Spam is in the news these days, as anti-spam bills flutter through Congress. In the lead, currently, is the all-too-cute Reduction in Distribution (RID) of Spam Act. It has the support of the DoJ as well as AOL Time Warner and Micro$oft.
[I]t would require warning labels on unsolicited commercial e-mail and would prohibit falsifying e-mail headers. Violators would be punished by fines and, depending on the circumstances, up to two years in prison.
The big issue seems to be opt-in vs. opt-out. Consumer groups tend to prefer opt-in, which means someone can only send you something if you state you want it. Most businesses prefer opt-out, which means you can be spammed until you ask for it to stop.
Despite my abiding hatred of spam, I do have to say that I prefer an opt-out approach. My reasons are thus:
- There are a certain number of unsolicited messages I get that do actually attract my attention. Not all the make-it-grow-make-it-shrink-insurance-stocks-prescriptions-pr0n stuff, but more “legitimate” business deals. Just like junk snail mail, I wouldn’t mind getting the stuff if I could (a) easily filter it, and (b) easily get off their list.
- More importantly, anyone who thinks opt-in will really stop spam is nuts. Are you trebly-sure that you checked (or unchecked) all those boxes at the bottom of the page when you registered at that site? Did you read every clause in the privacy statement? Did you absolutely verify that you didn’t somewhere expressly or implicity grant someone permission to send you commercial e-mail? If you make a single goof, you may be considered to have opted-in. Better to have a way to say no, then have to watch yourself all the time to make sure you don’t accidentally imply yes.
- The reason AOLTW and M$ like this bill is because it potentially gets them into the mail-routing and permitting business — extracting extra money from both vendors and mail users. Imagine if M$ set up a business where you could coordinate and control which vendors (or classes of vendor, or product areas) you expressly wanted mail from (opt-in) — and M$ then charged vendors for the right to be listed. That fits in with the opt-in strategy perfectly — but isn’t needed if you have a legal requirement for opting out.
(M$ and AOLTW are also interested in having “nasty” spam put out of business because it makes it less likely that they can sell commercial e-mail tools in general; “nasty” spam makes folks reject everything in their mailbox that isn’t friends and family.)
More annoying about the RID of Spam act is that it would pre-empt harsher state measures. Well, maybe that’s one of those annoying-but-inevitable sorts of things. Heck, it’s doubtful whether a national law will really restrict spam all that much (most spam-sending companies, even if they operate in the US, manage off-shore server farms); restrictions state-by-state seem nearly impossible to manage.
We’ll see how things go with this law. Like I said, I’m not convinced that it (let alone a state law) will do much about the spam problem, and I’m generally uncomfortable with federal laws restricting what or when people can communicate (even with distasteful stuff like spam). Some sort of federal action is probably inevitable, though; here’s hoping it actually does some good while not tilting use of the Internet still further to big, established businesses.