After reading your description of Swedish society, I think maybe it would be better not to write any spam legislation at all! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jacob Palme" <jpalme@dsv.su.se> To: "IETF general mailing list" <ietf@ietf.org> Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 11:28 Subject: Re: Why spam is a problem. > At 13:55 -0500 02-08-13, Eric A. Hall wrote: > >This is where spam laws would have to deviate from the existing junk fax > >laws. While the latter targets the senders, the former would have to > >target the beneficiary. EG, if the spam comes from Russia but the > >beneficiary is stateside, the beneficiary should get penalized based on > >that fact alone. [yes this is US-centric, substitute accordingly] > > > At 21:09 -0700 02-08-13, Dave Crocker wrote: > >how does this help with the massive amount of international spam? > > > As a basis for discussion of anti-spam legislation, here > is a description of how the Swedish government treated > commercial radio in the 1970s. (At that time, commercial > radio was forbidden in Sweden. Now, it is permitted, > but the interesting thing is not what they wanted to > forbid, but how they tried to do it.) > > It all started when several ships on international > water outside Sweden began sending commercial around- > the-clock music. > > The Swedish government then made a law saying that > such broadcast was illegal, and that if such a boat > came into Swedish waters, it would be seized. They > also forbade radio telephone to this boat. (In both > cases with exception for emergency calamities.) > This law did *not* work. > > The Swedish goverment then changed the law saying > that any Swede who paid for an advertisment or earned > money by co-working with such radio stations would > be illegal. This worked! > > My conclusion is that if the government wants to > stop spamming, it has to write a law saying that > "any citizen who earns money from spam, or who > is selling products or services through spam, > is illegal. Even if the actual sending of the spam, > and the company paying for the spam, is in another > country. > -- > Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH) > for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/jpalme/ > >