Weekly column: It's six years but still no federal anti-spam law

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2010-1028_3-5083311.html

Spam deja vu

 September 29, 2003, 6:45 AM PT
 By Declan McCullagh

 In June, politicians in Washington finally declared an all-out war
 on spam, vowing to take speedy action to curb the Internet's No. 1
 menace.

 One senator gave an impassioned floor speech warning that without a
 law, "we risk the destruction of all legitimate expression and
 commerce on the information superhighway." The New York Times
 predicted "a lively congressional debate" on spam over the next few
 months.

 Well, almost. Those events did occur, but the year was 1997.

 Since then--more than six years later--Congress has accomplished
 precisely nothing on spam. No federal law restricting the flow of
 unsolicited bulk e-mail has ever been enacted, and no law will be
 enacted until next year, if ever. At this rate, a delay of another six
 years wouldn't be surprising.

 It's time for the tech community to realize that turning to the
 federal government for help in this area is simply not productive.
 It's like trying to teach a cow to configure BGP routers: You won't
 succeed, and you'll annoy the cow.


 [...remainder snipped...]
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