RE: spam whore, norcal-systems.net

["James D. Wilson" <netsurf () sersol com>]

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If you get a court judgement in California you might be able to turn
the claim over to TRW and let the collection agency either trash their
credit or collect the fees owed.

- -
James D. Wilson

"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
    William of Ockham (1285-1347/49)
 

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu]On Behalf Of
Dean Anderson
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 9:59 AM
To: ravi () cow org; Christopher Neill; ravi () verio net
Cc: nanog () merit edu
Subject: Re: spam whore, norcal-systems.net


At 11:58 PM 2/2/1999 -0500, Ravi Pina wrote:
> In regards to no law dealing with "unsolicited or misleading
electronic
> mail", what about Washington State Law RCW 19.190.020.  Source:
> ftp://ftp.leg.wa.gov/pub/rcw/title_19/chapter_190/rcw_19_190_020

Norcal appears to be in California. Av8 is in New Hampshire or Mass.
depending on which mail server was used. The communication between the
two
is interstate commerce subject to federal law. Washington state law
wouldn't apply.

The rest of this is a bit of a digression on the Washington law.

The Internet is primarily interstate. So state laws can probably be
easily
challenged as unconstitutional attempts to regulate interstate
commerce.
This one is more careful to make sure its boundaries are the state of
Washington.

This particular law is foolishness because it only applies to things
that
are already illegal: Using a third party domain name is a trademark
infringement anywere in the US.  There are several successful court
cases
on just this topic.  Much spam doesn't have a misleading subject. Some
does. But I'd say more than half or 3/4ths doesn't.  The part that has
misleading subjects aren't the major spammers.  And not least, its not
likely that any major provider is going to be "Washington only". Aol
might
have servers in Washington, but who knows what users are in
Washington.
The laws major effect is that spammers in Washington must include
something
in the subject to indicate its commercial. Big deal. Not much of an
anti-spam law.  

The interesting thing about this particular law is the part you didn't
mention. It includes a section about immunity from liability for
blocking
UCE.  Since the only liability is Federal & criminal, and would be
found in
a federal court with fines payable to a federal court and jailtime
served
in a federal prison, I'm not sure how this would work. There is a
civil
liability section in the ECPA, but I didn't think a state could
invalidate
a judgement made by a federal court. But its certainly a new twist. 
This
will be an interesting one to watch.

                --Dean

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
           Plain Aviation, Inc                  dean () av8 com
           LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP          http://www.av8.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


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