[geeks] Idea for law that forces unsolicited mail to have a special header tag

[James Sharp]

> Is it not reasonable to suggest that the US and other nations enact laws
> that state all unsolicited/mass emails must have a special header that can
> be filtered if the person does not want it? I mean the spammer's
> associations are whining and complaining that they are being vilified as
> spammer's when they are only trying to run legitimate businesses, so in that
> case they should have no problem with providing the recipients a way to
> easily get out of all such emails. I mean it makes logical sense to me, so
> it would work, right?

I can count on one hand the number of spammers who would actually a) Go
for this idea or b) Do it if it were passed.  (I'd probably have 4 or 5
fingers left over).

Would spam marketers (both legitimate and swindlers) want to tag their
mail with something that would make it easy for people do delete and
ignore without even so much as looking at it?

I get maybe 3 or 4 pieces of what I consider "legitimate" spam a month
("legitimate" is what I consider things from amazon.com or
orbitz.com...things I'd sort of be interested in, even though I've tried
to opt-out of their lists).  The rest of it is "INCREASE THE SIZE OF YOUR
PENIS BY 13.9 FEET" or "GET A MORTGAGE FOR 2.3%" or "GET A LIFETIME SUPPLY
OF VIAGRA WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION".  Most of those people have gone through
quite a bit of trouble to try to mask the fact that they're sending you
spam.  I doubt passing some law that they'll all ignore is going to put a
dent in the amount of spam.

>
> I am not foolish enough to sit here and say it would be acceptable, as the
> spammer's would find some way to argue against it or work around it, but it
> *does* make sense to me! Anyone else agree? Disagree?

Makes sense?  yes.  Practical?  Not in the least.

>
> I may not get to your replies for a couple of days as this list had more
> then 300 posts while I was out of town from Friday around 2 to last night
> around 9 CST. I do so hate to not read posts because I use this list more to
> learn then to laugh, though there are large quantities of both.

How dare you step away from your keyboard for more than 5 minutes.  I'm
taking away your geek badge!