Monday, October 20, 2003
San Jose Mercury News: The good news: The country finally recognized the danger spam presents to clogged servers and worker productivity, to individual privacy and to the very viability of e-mail. The bad news: It wasn't the United States.
It was the United Kingdom, whose parliament recently outlawed spam. The entire European Union, which will soon expand from 15 to 25 countries, will adopt a similar standard by the end of this month.
The United States, by comparison, looks decidedly backwards. The first anti-spam bill was introduced in Congress in 1997. More than six years later, Congress has yet to pass a bill -- any bill -- to curb spam.
This year was supposed to be different. But once again, a raft of mostly weak proposals that have been introduced appear to be headed nowhere. It's not just frustrating. It's dangerous.
This week, a delegation of U.K. lawmakers is appealing to their U.S. counterparts to join them in a global fight against spam by adopting a tough law -- one that bans spam altogether.
Freeze in D.C.
While California Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo are considering such proposals, most lawmakers in Washington appear to be paralyzed by a number of arguments, most of which are bogus. Here are some of those heard most frequently:
UBanning spam will run afoul of the First Amendment. That's simply not true. The courts have said it's constitutional for the government to ban junk faxes. Spam is not protected speech. It's marketers imposing their messages on customers against the customers' will, shifting advertising costs to recipients and tying up their equipment.
UBanning spam will be ineffective, because much of it originates overseas. A lot of spam is indeed relayed through overseas servers. But much, if not most, of it pitches products sold by U.S. merchants: herbal Viagra sold from a mail box in Iowa or a refinancing deal from a Web site in Utah. In fact, Europeans complain that the majority of their spam is U.S.-based advertising.
UThere are too many spammers for law enforcement to prosecute. True. That's why any anti-spam law must give victims the right to sue, which would change the economics of spam.
These so-called arguments are really excuses used by lawmakers who are afraid to upset powerful friends in the direct marketing industry. They've introduced timid and ineffective proposals that would legalize spam, merely giving consumers the right to opt out of it.
Time is running out. The flood of spam is surging. So-called legitimate e-mail marketing, which opt-out laws attempt to preserve, is already useless, because it gets lost in a sea of spam. Before too long, e-mail itself could become unusable.
And the lessons of the do-not-call list are clear: Customers don't want the right to opt out of intrusive marketing. They want it stopped. Is Congress listening?