CAN-SPAM

I’ve been busy with meatspace issues, and so I haven’t paid much attention to the current anti-SPAM legislation being passed around. And, quite frankly, I’ve been cynical about Washington’s ability to effectively craft a solution.

I finally read the text of the bill this morning, and it’s a dog.

It allows for opt-out SPAM from any company willing to use a non-deceptive message header and include a “valid postal address”. Any valid postal address? And, I thought we acknowledged a long time ago that opt-in was the way to go , when the recipient is paying for the bandwidth to deliver SPAM. US spammers who use offshore mail servers will be covered, but enforecement will be difficult if not impossible.

Some of the self-congratulations coming out of Washington on this are hilarious. Especially Charles Schumer, D-New York. “If you are a spammer, you will go to the slammer!”

I hope that Bush recognizes this for the dog that it is and vetoes it when it gets to his desk, but I’m not optimistic.