Supreme Court: Complying With CANSPAM Doesn't Outlaw Filters
from the a-bit-slow-on-the-uptake dept
We’ve been following the case in Texas, where a dating site that was spamming UT students kept insisting that because they complied with CAN-SPAM, it was illegal to filter them. In their misreading of the law, they literally thought that CAN-SPAM was set to specifically force people to accept their spam. That’s a pretty ridiculous read on the law, and the court told them so. Rather than believing it, though, the spamming site appealed and quickly lost. Not willing to take no for an answer (a trait found in many spammers), they appealed to the Supreme Court, who wisely declined to take the case. So, now we can say with some sense of finality that nowhere in CAN-SPAM does it allow spammers to spam you unconditionally. You still have every right to use a filter to block spam out — even if it complies with the law.
Comments on “Supreme Court: Complying With CANSPAM Doesn't Outlaw Filters”
Or...
You could always just change your settings to receive from listed contacts only (unless your email doesn’t offer this, in which case I feel sorry for your inbox).
Re: Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam and eggs
> You could always just change your settings to receive from listed contacts only (unless your email doesn’t offer this, in which case I feel sorry for your inbox).
It’s not all about the users. It’s about the e-mail service providers (notmail, aoloser, yahell, etc.) and corporations that have to find disk space, CPU cycles and bandwidth to process those bazillion spams.
Court's decision not to hear a case
The Court’s decision not to hear a case doesn’t settle the issue; as of now, the issue is settled in the Circuit that decided the case. That is, by not hearing the case, the Supreme Court does not indicate that it agrees with the lower court. Therefore, other Circuits are free to disagree — in that case, the Court would be more likely to step in.
I believe....
I believe that if I have to recieve every spam message that I should be getting (that I’m not thanks to the fact that I NEVER post my personal email address anywhere), I should be able to reply to that message and get a human being who will have to listen to me. They should have to email me back their telephone number so that I can call them during dinner time, and their real personal email address so I can sent them mexican viagra ads, rolecks watches, christian home loans (does this mean you don’t have to pay the loan back?), and whatever else comes to my mind to send.
The saddest thing is that most spam companies believe that they are legitimate advertising companies, and they can’t understand why other people (not their company) would send unsolicited email to people who probably don’t give a rats butt about their product. These companies don’t understand what they are doing wrong, and don’t want to understand.
I will get down off my soap box now before I start screaming and jumping up and down. It could happen at any moment
Re: I believe....
They should have to email me back their telephone number so that I can call them during dinner time, and their real personal email address so I can sent them mexican viagra ads, rolecks watches, christian home loans (does this mean you don’t have to pay the loan back?), and whatever else comes to my mind to send.
The hypocrisy in this is that I guarantee you that every spammer uses spam filters or shields their personal email address as well.. You know, so they don’t get spammed.
No Subject Given
There are enough anti-spam tools available at both the consumer and server level that if you are still getting more than the odd occasional spam, you and/or your system administrator are morons.
No, that doesn’t make it right, but bitching about spam is like bitching about having to lock the doors to your home and car.
Re: No Subject Given
I think people resent having to purchase and set up anti-spam tools (households don’t have sysadmins, though one should hope their ISPs have some efforts in place to help them) and like Mike said a few weeks past – all this security crap ends up acting like a security tax on the internet. I guess you just have to take the good with the bad, though personally I would sooner punch anyone who purchases something through spam square in the head rather than try and hunt down spammers.
It’s simple, really. Spammers spam because they get money for it. Companies pay to send out spam because it generates sales.
Not sure I really like the locking your car analogy – if someone were trying my doorknobs several times a day I think I’d evoke a much stronger reaction than if (as far as I’m concerned) it never happens.
Re: Re: No Subject Given
Companies pay to send out spam because it generates sales.
I would like to know what moron is buying illegal hair tonic from spammers in Mexico (which probably gives them a dribbling problem after urinating…anyone watch Penn and Teller’s Bulls***?). Why would you buy a product from someone who came by your personal information by suspicious means? It’s the same thing with telemarketers….it’s some guy (or gal) you don’t know peddling crap off on you that no one else wants. I don’t care how attractive it sounds, it’s retarded.
The saddest part is that if someone were to do a poll, no one would ever admit to buying something from a spam email. Someone has though, and that someone is [explicitive deleted] it up for the rest of us.
Re: Re: Re: No Subject Given
It wasnt me. I already have a big penis
Filters legal...that's a no brainer
Sometimes I wonder at the mindset of some of these companies. To think that just because they were complying with the CAN-SPAM act, that the service provider, couldn’t block their most likely unwanted intrusion through the use of filtering software is riduculous. That would be like tele-marketers saying that Caller ID devices were illegal because they let the people being called know who was calling before answering. Or the Mormons or JW’s suing because you don’t answer the door when they come knocking.
On the topic of spam and ISP’s however, not many seem to care. Many of them seem to be incapable of taking very simple and free steps to fight spam. One of the ways that ISP’s and businesses can fight against spam is to use an SPF record. An SPF record identifies the mail servers for a domain in DNS. If a mail comes in saying it’s from yourdomain.com, but the IP of the sending server is not a mail server for yourdomain.com it gets denied. It’s an open standard and it’s free (just add a record to DNS). I don’t know about anyone else, but most of my spam woes would be gotten rid of if ISP’s and businesses would implement SPF records.
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