Spam Legislation
Dateline 11/17/97
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"Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason."
Sir John Powell |
Legal overview
Just like the atomic bomb and your partner using your electric toothbrush spam is not a technological problem and thus most probably cannot be solved by a technological solution only. Of course, technology can help providing a solution. To finish our spam series (for now), let's have a brief look at the bills currently in Congress.
Data Privacy Act of 1997
The Data Privacy Act of 1997, sponsored by Rep. Tauzin aims at establishing an industry working group that would set up voluntary guidelines for collecting and using data collected online in general and unsolicited commercial email in general. With these guidelines, it would not be forbidden to send spam, but the originator of such messages must be identifiable (as the first thing in the Subject: line) and honour opt-out requests. The opt-out process should be clear and simple. The guidelines would be enforced by the industry working group with incentives and a logo.
All this sounds a bit weak and toothless.
Netizens Protection Act of 1997
The Smith Bill would extend the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 to email, making it unlawful to send unsolicited advertisement without permission. Additionally, it would require senders of unsolicited ads to provide valid header information identifying them.
I don't see how the Netizen Protection Act could be too far reaching, as is often argued. It is simple and effective and would boost opt-in direct advertising, which I consider to be a good thing (tm).
Electronic Mailbox Protection Act of 1997
The Electronic Mailbox Protection Act of 1997, introduced by Senator Torricelli, provides a penalty for forging headers, distributing mailing lists of users who opted out or sending any further mail to users who indicated that they did not want such messages.
Torricelli's bill is certainly well thought out and reasonably effective. I prefer opt-in to opt-out, though. I only wonder when the industry (?) will recognize that sending messages to those who are interested is more promising than the one-for-all attempt.
Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Choice Act of 1997
The bill introduced by Senator Murkowski is another form of opt-out regulation. In fact, it aims at enabling easy filtering as unsolicited email would have to include the word "Advertisement" as the first one in the subject line. Additionally, name and contact information of the sender would have to appear in the message. Opt-out requests to the sender must be respected.
