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You know, everyday I go to by mailbox, and mail has been around for centuries, it's full of stuff I don't want either.

I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Many, many people don't like to look at billboards while driving. Maybe we should force the government to pass a law that will signal the billboard via satellite technology that I'm driving by and use a hydraulic pole to quickly retract it underground.

I would think any company that has 4,500 employees could find and IT staff smart enough to use software and monitor the spam. Much of the spam going into corporate servers is because they have open sites with a simple "contact us" link. They should create a request screen that spam writers don't bother with. I know the sales people are thinking it loses potential customers because of the extra effort, but you have to weigh those factors.

Instead of wanting the government, the least qualified people, to make bad law challenged in our courts to please people just because they are annoyed I would rather they use their power to create a guideline, or licensing, structure for internet sites. For example, porn sites would have to be licensed to an .xxx or .adult URL which is easily blocked in software filters. And we already have laws that concern this type of material in tv, video, movies, magazines, etc.

Sure, there would be lawsuits, but it's an idea that has precedent.

I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Well of course you should!!! Sheesh, I just can't imagine the Founding Fathers of this nation sitting around discussing how every time something annoys a citizen of a respective state a new law should be created.

I don't like those little plastic preformed ties on the end of some bread (once you open a loaf you can't get that thing back around to close it) and you have to use a regular twist tie that are found in abundance at the back of at least one kitchen drawer in every kitchen. I think the government should pass a law against those preformed ties too!!

You know, everyday I go to by mailbox, and mail has been around for centuries, it's full of stuff I don't want either. I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Not at all. Bulk mailers have the decency to PAY THEIR OWN WAY. In fact, not only do they pay their own way, they pay each of us back by subsidizing our postal rates with their volume. Without the paid bulk mailers, it would cost over a buck to send a letter across the country.

Many, many people don't like to look at billboards while driving. Maybe we should force the government to pass a law that will signal the billboard via satellite technology that I'm driving by and use a hydraulic pole to quickly retract it underground.

Billboards and signs are on private property, and those property owners have the right to put anything they want on their land. If we don't like it, tough. Of course, if those marketers tried planting their signs in MY front yard or on MY desk without my permission, we'd have words. That's what telemarketers and spammers DO!

I would think any company that has 4,500 employees could find and IT staff smart enough to use software and monitor the spam. Much of the spam going into corporate servers is because they have open sites with a simple "contact us" link

Sorry, but it's not that easy. We DO run spam filters that remove 95% of the spam before it reaches our end users, but that spam still has to be received and stored on our email server before it can be processed and deleted. Unlike an end user, a domain email server has NO WAY to filter email before it reaches the server.

Thank you for the reminder though. The SPAM filtering software and server was another $20,000 we had to spend in order to keep our email server useable. Your tax dollars hard at work (subsidizing spammers).

Oh, and we're a school, not a corporation. Our instructors have to post their email addresses on their websites so that students can reach them with questions about homework, schedules, and lectures. I suppose you also think that it should be OK for telemarketers to troll the instructor phone numbers off their websites and bug them with sales calls in their classrooms?

Spam is stupid, expensive, and a drain on our economy. Sure, spammers can claim that they are contributing to the economy by running their "legitimate" tax-paying businesses, but how much MORE are they DRAINING? I'm sure we've easily spent over $100,000 on spam related software, hardware, and labor over the past two years, and we are just ONE organization. How many other American companies and non-profits have had to deal with this same thing? How many hundreds of millions of dollars have been flushed down the toilet because of the spammers? That's money that could have put Americans to work, or been returned as dividends to stockholders, or upgraded assembly lines. That's money that the spammers have stolen. And for what? So they can sell cheap Viagra knockoffs to 12 year olds?

One problem is that caller ID costs $10 a month now, here in Texas, probably more in Rio Linda. When I realized that, I decided I wasn't going to pay $120 per year to avoid these *ssholes and I had it turned off. Now I just do not answer the phone and make people leave a message. It sucks and I wish we could go back to the days when the phone rang and you answered it, period, end of, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Another thing with the spam, now they send these shockingly, disgustingly graphic jpg's with the spam message on the graphic itself. Spam catcher can't do anything about that. I mean these things are awful, degenerate feces. I can't imagine why they think anyone would willingly respond, especially since word has gotten around that if you answer one of these your spam load doubles.

You know, everyday I go to by mailbox, and mail has been around for centuries, it's full of stuff I don't want either.

It's a HUGE difference, and the reason is cost. It costs a fair amount of money to print up fliers and mail them out. That's an incentive for companies to target a far more limited number of people. Spam is very, very cheap to send, and telemarketers -- particularly the computer automated ones -- are cheaper as well.

But the real problem I have with this objection to supposed governmental regulation is that it proceeeds from the assumption that people have the right to send you unsolicited e-mail. Even from a libertarian perspective, the assumption could be that nobody can use your mailbox without your permission.