| United States Heads Towards Legalization of Spam |
| Tuesday, October 14, 2003 10:26:54 PM - Middletown Ohio |
With all of Europe set to implement Opt-in legislation by October, Europe has taken the lead in banning spam and is no longer waiting for the United States to stop the huge American spam problem, problem that most of Europe suffers from with over 90% of all spam hitting Europe being sent by American (mostly Florida-based) spammers.
But the United States is going in the opposite direction to Europe and is now set to explode the spam problem far worse than it is today, incredibly by actually legalizing Unsolicited Bulk Email instead of banning it. The United States Congress is just months away from giving Unsolicited Bulk Email the green light and unleashing the spamming power of 23 Million American small businesses onto an Internet which already can not cope with the billions of unsolicited bulk mailings sent by just 200 current businesses.
A slurry of pro-spam bills are now before the US Congress, each one claiming to be an anti-spam bill, each one seeking to regulate and legalize spamming. All anti-spam organizations are crying out these Bills are seriously flawed and the introduction of any of them into law would be a disaster for the Internet. The worst of these Bills was until recently the Burns-Wyden CAN-SPAM Act, known as the "You CAN Spam" Act because it simply tells spammers that as long as they put "ADV" in the Subject of emails they can flood the mailboxes of 92 Million Americans legally. But even the disastrous Direct Marketing Association-backed 'CAN-SPAM' Act is overshadowed by the even more disastrous "Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act" backed by Billy Tauzin (R-LA), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The "Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act" does exactly the opposite of what it says. Far from reducing spam it says 23 Million US small businesses can each legally send spam and forces recipients to reply to each new spammer's mailings to 'opt-out' of each of 23 Million potential spammers' lists.
All todays spammers applaud Tauzin's "Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act", as does the Direct Marketing Association. It's what spammers have always dreamed of. They would no longer need to hide their identities to thwart disconnection, on the contrary, once spamming is legal they would be able to sue any Internet Service Providers who disconnect them for 'spamming legally'. All of todays spammers will instantly increase their volumes ten-fold flooding the Internet in 'legal' spams, "ADV: Grow your Penis", "ADV: Want Some Viagra?", "ADV: Wanna spy of your Wife?", etc. With the "Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act" we'll wish for the 'little' spam problem we had today when spam was only 50% of all email on the Internet.
But it gets worse, Tauzin's Opt-out Bill would also override existing state laws, including the Virginia law that makes spamming a criminal offense and California's best-ever anti-spam Bill only just introduced by Senator Debra Bowen - the only state Bill that really would solve the spam problem simply and effectively - by simply modeling it on the very successful junk fax law (how many junk faxes do you receive today?).
So what chance has Tauzin's disastrous Opt-out 'RID Spam Act' got of becoming law? Surely Congress knows that Opt-out is the Status Quo, it's Opt-out that has caused the spam problem we have today. Surely Congress knows the Europeans are going Opt-in not Opt-out? The problem is, anti-spam Bills are vetted by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce before being passed to Congress/Senate. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce in effect decides which spam laws will go though, which won't, and Billy Tauzin is the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The future of Email as a communications tool, a tool on which eCommerce depends, is about to become a future in which 'legal spam' from not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of new bulk emailers will be the only thing your mailbox sees, you'll be lucky if even one email from a customer or colleague ever makes it into your mailbox before it overflows every hour with "ADV" junk. Currently the only thing between you and this future is Billy Tauzin and it's not a question of "if" he'll make the disastrous mistake of legalizing spam.
Source: The Spamhaus Project |
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