Anti-Spam Laws Sound Nice, But Won't Do Much

from the and-what's-plan-B? dept

The press is going spam crazy now that Congress has finally agreed on a single spam bill, which will soon be signed into law by the President. However, the people who actually understand the spam problem are slamming this law, and a new UK anti-spam law, both of which will do little, if anything, to stop spam. In some cases, both laws can be seen to legalize certain forms of spam - which will be exploited as a loophole by just about every spammer with at least a few functioning brain cells. As the article points out, both laws are great if you believe that spammers are law-abiding, honest people. Otherwise, they're terrible. However, with all the talk (good and bad) about these spam laws, how come no one is asking how we're going to measure the success or failure of these laws? Everyone just assumes that they'll work (or they won't). Shouldn't we have a built in way to check up on the results six months from now and (more importantly) shouldn't there be a plan B in the likely event that these laws do nothing to slow the spam problem down?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    PhuzyLogic, 9 Dec 2003 @ 10:59am

    No Subject Given

    If we are not carefull, they will create another gov. branch to invade our priv...err, I mean monitor this. Or are we to late?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.