Comments on: Lunar Legal – Commercial Email Rules Under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

By: Pat from Winnemucca

Pat from Winnemucca — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:41:09 +0000

I do not see the act as providing any real protection. but it is a step in the right direction. What would benefit the telecomunications industry and the consumers it serves would be a method of reducing telephone spam. Roughly 90% of the calls I get at home are robot telemarketers. Perhaps changing the way calls are billed might make a big difference. If it cost a marketer a penny for each outgoing call with a reasonable number of “free” calls perhaps these people would target their calls more efficiently. Two cents would be better, and a nickel better still. A legitimate business would not be hurt if they had to pay a penny or two after the first thousand calls out of their area code, but for telemarketers it would be a disaster.

So how is this related to the CAN act?
These are two heads of the same snake. Cut off one head and then you can deal with the other.

By: Ricky C

Ricky C — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:43:02 +0000

Does this CAN-SPAM act crap even do anything? I get spam all the time that violates all four of those points all at the same time. And you say these people are being fined? Yeah right.

Spam is not going to be stopped by some piece of legislature like this. The only thing this legislature stops is corporate spamming by well-known American businesses. The real spammers, the ones that make money selling drugs or organ enhancers or whatever, don’t give a passing glance to this kind of thing. The sad thing is, because of the worldwide Internet, they are going to get away with it, no fines or penalties or anything. And they already DO get away with it.

There are new email protocols being set up that verify senders. Gmail and Yahoo already support them, but they have to be made more standard. However, as far as I know this is the number one way Gmail detects spam mail. Look at this Wikipedia article under “Authenticating Senders”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_authentication

E-mail spam is a common pet peeve of everyone, but it’s surprising to me that more isn’t being done faster to try and eliminate it.
Oh well…

-Ricky C

By: keith

keith — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:00:08 +0000

I notice some opt out pages actually opts you in. Yep well known Bon Appetit magazine sends out an ad email now & then. And at the bottom theres a number of opt out links from their other advertisers. And if you click on them and then enter your email to opt out, nope you get a “welcome message” from the advertiser. I consider that tactic to be pretty darn sneaky.

By: Andy Brink

Andy Brink — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:57:11 +0000

Thanks as always Jeff for a great legal article! It’s great to get even a little guidance on internet legalities

By: May 2008 | web-hosting-newsletter.com

May 2008 | web-hosting-newsletter.com — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:32:09 +0000

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