This is a topic I am very, very, very familiar with. I'm on the front lines of this particular war, so to speak.

> Of course, it's still yet to be seen how these so called "spam
> laws" will play out.

Sadly, CAN-SPAM has actually caused a lot of trouble in this area, as it's relatively toothless as far as spam legislation goes, and it pre-empts more effective spam legislation by the states (including particularly good bills passed in WA and CA). In my opinion, it was a major step backward.

Why? Because it doesn't really make spam illegal at all, it just provides penalties for some of the more nefarious means that spammers use - ie. header forgery. It doesn't actually address the practice of sending unsolicited bulk email at all, and by essentially overruling the laws passed by the states, it makes it less and less likely that anyone will be able to do anything. In my opinion, it "legitimizes" an illegitimate act by not banning it outright.

...

Legislation isn't going to do any good in the long run anyhow, though, as most spammers these days are sending through overseas providers (mostly in China, Russia, etc) and are nearly untraceable. To some degree this can be worked around by going after the sellers of the goods themselves, but even that proves difficult to do on a large scale.

In the long run, the solution to the problem will be a mixture of technical solutions (ie. better and better spam filters - already you see spammers having to make their messages nearly unreadable just to get them through), social solutions (educating the dumbest of the dumb consumers not to EVER buy from spammers), and possibly even a complete re-architecting of email standards to fit post-1970 realities.

Hey cous! Just got back from Grandma's! :-) Hope you guys have a great Memorial Day!

Anyway, I was wondering about that, the international aspect of it, that is. It would be almost impossible to track down spammers overseas, let alone prosecute them. I can see something like this costing lots of money. Though I'm just speculating, because on the spam end of things, I don't know too much about it,just what I read.

What is the law over there? I did hear something about your state having strict spam laws and that the Fedral Law superceeds it. Which to me is odd, because normally, if a State Law is more strict than a Fedral Law, the State Law takes precident...Or at least that's how it works with Ag. Laws anyway...LOL

At anyrate, I imagine it will be a very long time until the internet becomes a bit less unruly, if you know what I mean. Until then, I suppose all us honest, law abiding people will just have to keep our gaurd up, right?

Take care!