Would it be possible to outlaw Email selling? (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

This should be illegal. Especially since most people probably just use an email harvester and sell it to make some extra cash.

I posted the start of my problems in an earlier note. I had not been receiving any of my own test emails for a week, and soon found out that none of them where goign through. So, I merged my Prodigy account with Yahoo(who recently bought out Prodigy), to see if it would fix the problem. It did, but now I'm getting all the Spam again, because Yahoo's Spam blocker is the Craps.

Apparently, Yahoo sells all free email addresses, and now customer addresses, to Spammers for a quick little profit, causing customers to have to install a seperate prgoram to block all of it from their mailboxes.

So, why can't someone make a bill causing the un-authorized selling of email addresses against the law? When someone pays (now 22$'s a month) money for a dial up service, we should not only see pop up adds on out services home page, but we should also be Spam Free.

Somehow, I doubt it would be possible, but it would be nice if it where the case...

 

[Bill Balcziak]

Why can't someone make a bill causing the un-authorized selling of email addresses against the law?

Damned good question. In Minnesota, we just passed a nice set of laws regulating telephone marketers. These pathetic, self-professed "hard-working businessmen" cried "violation of free speech!" But how does some stupid-ass salesman calling to sell me siding at 9:45 at night (and waking up my kids) lose HIS rights? Naturally, these morons fought these laws tooth and nail, yet surprisingly, lost.

Minnesota is one of the few states to tackle the problem, and you can bet spammers are in the target sights for the Attorney General's office. But what we need is a national solution and a group of lawmakers who have some understanding of the uses and abuses of technology. I fear we are still a generation away from that kind of gevernment body.

 

[Kevin Potts]

I agree. It's almost as bad as those damned telemarketers that call you in the middle of dinner. I would love to see some kind of law/s passed that would put an end to the incessant and invasive solicitation that so many of us have to deal with.

 

[Cam S]

This is dumb how e-mail providers like that can sell my e-mail, and anyone elses, for poeple to use for advertising, really pisses me off! I hate using the free e-mail providers such as Yahoo and Hotmail, and I love my Local ISP's e-mail, no spam at all!

 

[Ryan Wright]

Not only spam, but telephone companies. I have an unlisted phone number, and the phone company charges me like $3 a month for the "service". I consider it extortion. They're charging me for the "privilege" of not having my name and number published for everyone to see. It's a load of BS and it pisses me off.

I love my Local ISP's e-mail, no spam at all!

Sorry, but it has little to do with your ISP. The spambots simply haven't gotten ahold of your email address yet. Give it time; it will happen.

Hotmail and Yahoo sell your email address to people. They may lie and claim that they don't, but they do. Try this little experiment: Go to either of these places and create a new account. Give it an insane name, like "268gnjkvdsakjq098324". Something that could never be found in a dictionary nor stumbled across accidentally. Don't use the account, just login every once in awhile. I guarantee within a couple of weeks it will be full of advertisements for Viagra, penis enlargements, and sex sites.

The biggest problem with email spam is that they aren't legit operations. They're all scams. I guarantee you if they were legit, they wouldn't send their garbage through five open relays (read: administrators who don't know enough about security to lock down their mail server, but still don't deserve to have their bandwidth blatently stolen) and attempt to obscure their identity.

Washington State (where I reside) has a nice anti-spam law allowing damages of $500 per message but it does jack shit to help you collect.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The problem is that you can't outlaw it everywhere, so the spammers will just move their operations to those places (like Christmas Island or Russia, or whereever)

 

[Philip_G]

I've had the same email address for nearly 5 years, really it hasn't been too bad until the past year or two, but I get like 30 bits of spam a day, it's REALLY getting tired. But, even if the bill is passed, how is it enforced? that would be tough.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I think that they could get the ISP's to stop it. If any were sent to them, they could report it, making it a lot easier, but there would have to be some international cooperation.
I can't see any foreign officials saying that they like 'spam', so maybe they could be routed out, one by one.

Glenn

 

[Martin Fontaine]

I keep getting those ads for fake university diplomas, isn't forgery of university diplomas illegal? If it is, I'll forward the next one I receive to the FBI!

 

[Jeff Kleist]

They aren't fake diplomas. They're just unacredited. So in other words if someone bothers to do a check on the university it'll come out that the degree is BS