Re: Murkowski anti-spam bill could be a problem for ISPs

["J.D. Falk" <jdfalk () cybernothing org>]

On Mon, May 26, 1997 at 02:21:33AM -0500, Phil Howard wrote:

> Or has anyone considered the effect of this law on spammers outside of the
> United States?

Yes, many people have.  Various answers include:

        - The Smith amendment doesn't even address the physical location
          of the machine which originated the message; it goes after the
          company itself.

        - A number of countries already have legislation which serves to
          block spammers, such as Germany's strict "unfair advertising"
          statutes.

        - Many countries have poor connectivity, and could not possibly
          hope to survive the amount of bandwidth used by spammers.

        - If all spammers move to one country, filtering becomes easier.

My personal favorite is the simple fact that while this law may not stop
100% of what we currently consider spam, it will seriously reduce the amount
without making it any harder to try other methods to stop the rest.

 ---------========== J.D. Falk <jdfalk () cybernothing org> =========---------
  |  "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points... |
  |   but it is by no means the most interesting."                       |
  |                  -- Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who in "Doctor Who and     |
  |                     the Time Warrior" by Robert Holmes (BBC, 1974)   |
 ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========----
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -