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FIGHT BACK AGAINST SPAM
Email spam vs. the First Amendment
By Victor Woodward
There is a battle brewing. Internet advocates have organized forces to defeat spam and eliminate the foes that clog the servers, jam the mailboxes and increase the expense of computer users around the world. Yet spamming continues. The few pieces of federal legislation dealing with spam are benched in committee; and the anti-spam bill supported by most Internet advocates may be toppled by the First Amendment.
Spam is harmful
The United States Senate Communications Subcommittee held a hearing on unsolicited email this past June. The co-founder of The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), Ray Everett Church, testified before the legislators.
"Let there be no mistake that this is an important day for the Internet," Church told them. "You are taking up an issue of tremendous importanceÉ I do not exaggerate when I say that junk email (a.k.a. UCE, or spam) has the potential to harm our economy in ways that terrorists could only dream about."
CAUCE, an Internet advocacy group with over 10,000 registered members, was founded to advocate a legislative solution to the problem of junk email because, as Church explained, "technical and self-regulatory solutions have proven no solution at all."
"The technology news media reports with alarming frequency about system crashes and network outages caused by junk email attacks É to major Internet service providers such as AT&T, @Home, Pacific Bell, Netcom, GTE and hundreds of smaller ISPs," he continued. "There is no other medium quite like junk mail in its ability to damage Internet systems and impede legitimate Internet commerce. I know of no more efficient means of consuming the time, money and resources of millions against their will."
Because the fallout from these kinds of hearings can take several months to surface, we will update you on its impact in a future issue. This article will explore federal attempts to regulate spam, as well as review recent actions taken on a state level.
The players and the terrain
Let us first acknowledge the distinct line drawn in the cyber-sand between lobbyists for the Direct Marketing Association and other advertising forces who want spamming to continue, and Internet advocates who want spamming to cease. Some of the advertising folks are willing to secede from their forced occupation, agreeing that a recipient might have the right to "opt out" from getting spam. Internet advocates say this continues to put the cost on ISPs and individuals. They want to return to the days when spam was what Hormel meant it to be: canned meat.
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