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Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 18:46:46 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Ray Everett-Church <ray () everett org> Reply-To: ray () everett org Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 15:22:20 -0700 To: dave () farber net, "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com> Subject: Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/servlet/gov.ca.senate.democrats.pub.members.memD isplayPress?district=sd28&ID=1765 . . . And On The 1st Day Of July, Assembly Committee Proclaims: "Let There Be Spam!" 7/1/2003 COMMITTEE TAKES CUE FROM MICROSOFT, KILLS NATION'S TOUGHEST ANTI-SPAM PROPOSAL SACRAMENTO - Urged on by Microsoft, the Assembly Business & Professions Committee today unceremoniously killed SB 12 (Bowen), a measure to create the country's toughest anti-spam law by requiring advertisers to get permission from computer users before sending them unsolicited ads, on a 5-2 vote (the bill needed 7 votes to pass out of committee). "Does anyone other than the eight members of this committee who either voted 'no' or took a walk on the bill really believe Microsoft has any interest in getting rid of spam?," wondered California State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), the author of SB 12, following the bill's defeat. "Trusting Microsoft to protect computer users from spam is like putting telemarketers in charge of the do-not-call list. Microsoft uses a megaphone to tell everyone how much it hates spam at the same time it's working overtime to kill truly tough anti-spam laws. Why? Microsoft doesn't want to ban spam, it wants to decide what's 'legitimate' or 'acceptable' unsolicited commercial advertising so it can turn around and license those e-mail messages and charge those advertisers a fee to wheel their spam into your e-mail inbox without your permission." The bill needed 7 votes to get out of the 13-member committee. Voting "aye" on the bill were Assemblymembers Pault Koretz (D-Los Angeles), Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), Joe Nation (D-San Rafael), Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), and Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). Voting "no" were Assemblymembers Greg Aghazarian (R-Stockton) and Bill Maze (R-Visalia). Refusing to cast a vote for or against the measure were Assemblymembers Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) [the committee chairman], Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk), Ellen Corbett (D-Hayward), Shirley Horton (R-San Diego) [the committee vice-chairwoman], Abel Maldonado (R-San Luis Obispo), and Mark Wyland (R-San Diego). SB 12 repeals California's "opt-out" spam statute in favor of a tougher "opt-in" system modeled on the federal law that bans unsolicited fax advertising. The bill requires companies that want to send e-mail ads to get an e-mail user's permission in advance if they don't already have a business relationship with the person. SB 12 allows any Californian who receives unsolicited ads to sue the sender and the advertiser in court for $500 per spam and the judge can triple the fine if he or she finds the sender willfully and knowingly violates the California ban. The bill also requires the court to impose an additional $250 per spam civil penalty to be directed to high tech crime task forces throughout the state in any spam judgement. While killing SB 12, the committee simultaneously approved an alternate measure backed by Microsoft, Yahoo!, and the American Electronics Association. That bill allows victims to sue spammers and ISPs for "actual damages," $1,000 per spam, or $1 million per incident - whichever is less - not the minimum $500 per spam provided for in SB 12. "Limiting the amount of money people can collect from spammers to 'actual damages' basically means no one will ever collect a dime from a spammer because the average person isn't going to take the time to figure out how much the spam forced down the throat of their computer costs them to deal with," said Bowen. "The federal junk fax ban lets people sue for $500 a fax, it doesn't require them to figure out how much paper and toner the junk faxer burned up before going after them, and the same standard should apply to spam. Spam isn't legitimate advertising and it's not free speech - it's basically high-tech junk faxing that forces e-mail users to pay for someone else's advertising campaign through slower computer service and higher Internet access fees." A June 10 report by the Radicati Group found e-mail spam will cost companies $20.5 billion in 2003, and by 2007, businesses will be forking over nearly ten times that amount of money, or $198 billion, to battle spam. A June 2 report by MessageLabs, a private anti-spam service, found 55.1% of all e-mail sent in May 2003 was spam. Jupiter Research found U.S. e-mail users received more than 140 billion pieces of spam in 2001 and an estimated 261 billion pieces in 2002 - an 86% increase. A Harris Interactive (www.harrisinteractive.com) poll released in early January found that 74% of online users surveyed would favor laws to outlaw spam. SB 12 was approved by the Senate last month on a bipartisan 21-12 vote and may be reconsidered by the committee in the next few weeks. Contact: Jennie Bretschneider (916) 445-5953/(916) 855-7286 ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal Dave Farber (Jul 01)
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- Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal Dave Farber (Jul 01)