U.S. Senate passes anti-spam measure

Reuters ^ | Thu 23 October, 2003 02:20 BST | Andy Sullivan

[yonif]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate has voted to outlaw deceptive "spam" e-mail, and set up a "do-not-spam" registry for those who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Internet "spammers" who flood e-mail inboxes with pornography and get-rich-quick schemes could face jail time and million-dollar fines under the bill, which passed by a vote of 97 to 0.

The vote marks the first time the Senate has taken action against an online scourge that now accounts for 50 percent of all e-mail traffic, frustrating consumers and costing businesses billions of dollars in wasted bandwidth and lost productivity.

Similar legislation in the House of Representatives has stalled as lawmakers try to hammer out differences between two competing bills. The Bush Administration said it supported the bill.

Senators noted that spam has become a top constituent concern and could overwhelm the Internet if left unchecked.

"Every day the Senate delays, big-time spammers (get) another opportunity to crank up their operations to even more dizzying levels of volume," said Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, a sponsor of the bill.

"I don't go to a town hall meeting, I don't meet a friend who doesn't say, 'Take care of that spam,'" said Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, another bill sponsor.

The bill would not outlaw all unsolicited commercial e-mail, focusing instead on the fraudulent or deceptive messages estimated to make up two-thirds of all unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Marketers who falsify return addresses or routing information, hide their pitches behind misleading subject lines such as "Re: your request" or promote body-enhancement pills or other fraudulent products would face jail sentences of up to a year and fines of up to $1 million; repeat offenders could face jail terms of up to five years.

Marketers would have to label sexually explicit messages to allow users to filter them out.

The bill would also prohibit marketers from sending unsolicited messages to consumers who place their e-mail addresses on a "do-not-spam" registry, similar to the popular "do-not-call" anti-telemarketing measure launched earlier this month by the Federal Trade Commission.

Marketers could e-mail addresses not on the list until asked to stop.

Other common spammer tactics, such as hijacking users' identities, using multiple accounts to evade filters, and sending messages to millions of randomly generated e-mail addresses, would be outlawed as well.

State and federal law enforcers and Internet service providers such as EarthLink Inc. would be allowed to pursue spammers, but individual users could not sue directly.

More than half of U.S. states have passed anti-spam bills of their own, many of which set tougher regulations for marketers.

The bill would preempt most state laws, but would allow states to set higher penalties for deceptive or fraudulent activity if they wished.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Title: "Se.nat0r_s, the()re mU.st be sum waay 2 st0p this s_pam!"

[OldFriend]

The last thing I want is 'help' from the government!

[AmericanInTokyo]

Then disobey stop signs, school bus rules, speed limits, and other government mandates in your life, and/or forfeit federally/state insured disaster insurance if your home gets hit by a hurricane, and return your US passport or driver's license (government documents) if you have them.

[OldFriend]

As long as I have figured out how to hand up the phone and hit the delete button without 'help' from the government I think I'm safe. Not so sure about you tho!!!

[OldFriend]

As long as I have figured out how to hanG up the phone and hit the delete button without 'help' from the government I think I'm safe. Not so sure about you tho!!!

[RussianConservative]

bump for read

[Redbob]

50%??
Try 90% spam!

[Action-America]

his will stop 90% of all spma ... in country or offshore if the company is American-based ... for other companies, blacklist their IP.

I hate to disillusion you, but none of those ideas will work.

1. The major spam operators are already making plans to offer anonymous offshore services to US spammers.
2. Blacklists have a worse record than no filtering at all. According to a 2001 study, one of the oldest and best known blacklists, MAPS RBL, blocked only 24% of spam, with 34% false positives (false positives are good email that is blocked).

There is a better way to stop spam, that does not involve government or blacklists and it's just around the corner. See post number 48 for information on spam filters that fight back.

 

[Action-America]

PING!

Everyone who received this ping has made a statement on this thread that is very accurate and I just wanted to add some ammo or has made a statement that indicates that they do not understand how the spammers work. But rather than waste space responding to each and every one individually, I will just refer you to posts 48 and 49, that cover all of the relevant issues.

 

[Graybeard58]

...No hard feelings action america but take me off your "ping" list that I never asked to be on. You pinged me to read about spam filters that are being sold? When you include clickable URLs, which I consider spam? Do you find any irony in that?
...Do not notify me of any more sales pitches no matter what is being sold or by "whom"

[Admin Moderator]

Please do not advertise. Thanks, AM

[Bobby777]

why won't fining a U.S.-based company that uses spam work? ... if you're based here, and you're selling a product here, it won't matter if you have offshore spammers ... it will work ... against U.S.-based companies ... if it's Fred's Mortgage 'n' Viagara of Sacramento, it won't matter if he hired somebody in Romania ... might not get the spammer but his client for sure ...

[SoulStorms]

could face jail time and million-dollar fines under the bill

...And how much of those fines will find their way to the people who get spammed??

[FoxPro]

I spam my resume. I am an outsourcing manager for a firm in Moscow. http://gssconsultants.com/

I have 50 developers. They do Oracle, SQL Server, Java, J2ee, .NET and just about anything else for less than $20 per hour.

I put the team together while on a sailboat in Central America this winter. I went sailing because nobody will higher me and I lost my wife and house.

Now that is doing business internationally.

This large trucking company thought it would cost them $250,000 to update their applications to .NET; we did it for $45,000. We beat the Indians on price by $10,000.

[anguish]

What bothers ME is not only that they take up my time (as in configuring filters, double-checking so no important mail is blocked, etc etc) and waste my bandwidth, but also that young kids such as my sister are bombarded with pornographic content mails. While I've fixed filters on HER computer, the school is not as good at blocking spam. Now we've disabled her mail account at school, an action my parents didn't want to take because it means that she only can do some of her assignments at home.

Sure, this bill will not magically fix the spam problem, but I say that if it takes one of the spammers out of businness, I will applaud it.

[xrp]

Is your sister under 18? If yes, then she shouldn't have her own email address. If she does have her own email address then your parents have failed to properly parent.

[anguish]

She's 13. It wouldn't be a problem if they didn't need the internet at school, but you see they have an extensive language program with cooperating schools throughout Europe. A large part of this involves extensive personal contact with foreign students through email. She's fluent in english and spanish (note: we're Swedes), and quite proficient in german much because of this, so it's a great program.

[xrp]

So she can't send and receive from the parents' email addresses?

[anguish]

She could, but that doesn't make a difference in this situation. She would still be forced to use email at home only, like she's doing now, 'cause the spam passes ISP level filtering like warm knives through butter. Client-side filtering is the only thing that really works (most of the time).