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

[Eric Dittman]

> 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 don't think that's an adequate solution.  Just because they say
they are legitimate doesn't mean they are.  I want spam stopped
at the source.

> 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?

I don't want any spam consuming any of my network bandwidth,
and I don't want spam consuming any of my CPU cycles.  If all
they had to do was put a header in I'd still have it going to
my mail server, and I'd have my system checking for the header.

It would be best if the mail was never sent to begin with.  I
want a solution that outlaws spam completely, with penalties
similar to those provided for junk faxes ($500 per violation,
with teble damages for willful & knowing).
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman at dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/