Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ray Everett-Church <ray () everett org>
Reply-To: ray () everett org
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 15:22:20 -0700
To: dave () farber net, "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com>
Subject: Senator Bowen: MSFT killed toughest anti-spam proposal


http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/servlet/gov.ca.senate.democrats.pub.members.memD
isplayPress?district=sd28&ID=1765

. . . And On The 1st Day Of July, Assembly Committee Proclaims: "Let There
Be Spam!" 
7/1/2003 
 
COMMITTEE TAKES CUE FROM MICROSOFT, KILLS NATION'S TOUGHEST ANTI-SPAM
PROPOSAL 

SACRAMENTO - Urged on by Microsoft, the Assembly Business & Professions
Committee today unceremoniously killed SB 12 (Bowen), a measure to create
the country's toughest anti-spam law by requiring advertisers to get
permission from computer users before sending them unsolicited ads, on a 5-2
vote (the bill needed 7 votes to pass out of committee).

"Does anyone other than the eight members of this committee who either voted
'no' or took a walk on the bill really believe Microsoft has any interest in
getting rid of spam?," wondered California State Senator Debra Bowen
(D-Redondo Beach), the author of SB 12, following the bill's defeat.
"Trusting Microsoft to protect computer users from spam is like putting
telemarketers in charge of the do-not-call list. Microsoft uses a megaphone
to tell everyone how much it hates spam at the same time it's working
overtime to kill truly tough anti-spam laws. Why? Microsoft doesn't want to
ban spam, it wants to decide what's 'legitimate' or 'acceptable' unsolicited
commercial advertising so it can turn around and license those e-mail
messages and charge those advertisers a fee to wheel their spam into your
e-mail inbox without your permission."

The bill needed 7 votes to get out of the 13-member committee. Voting "aye"
on the bill were Assemblymembers Pault Koretz (D-Los Angeles), Mark Leno
(D-San Francisco), Joe Nation (D-San Rafael), Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), and
Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). Voting "no" were Assemblymembers Greg
Aghazarian (R-Stockton) and Bill Maze (R-Visalia). Refusing to cast a vote
for or against the measure were Assemblymembers Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) [the
committee chairman], Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk), Ellen Corbett (D-Hayward),
Shirley Horton (R-San Diego) [the committee vice-chairwoman], Abel Maldonado
(R-San Luis Obispo), and Mark Wyland (R-San Diego).

SB 12 repeals California's "opt-out" spam statute in favor of a tougher
"opt-in" system modeled on the federal law that bans unsolicited fax
advertising. The bill requires companies that want to send e-mail ads to get
an e-mail user's permission in advance if they don't already have a business
relationship with the person. SB 12 allows any Californian who receives
unsolicited ads to sue the sender and the advertiser in court for $500 per
spam and the judge can triple the fine if he or she finds the sender
willfully and knowingly violates the California ban. The bill also requires
the court to impose an additional $250 per spam civil penalty to be directed
to high tech crime task forces throughout the state in any spam judgement.

While killing SB 12, the committee simultaneously approved an alternate
measure backed by Microsoft, Yahoo!, and the American Electronics
Association. That bill allows victims to sue spammers and ISPs for "actual
damages," $1,000 per spam, or $1 million per incident - whichever is less -
not the minimum $500 per spam provided for in SB 12.

"Limiting the amount of money people can collect from spammers to 'actual
damages' basically means no one will ever collect a dime from a spammer
because the average person isn't going to take the time to figure out how
much the spam forced down the throat of their computer costs them to deal
with," said Bowen. "The federal junk fax ban lets people sue for $500 a fax,
it doesn't require them to figure out how much paper and toner the junk
faxer burned up before going after them, and the same standard should apply
to spam. Spam isn't legitimate advertising and it's not free speech - it's
basically high-tech junk faxing that forces e-mail users to pay for someone
else's advertising campaign through slower computer service and higher
Internet access fees."

A June 10 report by the Radicati Group found e-mail spam will cost companies
$20.5 billion in 2003, and by 2007, businesses will be forking over nearly
ten times that amount of money, or $198 billion, to battle spam. A June 2
report by MessageLabs, a private anti-spam service, found 55.1% of all
e-mail sent in May 2003 was spam. Jupiter Research found U.S. e-mail users
received more than 140 billion pieces of spam in 2001 and an estimated 261
billion pieces in 2002 - an 86% increase. A Harris Interactive
(www.harrisinteractive.com) poll released in early January found that 74% of
online users surveyed would favor laws to outlaw spam.

SB 12 was approved by the Senate last month on a bipartisan 21-12 vote and
may be reconsidered by the committee in the next few weeks.

Contact: Jennie Bretschneider
(916) 445-5953/(916) 855-7286



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