Florida Attorney General Claims Campaign Emails Aren't Spam

As Florida's state attorney general, Charlie Crist supported strong regulations against e-mail spam. One of the laws hit spammers with up to five hundred dollars for each offending message.

Now, that same attorney general is running for the position of Governor, and using apparently unsolicited e-mail messages to raise funds. Some e-mail recipients claim that they have no clue as to why they were added to Crist's mailing list.

If the e-mails are just annoying, or really illegal is at this point not clear.

In one, case a recipient attempted to "unsubscribe" five times with no luck. Many others have reported annoyance with the e-mail campaign. In general, sending such requests have little impact, and can make you subject to additional unsolicited messages.

Crist's spokesperson simply claimed the e-mail in question wasn't legally spam. Florida law defines spam as being in someway deceptive. No word on if the e-mail was compliant with the federal-level CAN-SPAM act. CAN-SPAM makes very specific requirements of all commercial e-mail. Most commercial messages are not compliant with it. So far, the law has not proven itself as an antispam solution.

Unwanted commercial messages costs nearly all internet users in the form of decreased network performance and the labor required to parse countless junk messages landing in their inboxes. On the flip side, spam itself has become a commercial industry as well as the spam blocker application market.

Of course, no spammer ever acknowledges sending spam. A good portion of messages specifically contain disclaimers explaining how they are compliant with various laws, or how you actually chose to receive the said messages in a former life.

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