Does a fake "X-Mailer:" header count?

>* It would become unlawful to send commercial e-mail to an address 
>that was obtained from an automated scan of a Web site.

This might have a (pleasantly) chilling impact on people who sell 
mailing lists--since most of those lists are tainted at some point.

-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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