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["Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>]

A few of you said:
> One day, it'll be a federal crime.
>
> I think the best way to think about spam is to compare it to other
> crimes, like burglary. We have laws against burglars. We can lock
> them up. As a society, we tend to frown on burglary.

> One legislative idea for stopping spam that I have not yet heard
> discussed much:  punish the advertisers.

> but I'd rather be more specific than less specific in this case

Legislation is not the answer.  Rather, legislation simply is NOT going to
happen, as in Congress is never going to flatly outlaw bulk commercial
email.  It's too lucrative an industry.  See the 24 November issue of
Newsweek:

"Scott Richter doesn't mind telling you how successful he is. His
28-employee company, OptInRealBig, clears $2 million in sales *EACH MONTH*
... But the 32-year-old former restaurateur has made his small fortune in
an unpopular way: sending out 80 million e-mail advertisements a day."
[p.66, emphasis added]

"Verizon tried to stop [Alan] Ralsky for good in 2001, suing him in
Virginia for $37 million for twice paralyzing its network with junk
e-mail. Last year, after mounting legal bills on both sides, the parties
agreed to settle the case; Ralsky paid an undisclosed sum and agreed only
to stop spamming Verizon customers -- leaving him free to resume what he
calls 'the best business in the world.'" [p.68]
The point here being that this spammer obviously can afford to deal with a
$37 million lawsuit.

Sorry, Michael, but you can't compare spam to burglary.  You have to look
at it for what it is: advertising.  Spam amounts to good advertising in
that it draws significant revenues.  Congress/Capitalism likes to see
significant revenues moving about, so Congress is not going to shut this
down.  Notice that it's not flatly illegal for telemarketers to call you. 
Notice that it's not illegal for bulk marketers to stuff your mailbox with
junk mail.  Notice that it's not illegal for the networks to air 35
minutes of advertisements for 25 minutes of show.

What *is* illegal is fraud and deceit in advertising.  The same laws in
place against fruad and deceit already apply to spam by default.  They
want to protect the consumer, but they don't exactly want to prevent these
companies from making a killing, even if it annoys the consumer.  Right
now Congress is taking to task KFC for its potentially deceptive
television spots:
http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/19/news/companies/kfc_ftc.reut/
This is the only form that "punish the advertisers" will take.  False
advertising is illegal, but advertising in general is not, no matter how
annoying; it's too profitable (*that's* an oxymoron - is anything in
Capitalism "too profitable"?), and advertisers/spammers/marketers would
easily be able to cry foul of the 1st Amendment if Congress were to outlaw
it.

And that's why legislative bodies avoid being overly specific in the texts of
legislation.  If such laws are written too narrowly, they risk being
attacked on Constitutional grounds.  It's why businesses so often take
issue with local sign ordinances, for example.  An overly narrow law also
risks overlooking something; the lawmakers (i.e. committees and assistant
groups) don't want to be tasked with writing a law for every consideration
and thus having to spend the effort of researching and debating every
consideration.  They want to write a general law that will hopefully
address most problems, including unforseeable future ones, especially in
this day and age where changing technology is a consideration.

The closest thing we have to the law(s) we want against spam are the rules
and regulations barring unsolicited faxed advertisements.  The only reason
that law is in place is because, in effect, the advertiser is making the
recipient/consumer pay for the advertising by hijacking their resources
(toner, paper, legitimate faxes missed due to busy lines).  One might
reasonably expect to make a similar argument for anti-spam legislation,
but I don't think Congress views them as similar.  Unwanted faxes are a
materially obvious waste of resources whereas spam is more ethereal.  If
there is an argument to be made, then again I think existing laws already
apply; if they hijack your mail server to send their spam, then they might
be prosecuted as a hacker (don't know if that's technically correct or if
it's been tried), and if the volume of their spam shuts down your system
then they've committed a DOS attack, also a criminal offense.  Besides, to
the lobbyists its an apples and oranges argument.  They didn't fight much
or at all against the unwanted fax legislation because it's probably not
that profitable.  It takes considerably more time and effort to send a
million faxes than it does to send a million emails; there's a huge
difference between cost vs. benefit, so the marketers are willing to give
up on faxes, but not on spam.

I think Congress has taken the view that spam is more like telemarketing
and thus is attempting to legislate it in a similar fashion.  Hence, the
proposed law includes a Do-Not-Email Registry.  For fiscal and
Constitutional reasons they aren't going to outlaw it outright, but they
will attempt to make as many people as happy as possible; and some of
those people, and perhaps the ones with the most voice/money, are
spammers/marketers.  Face it; legally, spam is here to stay.

I suppose, then, that I must revise my earlier comment.  There is but one
and only one route to defeat spam: technology.

-Alan