Should Spam be Illegal?

In the last few years various laws against spamming have been passed. The CAN-SPAM act placed certain restrictions on spammers. Many different state laws have been enacted. To my awareness none has really made spam illegal though.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to outlaw spam and be done with it? Just for fun, lets assume if such a law were to be passed it would actually eliminate spam. So, lets say we pass a law to ban all unsolicited commercial email. There are at least a handful of problems with this.

A new web design firm opens up downtown. You think you might make a good employee for them. They aren't advertising a position, but you decide to mail an address on the website to see if they are interested. You just sent unsolicited commercial email.

Also, some of that crap in your inbox is technically not unsolicited. What about the junk email spam you get as a result of signing up for that freeware download? It was clearly stated that by downloading that application you agreed to receive, "Bob's Bargain Mail."

Clearly there's precedent for these kinds of agreements being legal. I can't imagine the Supreme Court letting a law prohibiting opt-in email lists stand. Of course about 2/3rds the time when spam email claims to be opt-in they're lying. But could you prove it in a court of law?

I'm not claiming there aren't better answers. It's just I think any good anti-spam solution needs to consider technical approaches, not just legal.

SpamButcher is available as a free anti-spam software trial download. The test-drive period lasts for 21-days.

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