FC: Will Larry Lessig's proposed anti-spam law make spam... worse?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:

"Larry Lessig bets his job on spam law -- with me as judge?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04286.html

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From: "Jim Harper" <jim.harper () policycounsel com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Larry Lessig bets his job on spam law -- with me as judge?
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 11:44:06 -0500

Lessig's bet is nearly risk-free.  "ADV:" legislation is very unlikely.
More importantly, though, it's ham-handed.

Along with reducing spam, why not rate spam law on whether it preserves free
speech rights?  If you're not sympathetic to free speech, how about how well
a spam law protects communications that consumers want and need (some of
which are ADV:'s)?  Has Lessig considered whether his proposal thwarts small
business participation and competition in the online medium by creating
disproportionate litigation risk?

If there's going to be good spam law - not a foregone conclusion - it will
come from considering all the interests at stake.

Jim

Jim Harper
PolicyCounsel.Com

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Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:15:15 -0600
From: Chip Rosenthal <chip () unicom com>
To: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre () jstyre com>
Cc: declan () well com, Lawrence Lessig <lessig () pobox com>
Subject: Re: FC: Larry Lessig bets his job on spam law -- with me as judge?

On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 05:42:39PM -0800, James S. Tyre wrote:
> Declan, Larry, you may be interested in what Chip Rosenthal blogged about
> that paper.
>
> http://www.unicom.com/chrome/a/000028.html
> January 01, 2003
> An Unhelpful Analysis

I'm thinking about blogging something about Larry's bet.  (But I MUST
finish writing my end-of-year spam stats article first. *sigh*)

I'm going to take the position that the law Larry proposed may make spam
levels *worse*.

Here's why:  data indicate a significant rise in spam levels over the
past year.  (I'm currently crunching some numbers, hoping I can measure
this effect.)  I believe there are two reasons for this.  One is the
recession.  The other is due to the increasing effectiveness of filtering.

As filters get more effective, spammers pump out more and more messages,
trying to push their crap through the shrinking sieve.  Labelling may
provide for the most effective filtering yet, driving spammers to flood
at levels unimagined.

So while Larry's proposal may reduce what lands in your inbox, the
servers are going to *choke*.  That's because the SMTP mail protocol
requires that the server receive the complete message before it can be
inspected for tags.  So servers will be driven into the ground accepting
and discarding millions of messages a day, all with proper spam labels.

Here is the flaw in Larry's propsal:  it assumes reasonable, rational
people.  As effectiveness of spam decreases, the less likely a reasonable,
rational person would use it.

The problem is that people who advertise by spam aren't reasonable,
rational people.  They are morons who believe in work-at-home pyramid
scams and that apricot seeds cure cancer.  They don't do efficacy
calculations.  They just look at the cost.  They don't care if spam has a
1/1mil capture rate, just so long as it's cheap.  And with its nearly-zero
marginal cost, they'll just adjust their spam levels upwards as necessary.

The spam problem results from the false economies in the system.
The solution to the spam problem has to be either:  1) rewrite the
protocols so that spammers can't game the system, or 2) offset the false
economies.  I don't think a proposal such as Larry's, which does neither,
will be as helpful as we may like.

I think legislation is the right solution, but labelling isn't it.  Spam
represents pollution of a public resource, and we need regulations and
financial penalties appropriate for protecting that endangered resource.

--
Chip Rosenthal * chip () unicom com * http://www.unicom.com/
"Why look back in anguish when we can look forward to the future
with cynicism?" * http://www.unicom.com/chrome/a/000029.html




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