Anti-Spam laws... unconstitutional? Good? Bad?

[gopunk]

what do you guys think? i realize this isn't really relevant to most of you out there, but here in washington, it is illegal to send email to a washington resident with a deceptive subject line, falsified return address, etc etc. there are people who have gotten several thousands of dollars from taking spammers to court...

but some people think these laws are unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment.

what do you think?

 

[HappyPuppy]

All spammers should be stabbed.

 

[LuNoTiCK]

I hate spam, but what kind of people take them to court. I mean really, how does the spam ruin them?

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: LuNoTiCK
I hate spam, but what kind of people take them to court. I mean really, how does the spam ruin them?

well, spam can decrease productivity for workers by quite a lot... not to mention you have to spend a lot of time and energy into preventing it. for example, where i work, we're looking for anti-spam solutions and some of the vendor estimates are in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

 

[Kevin]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
All spammers should be stabbed.

Are you crazy?

They should be sent to Rikers for 3 days. After that, I don't think they'll ever think of sending another email again nor will they be able to sit for quite some time...

 

[zerocomm]

i hate spam, but i dont think the government should be passing any legislation dealing with the internet, each law they pass is one step closer to a government controlled internet. i don't want that, i like the net being a safe haven of anonymity

 

[Zenmervolt]

but some people think these laws are unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment.

The people who make this claim are clearly unfamiliar with the First Amendment. While freedom of speech does protect unpopular and minority viewpoints, it does not give people the right to harass and annoy others. The First Amendment argument would not hold up in any court.

ZV

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: zerocomm
i hate spam, but i dont think the government should be passing any legislation dealing with the internet, each law they pass is one step closer to a government controlled internet. i don't want that, i like the net being a safe haven of anonymity

how is it government controlled? these are private citizens doing detective work to find out who the spammers are, then suing them. and if you want to be anonymous, you can be, just don't email people whom you want to keep your identity from.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

but some people think these laws are unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment.

The people who make this claim are clearly unfamiliar with the First Amendment. While freedom of speech does protect unpopular and minority viewpoints, it does not give people the right to harass and annoy others. The First Amendment argument would not hold up in any court.

ZV

i agree with you... i was just saying

also, another anti-anti-spam law argument is that jurisdiction is a problem... since not all spammers live in washington state. i don't care though, if they're so worried about having to pay the cost of flying over to seattle, maybe they should think twice before they spam.

 

[zerocomm]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

but some people think these laws are unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment.

The people who make this claim are clearly unfamiliar with the First Amendment. While freedom of speech does protect unpopular and minority viewpoints, it does not give people the right to harass and annoy others. The First Amendment argument would not hold up in any court.

ZV

i wish i said this earlier. don't claim first amenment unless you know what rights you actually have.- its ignorant and annoying

 

[glenn1]

but some people think these laws are unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment.

While freedom of speech does protect unpopular and minority viewpoints, it does not give people the right to harass and annoy others.

Or, to put it another way, that constitutional free speech guarantee doesn't include a guarantee to have an audience to hear it.

 

[Valinos]

Spam sucks and all spammers deserve to experience long, excruciating penile torture...

The women spammers deserve eternal yeast infections...

 

[NetworkDad]

Washington's spam law is great...maybe one day i'll try and take advantage of it and collect my $500.

 

[helpme]

Spam wastes ISPs money by eating up CPU time on the E-mail servers, and bandwidth with the who knows how many messages they get a day.

They waste money when customers call them to compain about spam, tying up their reps when they could be troubshooting other problems.

They waste money by having to hire people/buy anti-spam solutions to get rid of the customer complaints (does not necessarly eliminate the CPU time usage or bandwidth usage).

To the end user this means higher ISP costs. Most people won't really complain about a spam message once a day, but it can get irritating when you have to filter out a few a day, or when alot of them are XXX related with pictures.

Just my thoughts.

 

[gopunk]

BTW, for anyone that is interested, i got the inspiration for this thread from here:

http://www.tekbug.com/articles/viewer.asp?a=525&z=2&isasp=

 

[Lithium381]

I hate spam, they shouldn't be allowed to be deceitful, if they put what it really is in the subject line it wouldn't be that bad...since then i could filter them, or they should start with "AD: " etc......so we could filter them, of course many places wouldn't conform to that since it basicly guarentees their e-mail won't go through.....but they really should all be stabbed, or at least subject them to eatting §h!t for the rest of their lives every meal everyday

 

[JellyBaby]

As much as I hate spam I'm not sure laws against it are the best solution. The more-or-less free market has created tools to deal with unsolicited email. My ISP allows me to configure email settings so much of the crap never even gets to me. And my email client's filter dispatches the 5% that sneaks through.

 

[Cyberian]

Originally posted by: gopunk

Originally posted by: zerocomm
i hate spam, but i dont think the government should be passing any legislation dealing with the internet, each law they pass is one step closer to a government controlled internet. i don't want that, i like the net being a safe haven of anonymity

how is it government controlled? these are private citizens doing detective work to find out who the spammers are, then suing them. and if you want to be anonymous, you can be, just don't email people whom you want to keep your identity from.

Didn't you mention that Washington had passed laws against spam?

here in washington, it is illegal to send email to a washington resident with a deceptive subject line

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: LuNoTiCK
I hate spam, but what kind of people take them to court. I mean really, how does the spam ruin them?

How does spam harm people:

1. It eats up vast amount of bandwidth, HD-space and resources that could be used better
2. It exposes children to email that advertises "Hot young sluts!", "penis-enlargement" etc.
3. It uses facilites of ISP's without their permission (for example, email relaying through their servers)
4. It's just plain annoying. And free-speech does not apply*
5. It increases the expenses of consumers and ISP's

* does the free-speech amendent apply since spammers are a for-profit business? Does "free speech" allow businesses to deceit their customers, harass them, use their resources without their permission (I'm paying for my bandwidth, they use MY bandwidth without asking MY permission!)? I think NOT!

Did I mention that I hate spam? Did I mention that I hope spammers die a slow and painful death?

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Cyberian

Originally posted by: gopunk

Originally posted by: zerocomm
i hate spam, but i dont think the government should be passing any legislation dealing with the internet, each law they pass is one step closer to a government controlled internet. i don't want that, i like the net being a safe haven of anonymity

how is it government controlled? these are private citizens doing detective work to find out who the spammers are, then suing them. and if you want to be anonymous, you can be, just don't email people whom you want to keep your identity from.

Didn't you mention that Washington had passed laws against spam?

here in washington, it is illegal to send email to a washington resident with a deceptive subject line

yes, but it's not like the government is taking a proactive role in censoring the internet. i mean, the government has laws against verbal harassment in real life, but would you say the government controls what we say?

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby
As much as I hate spam I'm not sure laws against it are the best solution. The more-or-less free market has created tools to deal with unsolicited email. My ISP allows me to configure email settings so much of the crap never even gets to me. And my email client's filter dispatches the 5% that sneaks through.

do you think that stuff is free? why should you have to pay just to be unharassed? and besides, those filters either a.) still let some through or b.) don't let some valid emails through.

 

[JellyBaby]

do you think that stuff is free? why should you have to pay just to be unharassed? and besides, those filters either a.) still let some through or b.) don't let some valid emails through.

It is a free service of my ISP. All modern email clients have spam filters.