California Senate Approves Opt-In Anti-Spam Bill
from the will-it-do-any-good? dept
California’s state senate made a lot of news late yesterday by approving a new anti-spam bill that is one of the only ones out there to use “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” in defining spam. Most spam bills have gone with an “opt-out” procedure, which basically means that anyone can spam you until you tell them not to. Using “opt-in” (no one can spam you until you tell them it’s okay) is a much better standard – but it’s unlikely to do very much. The reason this bill was introduced (California already has anti-spam legislation) is that old legislation did nothing to stop spam. While this spam legislation sounds tougher, it still won’t do much to stop spammers – who will continue to hide, and insist that they have an “already existing relationship”. Every spammer who pokes his or her head above ground always claims that their lists are “100% opt-in”. Meanwhile, this spam bill still has a few more steps to go before it becomes law, and some (including the ACLU) are already protesting it as being “too broad” – so it might never get anywhere.
