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

On May 23, 2003 at 15:43 rrognlie@gamerz.net (Richard Rognlie) wrote:
 > Sadly, none of those provisions will have ANY impact on the trash cluttering
 > the net.  they'll just move off-shore.

This is an oft-repeated canard so suffer me a response:

The reason (most) spammers spam is to sell something.

They spam (e.g.) Americans so they can sell things to (e.g.) Americans.

This means they must have some sort of business nexus in (e.g.)
America for the product being advertised via spam, even if it's just
to ship it to the US (e.g.) they need a customs permit or a
distributor or something similar.

That business nexus which is actually trying to sell the product would
be just as liable for the illegal advertising as the spammer
him/her/itself, under the usual agency law (hiring someone to do
something illegal is illegal.)

etc.

Obviously there are some exceptions such as selling off-shore real
estate or just total scams trying to get your credit card number but I
don't think that quite resolves the above problem with this
oft-repeated moving off-shore faux clincher.

But I think this "they'll just move off-shore" is mostly dead in the
water as a counter-argument.

Besides, if the US (e.g.) takes some lead and enacts some strong and
effective and sensible anti-spam laws then likely many other countries
will follow suit soon thereafter until the spammer has to move to some
dippy little country whose networks we can all block entirely anyhow
or rely on similar pressures to get them to stop sheltering this human
excrement.

Put another way, it's not like spam is the first crime in history with
a potential for an international component.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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