Opt out is not a good spam solution, since in most cases, the opt out email address is generally used to collect good "live" addresses for use by other spammers. So, we have mostly all learned to never reply to an opt out offer. I have never seen one that worked, and now I never reply to them. How could the law detect that opt out FROM addresses do not become a valuable commodity for other purposes? How deeply do you want to bring the government into the protocol development and program coding business? Are you going to station FBI officers in the spammer's offices? To solve the problem, any anti-spam law has to require Opt-IN procedures, and documentation of the Opt In actions. And even then, they can fake the opt-in EMail documents. How many times already do you get spam that claims they have your opt-in records. Come to think of it, I expect that the FAX opt out process also is used to collect good (live) FAX numbers, these days. Cheers...\Stef At 10:59 PM -0400 8/15/02, John C Klensin wrote: >--On Thursday, 15 August, 2002 22:12 -0400 "Perry E. Metzger" ><perry@piermont.com> wrote: > > > Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> writes: > >> at least in the US we're extremely unlikely to get > >> legislation that imposes substantial civil and criminal > >> penalties, because the DMA wants to make spam legitimate, > >> and they have more money (thus influence) than geeks do. > > > > I no longer believe that. NPR's All Things Considered, for > > example, had a 12 minute three part story on spam this > > evening, and their view on legislation seemed very positive. > > One of the reporters noted that she'd received a dozen spams > > today alone. Average people are being impacted, which means > > the Direct Marketing Association will soon be arguing with a > > torch-wielding mob. > >Somewhat more to the point, the DMA is very pragmatic. If they >see the writing on the wall for "plain spam", they will almost >certainly rapidly start to retreat toward "responsible spam", >including opt-out systems, unenforceable laws, etc., with the >claim that they are trying to find a good balance between the >"needs" or marketers and consumer desires. In the last >analysis, they --or at least the folks from there with whom I >had some long discussions a few years ago-- understand both >"backlash" and the principle that irritating people sufficiently >doesn't result in more customers. Of course, from that >perspective, irritating people just a bit less than >"sufficiently" is just fine. > >On the other hand, approximations to torch-wielding mobs can be >a powerful force, especially in congressional election years. >And the ISPs, who don't have a lot fewer resources than DMA, >are, I assume, getting fairly tired of the staffs they have to >maintain to try to deal with this stuff. > > john