The on again, off again Federal Do Not Cal List is now officially, and permanently, on again. Earlier this week a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FTC and FCC's registry does not violate the telephone solicitors First Amendment rights.
If you've ever just sat down to dinner and gotten a call asking you to switch long distance services, you might think a Do Not Call List is enough to make you happy.
But, the true value of this ruling is that it opens the door to the possibility of a Do Not E-Mail List. In fact, in the new Anti-Spam laws allow for the FTC to establish such a registry. They will present such a plan to Congress sometime in May, but might also enact something without the approval of Congress (as they initially did with the DNC registry).
Today begins a 3 day Federal Trade Commission Spam Forum "to address the proliferation of unsolicited commercial e-mail and to explore the technical, legal, and financial issues associated with it. "
The Forum is open to the public, so if you are in the DC area, maybe you would like to stop by and let me know whats going on? Otherwise, they've already put up some of the materials being presented by the panelists. You can also visit the official FTC Spam site.
Considering how techno-illiterate most legislators are, spam has gotten to be a huge issue - I'm aware of at least two anti-spam bills bouncing around congress and that shouldn't be a surprise. Considering that 40% of all email sent is spam and 2/3 of all spam contains false info, I can't imagine anyone besides a few Nigerian Con-Men could be pro-spam. Being an anti-spam legislator is a poltical slam dunk and a way to gain some quick and easy public relations cache.
But, as much as I detest spam, and wish I received less of it (between 3 different emails, I probably receive more than 100 pieces of spam a day), I'm not sure how I feel about anti-spam laws. I have this nagging feeling about them, and I don't quite know enough about the law to explain why.