Web Users Caught in a Spam Jam
Norah Vincent’s vision that the European Union’s proposed anti-spam legislation would protect consumer privacy is a forlorn hope (Commentary, Aug. 15). It is unlikely that limiting spammers to contacting only consumers with whom they had a preexisting business relationship would decrease the amount of spam e-mail. Any consumer reading a company’s privacy policy will find that ubiquitous phrase “our trusted business partners” neatly buried in the policy. Accepting e-mail from the company with which one has a preexisting relationship means accepting spam from its partners as well, and from the partners’ partners, ad infinitum. In short, this limitation would be no limitation at all.
Only empowering consumers to completely opt out from receiving all unsolicited commercial e-mail and enacting penalties against spammers and their abettors (e.g., Internet service providers, third-party re-mailers, e-mail list distributors) who violate consumer privacy will lead to a decrease in spam.
But it should surprise no one that on the same page Mike McCurry and Larry Purpuro proposed exempting politically oriented e-mail from any anti-spam legislation. When California Senate Bill 771 (limiting unsolicited telephone sales calls) was passed in 2001, the Legislature exempted political calls from the prohibition. This was hypocritical, but not unexpected, and McCurry and Purpuro will, undoubtedly, get their wish. Although political speech is important, unwanted e-mail (and unwanted telephone calls) is still an unnecessary intrusion on privacy.
Skip White
Westminster
*
Just as door-to-door salesmen do not enter my house without my permission, unsolicited commercial e-mail should not be permitted to enter my computer without my permission. We need a federal law to require that all unsolicited commercial e-mail be coded so that consumers can easily block this spam through ordinary Internet security software. Political e-mail might also be coded to give the consumer the choice of accepting or blocking political advertising.
Richard Raffalow
Valley Glen
*
My partner and I both have AT&T; Broadband as an Internet service provider. We cannot remember when we last got spam. Vincent needs a new ISP, not more laws.
Doris Waterman
Marina del Rey
