Oh, how I wish they would do that here...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The UK has made spam a criminal offence to try to stop the flood of unsolicited messages.

Under the new law, spammers could be fined £5,000 in a magistrates court or an unlimited penalty from a jury.[/quote]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/techn...120628.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3120628.stm)

About time :)

Of course, at the moment it'll make little difference. For one thing most spam (that I get) comes from across the pond anyway. For another, the money spammers make (there was a documentary once - it's a *lot* of money from a lot of mugs) they'll probably just pay the fine and carry on.

Nice to see someone trying to take action though.

<a href="http://www.bordergatewayprotocol.net/~jon/humor/web_animations/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf" target="top">Funny :) </a>

The way I read that it sounded like they made it a criminal offense to try to stop the spam. /giggle

Hide me! The Bobbies are here to arrest me for using a Spam Blocker!

Links broken Araxx :P

Tils

Hehehe I loved that Araxx :D

When I first read the title, for some strange reason, I thought you were talking about the meat spam.

Anyways, I wish they would try to enforce this in the US too. I HATE coming home after a weekend away and having 50 emails in which I only know like 5 of the people out of all that. On my AOL name, I frigging get over 300 over night. :mad:

I hope they never ever outlaw spam in the US.

Its entire too close to treading on the 1st Amendant for my tastes.

It's also entirely too close to harassment. There is no way to stop it and I personally don't want to see Weightloss, Viagra, ****, Free Credit Card, Penis Enlargement, Trace your family tree, please visit this website e-mails in my mailbox fifty thousand times. :mad:

Deal with a little harrassment. Its better than trying to deal with censorship.

<blockquote>Aidon says:<hr>Deal with a little harrassment. Its better than trying to deal with censorship.[/quote]Censorship is the selective exclusion of certain messages that are objectionable. This isn't censorship. This is damage control. While I applaud the U.K. move and hope it works out, I would support jail time for spammers in addition to restitution for time and bandwidth lost and monetary penalties -- applying both to the spammer and the person behind the product being advertised (if they knew about it). Spam wastes a ton of money and time, and the messages themselves range from annoying to disgusting. There is absolutely zero worthwhile content to them. Once these people start going to jail they will think twice about doing this again.

And then maybe they can set up a "please spam me" list which is excluded from the penalty. Then you can sign yourself on it and get 200 messages a day about generic Viagra, **** sites, and what not, and feel free, knowing your messages aren't censored.

<strong>Censorship is the selective exclusion of certain messages that are objectionable</strong>

The only way I could support an anti-spam law is if it were limited to commercial spam with explicit permissions for non-profit, religious, or political entities.

And then I'd be nervous still.

The 1st Amendment is the most important of them all...be wary of treading upon it.

You do understand Aidon that many children have their own email accounts yet they are receiving **** spam? You don't care about this?
Freedom of speech is one thing that has NOTHING to do with the right to ban spam. Spam is a nuisance, it costs us money, it lags the internet, etc.
If spammers want to have free speech they can set up their own website and hope to get visits. Clogging up our inbox with generally offensive stuff (I never check email in front of my GF or Mother when she visits because many of them have VERY offensive subjects and even worse pics in them) is not their right over mine. Just remember, every man's right ends where another's starts.
Spam should be able to be traced, and the "remove me" link should remove you, not make them aware that email account is active so you can receive even MORE spam.
I get a lot of spam, I hate it, I've been suffering it for over 2 years, I get over 30 emails daily of email I DON'T want. I could give a damn about the first ammendment in your country, but I want the spam to stop, or a way to stop it. Regulate it, make laws to be able to do this, and you won't have to talk about the 1st ammendment ever again.

<strong>You do understand Aidon that many children have their own email accounts yet they are receiving **** spam?</strong>

That's up to the parents to regulate, not the government.

<strong>Freedom of speech is one thing that has NOTHING to do with the right to ban spam. Spam is a nuisance, it costs us money, it lags the internet, etc.</strong>

I would say having the KKK go door to door leaving fliers about their beliefs is a nuisance also, but I wouldn't ban it.

<strong>If spammers want to have free speech they can set up their own website and hope to get visits. Clogging up our inbox with generally offensive stuff (I never check email in front of my GF or Mother when she visits because many of them have VERY offensive subjects and even worse pics in them) is not their right over mine. Just remember, every man's right ends where another's starts.</strong>

Every man's right do not always end where another's starts. Blanket statements of that nature can be dangerous.

<strong>I could give a damn about the first ammendment in your country</strong>

You really should. The 1st amendment in the United States is responsible for the free exchange of ideas which has brought about so many of our world advancements. Regardless, I could give a damn about your complaints as a non citizen of the USA when they come close to infringing upon our Constitution.

<strong>That's up to the parents to regulate, not the government.</strong>

Ehm, Spam isn't regulated. Implement means to be able to do this and Parents WILL be able to regulate it themselves. Until then children will still be able to receive Spam emails containing ****ography and other ugly crap.

<strong>I would say having the KKK go door to door leaving fliers about their beliefs is a nuisance also, but I wouldn't ban it.</strong>

Well, when you get 30 fliers a day belonging to radical groups, following you around, and after you tell them to stop bringing you fliers put your name on the fliers list of even more groups, I think you would reconsider. It stops being a nuissance and comes extremely close to harrassment.

<strong>Every man's right do not always end where another's starts. Blanket statements of that nature can be dangerous.</strong>

Haha, how so? It is the truth.
Show me where my rights to NOT receive Spam are.

<strong>You really should. The 1st amendment in the United States is responsible for the free exchange of ideas which has brought about so many of our world advancements. Regardless, I could give a damn about your complaints as a non citizen of the USA when they come close to infringing upon our Constitution.</strong>

Considering most of the Spam I get - if not ALL - comes from the US of A, I would suggest you do start "giving a damn" and finding ways to regulate spam. I should be allowed to decide what "free ideas" I want to have exchanged with me, and not keep on receiving it after clicking the F'ing "Remove Me" link a million times.
Unless you're one of those that don't give a damn about other's people's rights. Then this would be a totally different ball game.

The solution I'm looking for here is not to Ban Spam Aidon, it is to REGULATE it. Allow me to deny access to Spam in my inbox is all I ask for. I'm sure there are people who find Spam enjoyful and entertaining. I'm sure they find TV programs I find distasteful good stuff to watch, but I can switch the channel on a TV, yet I'm stuck receiving over 30 emails daily of crap I many times DO have to sift through because of their subject being so close to a possible email from a friend, acquaintence, etc. Spam filters can destroy legitimate emails, and neither I nor anybody should have to suffer this because we cannot get rid of Spam.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I would say having the KKK go door to door leaving fliers about their beliefs is a nuisance also, but I wouldn't ban it.

Well, when you get 30 fliers a day belonging to radical groups, following you around, and after you tell them to stop bringing you fliers put your name on the fliers list of even more groups, I think you would reconsider. It stops being a nuissance and comes extremely close to harrassment.
[/quote]

Leaving fliers on my doorstep doesn't cost me money.

y internet connection does however cost me money.

There is a HUGE difference.

When spammer start paying me to accept their crap then perhaps I won't vote to stop it. Until then I'll do whatever I can to make sending me spam painful for them. I find Linux+sendmail+antispam scripts+nmap has some so very interesting reverse percussions to sending me spam =D. It stands to reason that spamming me and making the first connection to *MY* computer in *MY* home suddenly gives me some interesting options for port scanning the pud out of them until their stupid spam server crashes. =P.

I dunno...I really enjoy reading through my morgage payment options, farm girls doing interesting things with farm animals and penile enlargement, stimulation and patch emails every morning.

(wtf is a "penis patch"? is like something you slap on it to get you off being addicted to sex or something?)

<blockquote>Aidon says:<hr>The 1st Amendment is the most important of them all...be wary of treading upon it.[/quote]No one is treading on the First Amendment here. Surely you know that its protections are never absolute, and that the level of permissible regulation depends on the a number of factors including the type of speech we're dealing with and the way it's being regulated. Commercial ****, for example, gets lower protection than political messages. Also, if you're dealing with a regulation that doesn't completely prohibit the speech, but rather limits the manner in which it's disseminated (e.g., no spam to anyone who opts not to receive it), the level of protection is even lower.

Of course, the real answer here is to change the way e-mail and the Internet operates, since SMTP is far too trusting and shifts almost all the cost of processing the e-mail onto the recipient. Just set it up so that you are required to pay $0.25 to send an e-mail message (about the price of a postcard), and all spam will disappear in the blink of an eye while hardly affecting normal messages.

As I said earlier, I would agree with a law that gave permissions to any religious, political, or non-profit spam...

I agree that commercial expression is less protected.

The problem with commercial advertising in email is that it costs the end user, not the originator. With TV you can opt out of commercials, turn off the sound, record and skip over, use TiVo or go get a snack.

I also hate the snail mail spam and telephone spam, maybe even worse than email spam. Email spam I can automatically junk before I see it. With mail spam, I sometimes have to open the envelope before I know what it is... and with telephone spam.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Here's my typical telephone solicitation:

Phone; Ring, ring.
e: (picks up the phone) Hello?
Phone: Nothing while the machine transfers over to a live person.
e: Hello?
e: Hello?!?
Rube: Hello, this is Bob from Supah Mort...
e: Please put me on your do-not-call list. (hangs up)
====================================

Or even worse is the people that pretend to know you so you won't hang up.

Phone; Ring, ring.
e: (picks up the phone) Hello?
Rube: Hi, it's Bob! How're you doing today?
e: Ummmm.... ok. (in my most suspicious and grumpiest voice)
Rube: Great! Hey, I was wondering, what is your mortga...
e: Uh Bob, is this a telephone solicitation?
Rube: Well, I really just wanted to know what isyour mortga...
e: Bob, who do you work for?
Rube: First Coast Financial
e: Ok Bob! (Explosively pronouncing both of the B's so it sounds like, Bob-ah). Put me on your do-not-call list. K, k? Thanks. (hang up)

Physical mail is a bigger pain because it takes time and effort to get rid of.

Email spam: Either set up a filter or lower finger to 'delete' button.

Snail-mail spam: Filter from important mails. Sometimes open to check if it really is spam. Make a physical move to bin and place inside. If too lazy to immediately move to bin, it soon overwhelms you and makes for one heck of a messy room.

Of course, anyone who has to pay for bandwidth transfer, inbox volume or time online would rightly argue differently!

We're considering the idea of putting a sign over the letterbox saying along the lines of "please skip the middle man and place all circulars and advertising mails directly into the blue 'paper recycling box' provided."

An alternative was to nail the dustbin to the back of the door just before the letterbox and check it for real mails once in a while.

<blockquote>Cloudien says:<hr>Physical mail is a bigger pain because it takes time and effort to get rid of.[/quote]I find physical spam mail far less annoying because there's far less of it, it tends to be obvious so I never have to even open it, and I certainly never get bombarded with **** or other distasteful mail. I keep the recycling container just below the mail box so after cherry picking for the real mail, I can dispose of all of the spam with one quick sweep of the hand. Now if I got physical spam in the same volume as e-mail spam, I'd agree with you, but due to the economics of it, that will never happen.

One thing that really irks me through is the free newspaper spam. Instead of depositing it with the other spam, they throw it somewhere in the front of the house so you actually have to seek and destroy. Then they sometimes put it in a plastic bag so you can't just throw it to recycling.

[Edit] I just saw this and found it interesting. For fellow Californians out there, <a href=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/09/23/state1921EDT0215.DTL>Gov. Davis just signed a pretty hefty anti-spam bill</a>. Of course its scope isn't nationwide, but if other states follow California's lead hopefully we can stamp out these spam vermin. Good thing he's being threatened with a recall, he's actually making some pretty popular moves now. <img src=http://www.lag9.com/wink.gif>

They have so called "Betterware" and "Kleeneze" catalogues here, mini catalogues with 'useful ideas' like electric nose picking machines, solar powered torches and such like.

They give you about a week to order stuff, then come back and ask for the catalogue back!

Supposedly you can opt out, but they keep sending them anyway. One day...
"It's in there, help yourself" - (points to paper recycling box.)
We've actually done that, and they threatened not to deliver them again, to which we said "good, please don't!" - but they *still* keep delivering the darn things - and asking for them back.