Formal Spam

It took me longer that I would’ve like it to, but I turned the entry SpamToms into a letter to my Congressional Representatives. I’m going to be sending it off soon, but here is your preview edition!

I have been following with much interest the US Congress’s efforts to address the Internet problem of Unsolicited Commercial email (UCE), more colloquially known as Spam.

I am disappointed though with the lack of understanding and technical ineptitude displayed concerning the Internet the email transmission protocols, business models, and international enforcement issues displayed by current proposals.

It is my decade plus worth of experience using computer networks that leads me to believe that making it illegal to send UCE will not successfully reduce the proliferation of UCE in Americans’ email inboxes. Any anti-UCE efforts should be multi-pronged working to reduce the prostitution of email in any way possible.

What is necessary in addition to technical solutions that are being explored within the industry is the radical legislative position making it illegal to respond to UCE in addition to the currently proposed prohibitions to sending UCE.

Initially holding the consumer as well as the producer responsible for UCE appears to be criminalizing the victim, it is the sole way to effectively destroy the market that exists for and sustains UCE.

The legal rationale for criminalizing consumption as well as production is well understood presently in the legal rationale for outlawing prostitution.

The reasons for prohibiting prostitution are: (exclusive of moral and religious objections, which do not apply to UCE)

1. The degradation of women.
2. The creation of a public heath problem by encouraging the spread of STDs.
3. The creation of “clutter” in residential as well as commercial areas that leads to reduced property values.

Similarly the reasons for seeking to prohibit UCE are:

1. The degradation of the usefulness of email.
2. The creation Internet performance degrading traffic that requires that providers purchase more bandwidth, more storage, and higher-powered servers.
3. The increase in advertising messages that “clutters” the advertising landscape and reduces preexisting advertising’s value.

In regards to prostitution, we prosecute both the prostitutes, Janes, and their clients, Toms. Simply the logic for prosecuting both the client and the service provider is economic, that if the client didn’t exist the service provider couldn’t exist either, so it is more effective to attack the problem from both ends and destroy the market for prostitution by reducing supply and demand, therefore hopefully reducing the corresponding demand and supply.

The UCE bills being proposed only target the UCEJanes and not the UCEToms. The UCE business model only requires a miniscule response rate similar to the business model of a prostitute, or a telemarketer. If UCEJanes received no revenue from their efforts they would have no incentive to engage in sending UCE. Ergo, responding to UCE should be illegal as well, perhaps carrying a fine of $200 or double the amount spend on the goods advertised via UCE, whichever is greater. This fine amount would ensure an adequate impact on UCEToms without imposing undue harm upon lower income UCEToms.

Hypothetically, under this legal structure law enforcement would track down the UCEJanes shut them down and utilize their sales records to prosecute the UCEToms. In addition, law enforcement could also leave the websites of spammers operational to catch any future UCEToms. (This is analogous to police officers posing as prostitutes.) It would also be logical to make it explicitly legal for law enforcement and/or private ISPs to hack UCEJanes’s computer systems wherever they are located to obtain UCEJanes’s sales records, and prosecute UCEToms even if the UCEJanes cannot be prosecuted for jurisdictional and/or technical reasons.

UCE will remain prevalent in this country as long as it is profitable. While UCEJanes can move out of the country to shield themselves from US laws, most UCEToms are unable to do so. Therefore by making it illegal to respond to UCE it will not affect those who already ignore spam, and will make clear disincentives to respond to UCE.

I appreciate actual efforts to reduce UCE but I urge the US Congress to pass legislation that will work in the real world and not just legislation that will make the US Congress appear to be addressing the problem.

Respectfully,
Nicholas Barnard