$500 Per Spam
 

I never knew that half of the people in cali have their number unlisted.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...eut/index.html

Proposed law: $500 per unwanted spam

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) --The California State Senate this week approved a bill that would make it illegal to send unsolicited e-mail advertising and allows people to sue so-called spammers for $500 per unwanted message.

If the bill, which now goes to the California Assembly, becomes law, it would be one of the strictest anti-spam measures in the country. Gov. Gray Davis has taken no position on the measure.

Federal regulators and lawmakers are trying to find ways to keep computers from being inundated with spam e-mails, which tout everything from sex aids to home loans and are estimated to account for between a third and a half of e-mail traffic.

Get prior approval
The measure, which was approved Thursday by a vote of 21-to-12, would require Internet marketers to get advance approval from e-mail recipients if they did not already have a business relationship with them.

Currently, California law requires spammers to include "ADV" in the subject line of their e-mail so people will know it is an advertisement. The law also requires spammers to stop sending the e-mails after recipients ask them to or face a $1,000 fine.

The new "opt-in" bill puts the burden on Internet marketers to get approval to spam consumers rather than forcing people to ask to be removed from the spam list after the fact.

Under the new bill, a judge can triple the $500 fine if it is determined that the spam sender willfully and knowingly violated the California law.

High cost of spam
The measure is modeled on a federal law banning junk faxes which allows consumers to sue fax spammers for $500 per fax.

Democratic State Senator Debra Bowen, of Redondo Beach near Los Angeles, said she introduced the current legislation because previous state law, which she also had sponsored, has done very little to curtail spam.

"It's been ineffective because it is 'opt-out' and because it relies on the Attorney General and District Attorney for enforcement," she told Reuters.

"Californians are very privacy conscious," she said. "About half have unlisted phone numbers. That far exceeds the number of unlisted numbers in any other state."

Last month, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would require Internet marketers to provide legitimate return addresses on their e-mails and to honor requests to be taken off customer lists. It would not allow consumers to sue spammers directly, but would require state attorneys general to sue on their behalf.

A January study by Ferris Research estimated that spam costs U.S. corporations as much as $8.9 billion each year. The amount of spam jumped 86 percent between 2001 and 2002, to more than 260 billion e-mails, according to Jupiter Research.

More than half of the states in the country have anti-spam laws.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...tech_spam_dc_3



Those who violate these guidelines could face fines of up to $1.5 million and jail time of up to two years. Internet providers, state attorneys general and federal-law enforcement agencies such as the FTC and the Justice Department (news - web sites) could go after suspected spammers, but the bill does not allow individual lawsuits or class-action suits.

As of 4 weeks ago Indiana now has the most effective spam law. It allows any Indiana resident to sue out of state spammers for $500 per spam in small claims court for an incidental filing fee. The law allows for legal fees so the plaintiff can walk his judgment over to a lawyer or send it to a lawyer in the defendant's home state and get it enforced for free.

And it seems to be written to sue affiliate programs that accept traffic from email boxes, not just individual affiliates.

http://www.spamlaws.com/state/in.html

You know what? Fuck concerns about spam. Newt and his little cult were financially persuaded to switch the FDA drug law around, so that it was no longer the drug companies that had to prove their drugs were safe, now, the FDA has to prove that new drugs are UNSAFE, which it was never designed for. And this kind of shit needs to be federally regulated?

Spam saves so much in junk mail waste and wasted manpower, it's rediculous.

Fuck the soccer mom who's too lazy to figure out e-mail filters on her child's AOL account.

state of washington had a similar law for years,,

fighting spam is just like fighting the drug war, its a big waste of time

my thoughts exactly

Ok.. so say this passes...

Now everyone can "opt-in" for shit & try to sue everyone for $500 when they get emailed claiming "I never signed up!!!"

But people never try to get shit for free or make money by saying they never signed up.. naaaaaaaaah that'd never happen.

Why doesn't Gray Davis quit fucking worrying about spam and start worrying about everyone involved with running this state that's stealing all our damn money and filtering it off to their associates.

If he wants to fix spam someone point his ass to spamassassin.