Rising tide against spammers

[Urban Ranger]

US senate passes anti-SPAM bill

A BILL WHICH will stop companies bombarding inboxes with their spam was passed in the senate yesterday, 97 votes to nil.

The bill needs the House of Representive to endorse the action before it can become a law.

The proposed legislation will also create a US database which will allow users to say they don't want to receive SPAM.

We'd expect such a database to have quite a few people opting in, but storage is cheap these days, so that isn't a real problem.

But some people think that the proposed legislation, if it passes into law, won't prevent a great deal of rubbish still entering people's inboxes.

However, if the act is finally passed, companies breaching the regulations could find themselves with an invoice for billions, according to reports.

[Provost Harrison]

[Provost Harrison]

The problem is, will these companies start sending spam from other countries which are not within US jurisdiction...

[BustaMike]

Good idea, but it'll probably be impossible to enforce.

[Adagio]

I thought it already was law...

...I doubt it'll be easy to fight anyway though...

[Spiffor]

Excellent news.

Since most spammers are average Americans with a broadband connection, many will not go Foreign for the sake of making 50-100$ a month.

[Adalbertus]

Thought about something else:

What spam basically does is to steal time. Say, for a non-experienced computer user it takes one second to decide whether a mail is spam or not. One second of their life. Now let's take away time of *their* life: A prison charge of one second per spam mail - this is about one day per 100.000 spam mails sent (provided you get them). What do you think:
- Just fine
- Too hard, or
- Too soft?
And how much time do you guess an average spammer would have to spend in jail?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
And how much time do you guess an average spammer would have to spend in jail?

2 years first offense
5 years second offense
15 years third offense
Perpetuity / suicide 4th offense.

[chequita guevara]

I haven't checked my email since Monday. I downloaded five . . . FIVE emails today. I normally get 100+ SPAMs a day. What the heck happened!?!

[Spiffor]

They sometimes completely drop it.

My junk mail used to be chock-full of spam, and it has nearly vanished in one mere week. OTOH, my real mail is now recieving 2-3 spams a day now

[Shi Huangdi]

Whos to say this won't be unenforcable, and spammers won't just use e-mails registered using on this list as people to spam?

[MattH]

I noticed that too... 3 spam e-mails today and yesterday, to an account that normally gets 2/3 per hour. Well, I'm not complaining

[mrmitchell]

I'll be the odd one out and be against this law.

Sure, it might be great, but it gives us the precedent where the US government can regulate the Internet even more.

And honestly, if you haven't gotten a spam filter yet (I hear there are some with 95% success rates), then you're nuts.

[Urban Ranger]

Spam filters are besides the point.

The point is they are thieves, using our resources to paddle their crap to us. It's the same reason why junk faxes are not allowed (IIRC).

Also, novice users don't know anything about spam filters.

What is more important is spam is found to be damaging to the Internet infrastructure.

People are turning their backs on email because of the spam plague, according to research published by US outfit Pew Internet.

Its research found that one in four people has reduced their use of email because of the increasing amount of spam clogging up their inboxes. Six in ten of those who use email less say they have cut back "in a big way".

[centrifuge]

I get zero spam.... read that? Zero spam!!! I used to get bombarded with it, but I set my (earthlink) spamblocker on high, and nothing gets though except people that are in my address book. If I want to let someone new through I just go to my "suspect" list and add them to my allowed list. It's simple and works great. never thought that I'd say this, but GOOD JOB EARTHLINk!!!