administrivia: for US readers only (legislative issues, email, spam)

[Richard Welty <rwelty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

if you're outside the US, you can skip this, although you may find it 
interesting.

the relevance of this to these lists is tangential, but it has to do with 
pending
legislation in the US congress relating to email & spam, i thought i'd 
mention it.

as all you are probably painfully aware, spam is a major problem for email 
users.
there is current legislation in congress, which in my opinion requires comment
(letters and faxes, _not_ email) to your representatives and senators.

HR 718 was recently reported out of committee. the version originally 
introduced
(by Rep. Heather Wilson) was not an ideal bill, but it would have been a 
positive
step towards controlling the flood of email. in particular, it would have 
placed
legislative force behind the notice that operators of mail servers could 
post "keep
out" notices, either in the form of web pages describing policy (see
/email-policy.html for my published policy), or in the 
form
of what are called SMTP banner notices.

unfortunately, everything that was good in HR 718 was gutted before it was
reported out of the committee. the bill in its current form is horrid, and 
would in
my opinion make things substantially worse. various marketing industry
representatives are making a _serious_ lobbying effort in order to avoid having
any constraints placed on their email activities. my feeling is that they were
given some time to attempt self regulation, and have failed, and now it's 
time for
real legislation. unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be coming in this congress.

it would be a very good idea if those with a serious interest in the control of
spam would write or fax letters to their senators and representatives 
expressing
their concerns. relevant points that may be worth bringing up:

1) it should be against the law to use fake/forged email addresses in headers

2) it should be against the law to hijack mail relays (a common sleazeball
spammer technique)

3) "opt-out" (that is, "email me to be removed from my list") doesn't scale,
unless there is a single central opt-out list whose use is required by law, 
and so
the practice of harvesting of email addresses from web pages and/or usenet
archives is problematic.

4) owners of mail servers should be able to post "keep out" notices at the
gateway to their equipment.

5) there should be a "private right of action" so that individual citizens 
can go
after spammers.

thanks for putting up with this offtopic diatribe,
    richard

- -- 
Richard Welty
rwelty@domain.elided
http://www.krusty-motorsports.com/~rwelty

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