Spammer hopes to go straight -- but still ply his trade legally

The Boston Globe ^ | 6/30/2003 | Hiawatha Bray

[Radix]

Ron Scelson admits he's an outlaw. But he'll gladly go straight, he insists, as soon as the federal government legalizes his business, which happens to be spamming. Scelson sends out millions of junk e-mail advertisements every day from his Slidell, La., home. Many of them are illegal under the laws of Louisiana and many other US states. So Scelson wants a federal law that would establish a national standard for e-mail advertising, and new e-mail technology that would let users permanently block their e-mail addresses from unwanted ads. Under his plan, Scelson said, consumers could screen out unwanted messages, while still allowing Scelson to continue the e-mail advertising business that has made the high-school dropout a wealthy man.

[Radix]

Spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam, lovely spam.

http://www.ironworks.com/comedy/python/spam.htm

[petuniasevan]

he'll gladly go straight, he insists, as soon as the federal government legalizes his business

Can I start a business removing unsightly extra cars, trucks and SUVs from suburban driveways? It's a service that is needed, you know!
Feds, please legalize my endeavor! </sarcasm>

[dark_lord]

This guy is so full of bovine excrement. A legitimate spammer will send spam from a legitimate email address. Not a forged or stolen address. Such a spammer can be easily blocked by people who do not want to receive the spam. The legitimate businesses that pay for the spammer services don't especially want to piss off potential customers anyway, so they should have no objection to this. But the spammers persist in using stolen or forged email addresses so that they can continue to spam people who don't want to receive spam.

[steve-b]

So Scelson demands that any federal law would force Internet providers to allow unhindered transmission of legal spam.

Criminals who have the gall to issue "demands" should be hunted down and given the maximum sentence for any and all charges that can be pinned on them, in the worst don't-drop-the-soap prison available.