[Ecommerce] Clark Evans on Colorado spam law

[James Love]

>From cce@clarkevans.com Sat Feb 19 11:50:58 2000
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 11:22:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Clark C. Evans <cce@clarkevans.com>
To: James Love <love@cptech.org>
Subject: Re: [Random-bits] Colorado Spam law


Yes.  This was unfortunate.  There is a way to
mark messages without messing around with the
title -- you add a header saying that it's
an advertisement.   Actually, there already
is a header for this, it's called the bulk
header, which is the internet equivalent of 
3rd class mail.  If all of the legislators
would require this header to be inserted
for advertisments (obviously bulk), then
everthing would be just great.  As it stands,
about 1/10 of my junk mail comes from those
who mark it bulk. 

If every state passes a similar law, for
instance, if Michigan passes a law 
requiring the title to start with "BULK:"
then there will be no way for the advertiser
to not violate one or more laws; which
could make the laws unenforceable.  This 
isn't a "state" issue, in fact, it isn't
a "national" issue; it's an international
issue -- a small conference should make
a recommendation and then each nation
should implement the recommendtation.

Funny thing is, there already is a recommentation
(one of the ITEF RFC's describes the bulk header
in detail).  Besides... the bulk header is 
perfect -- it is a clear technical difference
so it would be easy to distinguish in court.

Best,

Clark