United States Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, says that "it shall be
unlawful for any person within the United States to use any telephone facsimile
machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a
telphone facsimile machine." A telephone facsimile machine is defined in
Section 227(a)(2)(B) as "equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or
images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone
line onto paper." The law provides for a minimum award of $500 for a
successful lawsuit. My company received a lot of junk faxes (mostly on travel
scams) until I drafted a legalese return-fax threatening prosecution.
Now with all that said, I would hate to see Congress expand Title 47 to include
junk email. I hold a very libertarian view about the internet; the less
government intrusion, the better. Does anyone want a repeat of the NSA Clipper
chip fiasco or the PGP encryption prosecution? Besides, how would one go about
prosecuting a foreign, bulk emailer with a fake return address?
I think a better solution is a robot (perhaps agent is a better term) which
automatically replies to new addresses (or user registered domains) with a
delivery query. If the agent receives a NDN, the message is filtered
(auto-discarded) by the agent before the user reads it; alternatively, the
message could be directed to a "questionable" folder for manual purging.
The end result is: (1) users can avoid junk, and (2) bulk emailers could
ultimately receive as much spam as they send, possibly (and hopefully)
discouraging them from future mass emailings.
The internet should be free from onerous US government regulation. Robot/agent
technology provides a means to keep it that way.
Here's my question for the list: Is the purpose/topic of this list using and
developing "/robots.txt" (as John Pritchard flamed me about) or is it to
discuss robot (err, excuse me, agent) application/use/future? I do see a
certain value in RES (as pointed out by many on the list); however, I don't
trust that everyone will use it, nor can I recommend its use to my clients (a
very paranoid group). Consequently, I see little economic/security value in
its definition.
--Joe
Joseph Whitmore
Interim Incorporated
Washington, DC
(202) 663-9009
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