The “Hey don’t spam us” list
The Attorney General of the great state of Missouri has come up with an ingenious method to combat spam. A list.
You heard me right, he has created an opt-out list that all spammers must abide by in order to spam Missouri residents. What happens if they don’t follow the law? Well, they will face the wrath of Jay Nixon the Attorney General and a $5,000 fine. He has even promised to track down international spammers and bring them to justice.
I think he may be on to something, but why limit it to one state? In fact I propose a new legislation. The “Internet Opt Out” list for Internet citizens who don’t want to be spammed. Once the list is compiled we’ll give it to known spammers and ask that they abide by your wishes not to be spammed. Why didn’t we think of this earlier? Duh.
See the entire article here: at STL Today
December 7th, 2002 at 5:15 pm
Great idea, but it has two severe shortcomings: (1) How can the A.G. say he’s going to go after international spammers? He has no authority outside the USA, and only very limited authority outside his own state. (2) Even interstate spammers have protection from the Missouri law. Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution reserves regulation of interstate commerce specifically to the federal legislature. Even if the spammer were located in Missouri, if the spam ever passed through a mail router outside MO, that *could* be understood as interstate commerce.
December 7th, 2002 at 8:17 pm
Thats a great idea. I would like to see all spammers die a slow and painful death cause of the pain they have caused me. Something has got to be done about them or we will be getting 3000 messages a day. i hate the fact that even 1 will pop up.
December 8th, 2002 at 2:21 am
I agree with you gus, its a really silly idea. The AG thinks he can track down spammers located in Korea? Its nuts. And he thinks spammers are going to respect a “dont spam me list?” I guess he assumes there are people out there who WANT to recieve spam. If it was that easy it would have been done now, ten times over.
December 9th, 2002 at 1:06 am
This sort of list is not new. Won’t be successful until internationally it is adopted and improved level of ISPs giving up information on who is actually grobbling emails through those temp accounts
December 9th, 2002 at 1:19 am
I think if ATT, Earthlink, AOL and MSN joined together in an alliance to combat spam, we might see some changes, but until then…
December 9th, 2002 at 11:04 am
Until then …
Everyone should be careful about putting their email address on websites if you don’t know what their policy is about selling your info.
How do you think spammers get your email address?
And, when you sign-up for a third-party email address … don’t check any of those boxes for “information on ’specials’ or ‘free’ coupons” …
There’s always going to be SPAM just like junk-mail … SHIFT + PAGE DOWN then DELETE
December 13th, 2002 at 10:39 am
Sam’s got the right idea. Also, the ‘don’t spam me list’ sounds like a perfect way for spammers to get a list of valid email addresses…
January 24th, 2003 at 6:32 am
Dear Reader
I run a spamproject at the university in Sweden. I study the history, consequenses and its effects on e-mailingcorrespondance. To continnue my work I have a strange request - how can I get my e-mail account as “spammed” as possible?
Yours frankly Lennart
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