Re: Why spam is a problem.

[Måns Nilsson <mansaxel at besserwisser.org>]

--On Tuesday, August 13, 2002 23:54:33 -0400 "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami
School of Law" <froomkin at law.miami.edu> wrote:

> So maybe we need something that a spammer *could* lookup against before
> sending emails, but can't use the ack/no-ack to get email addresses.  And
> then we make failing to do so an offense.  And then start campaigning to
> get this law -- which as it's less Draconian is also less controversial --
> adopted all over.

this is already the legislation in .SE; in opt-out-fashion -- the marketing
lobby was better at marketing their lies to the legislators than the rest
of the society was at telling the truth, so we got opt-out, where the sane
thing would have been opt-in. film at 11. but -- since nobody has figured
out the messy particulars of implementing the system we don't have a
register yet. no lookups can be made. no legal action can be taken. we
tried to introduce wildcards in the system; so that an operator could say
"Dear register, please block all possible e-mail addresses under our
domain(s)."; as I was working at the .se registry at the time I immediately
offered to register * at *.se as unwilling ;-) but that (the general wildcard
idea) got rejected as well...

we are dealing with very powerful lobbyists here -- please keep that in 
mind. even obviously sane ideas can be overthrown by massive "information"
by the experienced when targeting legislators.

-- 
Måns Nilsson    http://vvv.besserwisser.org