Spam control again

[rlk at alum.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz)]

   Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:58:56 -0400
   From: Derek Martin <blu at sophic.org>

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   On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 12:39:26PM -0400, Seth Gordon wrote:

   > (1) The sender of any commercial email message must warrant that
   > the recipient has a pre-existing business relationship with the
   > sender, or that the recipient has given permission to receive
   > this kind of email.  Violation of this warranty is a tort with
   > statutory damages of $5000 per message sent ... just like junk
   > faxes.

   Try collecting those damages from someone in Korea...  Can I watch?

It would at least chase a lot of spammers out of the US.  Some of
those folks like living here.  This is the one suggestion that
actually does make sense.

   > (2) If a commercial email message passes through an American ISP,
   > that ISP must warrant that the sender is complying with point
   > (1).  If the sender cannot be located, or if the sender loses a
   > lawsuit to recover damages but does not pay, then the ISP is
   > liable.

   This will shut down most ISPs, because it will place an undue
   burden upon them.  This is punishing the innocent for someone
   else's sins, something I believe should never be done (even though
   it is daily in so many ways).

Agreed.  This idea, to put it (very) mildly, is a non-starter.  We're
a lot better off with ISP's being common carriers, and even if not,
it's certainly none of their business who we choose to do business
with (i. e. have a pre-existing business relationship with).

Aside from the various privacy etc. issues involved here, this kind of
thing would actually give the big ISP's carte blanche to spam their
own members, while effectively shutting down the independents.  AOL,
MSN, etc. could claim a "pre-existing business relationship" with
their customers, and could freely send all the email they please
(third party email would be treated as a "special offer from AOL" or
some such).  They could also close their networks off to all email
from outside of their network, returning us to the days of proprietary
AOL, Compuserve, etc.

   > Now, if this law were passed, then every American ISP that has
   > interconnect agreements with foreign ISPs would tell their
   > partners: "Post a bond so we're insured against spam-related
   > damages coming from your network, or we're going to block all
   > incoming port 25 traffic from you."

   This isn't witout merit, but I balked at myself making such a
   suggestion, because too many Americans have legitimate business
   with people in Asia, and blocking all the Asian ISPs (which is
   essentially what would have to happen) would be too disruptive to
   our own legitimate users, as well as those in Asia.  This is,
   again, punishing the innocent for the sins of someone else.

What it would amount to is that individuals would have no way of
receiving email from overseas, since no company in its right mind
would do anything of the sort.