Rick Boucher (D-VA) and his collegues have introduced an anti-spam bill. (I know, I know, Yet Another Anti-Spam Bill…)
Here’s a press release and actual text of the bill for you to chew on.
The Anti-SPAM Act, of which Congressman Boucher is an original co-author, would enable consumers to opt-out of all commercial e-mail from any company. Companies who send commercial e-mails would be required to clearly identify the e-mail as a business solicitation or advertisement and to provide the recipient with a return e-mail address or website where he or she can opt-out from receiving the company
We’ve created a monster. I am afraid that the cure is worse than the ailment. I whined a cryed about spam, so I am part of the problem. Now I get an inbox full of “aborted” and “undeliverable” messages. So I still have something clogging up my inbox, but now I am left scatching my head wondering what it was.
The other day I emailed myself a file from my other computer It was killed by my ISP’s spam filter! This is ridiculous. If my postal carrier went through my mail and just threw out whatever he wanted to, he would end up in federal prison. I feel that I cant even give out my email addy anymore, because I dont know if the people will get through. I have an alternative, but I know no one will listen. We don’t have to outlaw spam. We could tax it. Sell and require a licence to conduct email marketing. With that licence, a thread, a code is issued for inclusion in all marketing emails. It will be an identifier that ISP’s can recognise. The subscriber then decides yes or no that they want to recieve marketing emails. The ISP simply filters out all emails with that engrained code.
If a person recieves a marketing email, and they have opted out, then the mailer can be reported to the ISP, who will in turn report them to the autorities to be investigated to see if they are conducting illegal emailings with out a licence, and fined accordingly. There dosent even have to be any “aborted” message sent to the recipient in the case of an opt-out. They will never have to know the email existed. Then email marketers can still conduct business as well.