California Bans ALL Unsolicited Email
 

California Moves to Ban Unsolicited E-Mail Spam
from the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/bu...23d2ffc0f22370

September 23, 2003
By SAUL HANSELL


California is trying a deceptively simple approach to the
problem of junk e-mail: It is about to ban spam.

Gov. Gray Davis of California signed a bill today that
outlaws sending most commercial e-mail to or from the state
that the recipient did not explicitly request. That is a
far more wide-reaching law than any of the 35 other state
laws meant to regulate spam or any of the proposed bills in
Congress.

``We are saying that unsolicited e-mail cannot be sent and
there are no loopholes,'' said Kevin Murray, the Democratic
state senator from Los Angeles who sponsored the bill.

The law would fine spammers $1,000 for each unsolicited
message sent up to $1 million for each campaign.

As the nation's most populous state and the home to many
large Internet companies, the California bill could well
have a significant effect on spam. The bill puts the burden
on the sender to determine if the recipient resides in
California.

The marketing industry vehemently opposes the law, saying
that it will only restrict actions by legitimate marketers
and not the rouges who send the most offensive spam.

The burden of complying with the state law, moreover, could
well affect nearly all e-mail marketing.

``California represents up to 20 percent of the e-mail that
is sent or received,'' said J. Trevor Hughes, the executive
director, of the Network Advertising Initiative, a group of
technology companies that send e-mail for marketers.
``Instead of trying to segregate the California e-mail
addresses, many of our members are going to make the
California standard the lowest common denominator.

Thirty-five states have already passed laws meant to
regulate spam. But mostly these ban deceptive practices in
commercial e-mail - like fake return addresses - and many
require that spam be identified with the phrase ``ADV'' in
the subject. But these laws do nothing to stop someone from
sending advertising by e-mail, so long as it was properly
labeled and not deceptive.

Delaware, also, banned sending unsolicited e-mail in 1999.
But that law can only be enforced by the state attorney
general, who has not taken any action under the statute.

Action under the California law, by contrast, can be
brought by the state, by e-mail providers that have to
handle spam and by the recipient. The bill's proponents say
the right of individuals to file lawsuits should ensure
that the bill is enforced, even if state prosecutors have
other priorities. Indeed, a similar provision is credited
with helping to insure compliance with the federal law
against unsolicited faxes.

But at a news conference today, Kathleen Hamilton, the
director of California Department of Consumer Affairs,
promised that the state was ready to enforce the new law
when it takes effect on Jan. 1.

``There will be a focus to make sure that once this law is
in effect that advertisers abide by it so consumers and
businesses are free from unsolicited spam,'' she said.

People spam and refuse to scrub e-mail lists have brought this on. It's good for the industry, it should weed out the crap mailers and leave us with people who have good lists. Good lists = good conversions which = happy program. Bad lists = good conversions with lots of chargebacks which = unhappy visa which = 1% chargeback ratio which = unhappy industry

but the burden of proof for opting in is going to be a bitch and its going to be on the sender.

tough times ahead if this is the precedent.

I agree that the spam problem is huge, but this is nuts.

It says it lets the person who got spammed take action. They call it a "fine", so who gets the $1000 per spam, the state or the person who files the complaint against the spammer in court?

This act alone could save the Governor from being recalled...a :thumbsup to him...anyhow.

The title of this thread is misleading:

most commercial e-mail to or from the state
that the recipient did not explicitly request

The law doesn't cover non-commercial speech, which would make it obviously unconstitutional. Even as it is, someone will probably sue to try to try to overturn it.

There is no mention of what is considered proof of optin.



blood sample? Social Security number?

Worried??? :winkwink:

I am with Grim, This can only help! If it is enforced and they actually go through with prosecuting people, the scammers will start to run scared. I doubt that anyone will be prosecuted though. I think it is all grand standing by a soon to be X-Governor looking for positive headlines anywhere he can get them.

That is true, but you have the people who did not play the rules to begin with to blame. Not that there are specific rules, but come on if the person did not want spam why send it? I know people out there who refuse to scrub lists, if I have a huge scrub list of people who WILL complain why refuse to use it?

my feet smell :(

"California Moves to Ban Unsolicited E-Mail"

So this law basically boils down to whether or not the mail is unsolicited.. this means it will have to be proven in court = the cost of legal disputes regardless of how clean your list is.

Won't last long, the first person with a decent amount of money that gets fined alot will get it challenged on constitutionality because it impacts and essentially regulates other states. That process does take a few years to happen though.

"We are saying that unsolicited e-mail cannot be sent and
there are no loopholes"

Ok so i can't mail [email protected] to say hello

Hi jesus im pro, how are you?

Its unsolicited, send me to jail

Looks like it will create fuck you mailings spoofing addresses of innocent sites. Meaning, anyone can be spoofed and have to pay the penalty, and go out of business broke. How do you explain that you were spoofed?

Why not just send clean lists. Wouldn't it be a lot easier?

If it keeps up the Visa Regs will keep getting worse and worse, and all of us will have to find a new way of making loot

If its the individual, that would make for a nice cottage industry.

Lets see, I get around 1500 - 3000 unsolicited emails each day or about 2250 on average. If I won just 1% of the cases, that would be 22.5 wins/day at $1000 each, or $22,500/day. Not a bad income for hanging around a court house.

The only problem is I don't want to live in California.

Hey shawn your in cali, say real quick i can't mail you, & you don't want my mail, then i'll email you & say hello, shawn & i get thrown in the slammer.

Woohoo!

next is gona be these fucking virus popup programs.

some are almost impossible to get off your computer and keep slamming porn in your face when you don't want to look at porn.


these people are worse than spammers and need to be all thrown in JAIL - it's TRAFFIC THEFT pure and simple.

Lets theoretically say that I serve financial institutions and I provide them a service to send newsletters and marketing FROM them TO their customers ON THEIR BEHALF....

This opens a couple of problems:
1) the bank's customer may or may not feel that they have opted-in for marketing messages just because they get statements and so-on in email on a regular basis from their bank. Now both the service provider and the bank is at the whim of the fickle brainless customer.

2) I am the physical sender even if the bank is the "real" sender. I am now liable for the quality of the bank's opt-in list.

This kind of scenario will really put a damper on legit commercial email communications.

One further thought:
the "Bad Guys" in email marketing do everything they can to hide their origins and identities anyway, so as usual, everyone will be prosecuted except the people who are causing the problem in the first place.

i dont have a problem with this, as long as they make publicly available a list of california ISPs and ip ranges so we know what to filter out

even if you have opt-in lists some asshole will say he didnt opt-in and then you're screwed

This law is referring to Commercial email..just saying 'sup isn't commerical

Blocking out cali addresses will cut 20% + of your recipients.

Also, in my hypothetical situation above, banks and other FIs are VERY often regional, in other words all California business goes bye bye.:(

Fucking California is so desparate for cash they'll do anything it seems.

This is way too extreme.

West Virginia has a similar law... If you send clean opt in names you are fine. If you are soo worried that means your lists are SPAM and to me you should not be sending that anyways. Why send unwanted mail?

I guess what concerns me is that the quality of the lists can be perfect 100% opt-in and all it takes is one fuck head to claim that he never opted in and you are screwed unless you have his signature or some other hard evidence of the opt-in.

Im glad to live in california. And we get our recall too.

If you have an opt in system, you should have proof that the person opted in to your list. If you also have a thing on there saying that this e-mail will be used, but not resold, you are covered

True, but even with that evidence you can still be forced to go to court with it which will cost you in attorneys fees and such :mad:

About the 'not resold' thing... What if you buy a targeted list from a local marketing company. Who is liable? You or the list vendor?

I think it's going to come down to having proof that the person opted in. That's why double opt in is so nice. The person must verify it, and this proves that the said person opened and clicked ok to an e-mail from you saying it's ok to send more. If you are buying from a proper marketing company who is on the up and up they should be able to provide you with the info needed showing that the person did opt in.

I myself would never buy a list from someone without having proof how clean it was

I just deleted 941 pieces of spam and 3 were Disney and 4 were a book by O'Reilly. If the law works, less spam would be nice. If the law just gives people carte blanche to sign up for lists owned by people they don't like, the potential for abuse could be a problem. Depends on how it is enforced.

Actually it said "ALL UNSOLICITED EMAIL" it didn't specify in one of his statements.

Nice
my double opt-in lists will be worth even more...

and for anyone I hate...I'll sign up for their email newsletter and then claim I didn't opt-in....mm, this will be fun ;-)

All that will happen with this law is that the spammers will mvoe offshore....

I'm actually thinking of using this software though: www.optinlightning.com fucking rocks, IP stamp and everything......

Standard Internet?

any real spammer isnt gonna get caught he is gonna not be spamming his own site anyway if they already spammed using real addies you would be able to unsubscribe anyway.

Oh boy. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets Gray Davis & "NO RECALL" sites DDOS'd out of the game.

Whoever runs the bots thought it was important enough to DDOS Spews out of business..... I'm sure they wont like this one bit.

But at a news conference today, Kathleen Hamilton, the director of California Department of Consumer Affairs, promised that the state was ready to enforce the new law when it takes effect on Jan. 1.

Takes effect January 1st.

If you ban unsolicited email, you'll ban nearly ALL email - since I'd guess 99% of email is unsolicited. Out of all the email I got today, I only asked ONE person to send it to me. Are you saying you have to REQUEST someome to send you an email or it's illegal?

No loopholes? Bullshit. Every SPAM law I've ever read in detail has a dozen loopholes, starting with "if you've done business with a company they have the right to email you". Then when you read on you'll discover that "the company that did business with you has the legal right to sell your email address, and anyone they sell it to has the legal right to email you". It's no different than your credit card company trading your address or phone number with another company, which I'm sure they do rather often.

Can't wait until this law goes into effect - We can instantly tie up the entire California court system.... Imagine if 1/4 of the people who got a single spam email filed a complaint. It will strangle the court system there. And in the mean time while everyone tries to figure it out the spammers will keep spamming.

And how is spamming any different than the junk mail the US Post Office delievers?

Commercial speech is also protected by the First Amendment.

Personally I find all the junk mail in my mailbox much more offensive than any email. I can always click delete but a paper product requires me to collect it and dump it into the recycle bin outside.

What would be the shortfalls if email was like ICQ - where you had to approve someone before receiving communication from them?

How in the name of Feklar is he supposed to be able to enforce an unsolicited email law and he can't even enforce a century old ' Do not cross the border illegally ' law????


He's just fartin' at the brass band.

The only way to stop spam is to pass a 'non commercial use of email' law that basically states that if a person did not fill out a full form including name, address phone # etc. then you cannot email them on a commercial basis.

No 'auto' submission shit either. Just plain old, you bought something from us on the web, if you want us to email you please fill out this form and no default " it's okay to share my email address yadda yadda yadda " bullshit.

A big problem is of course it's almost impossible to enforce when you're getting spammed from China and Brazil.

Way too easy to get past. If I was an ICQ spammer all I'ld have to do to reach 80% of the western world is send an ICQ with a line like: " It's me, Bill! " and everyone would pick up because they know someone named Bill.

Hmm....

Seems to me this will hinder business in the Silicon Valley as well. In Gov. Davis situation, this is the last thing he should be signing!

one of the problems i see is that from time to time, people send email spoofing the from email address, and i don't believe that the powers that be in any government have the ability to understand this clearly as they don't seem to understand the way the web and the technologies surrounding the web work - not at all!

so people who didn't send any emails - in fact, who NEVER send them - will have their email addresses spoofed and will have to try to explain this away.

not to mention a large part of my spam leads to domains owned by people from other countries - and i seriously doubt that those countries are going to help us levy those fines.

It ain't impossible to enforce if you hit their asses with tariffs for this shit.

Believe you me, a fine of $50 million a day til it stops and you'll see cops in China and Brazil leaping from the backs of chupacabras arrestin' mother fuckers.