SPAM: South Korea and the US
ANTI-SPAM LAW WORKING IN SOUTH KOREA
The law also forbids automatic generation of e-mail addresses, harvesting addresses from Web sites, and circumventing spam blockers with technical measures. According to data from surveys conducted by the Korea Information
Security Agency, users in March of this year reported that more than 90 percent of commercial e-mail was unsolicited. By July, that number had fallen to about 70 percent. The survey indicated that in July, each South Korean user received an average of 41 spam e-mails per day, of which 35 are considered illegal and 23 are obscene. These numbers represented decreases of 18 percent, 20 percent, and 27 percent, respectively, compared to data from March.InfoWorld, 15 September 2003.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/15/HNkoreaspam_1.html
PAYING OFF THE SPAMMERS
Founders of San Antonio, Texas-based Global Removal believe that the way to end spam is to offer spammers an economic incentive not to send unwanted messages. The company offers a subscription service by which consumers who pay Global Removal $5 will be removed from the mailing lists of all of the company's partnering organizations, which include around 100 spammers and legitimate e-mail marketers alike. Partnering organizations can earn $1 for each new subscriber they draw to the service.
Tom Jackson, CEO of Global Removal, argues that senders of commercial e-mail would prefer to know who on their lists is not interested. "They can make more money for less effort through our program," he said. Critics of Global Removal's approach said it is flawed because it does not guarantee effectiveness and has no way to enforce the agreement. Julian Haight of SpamCop.net compared it to "curing the disease by killing the patient," and Denise Howell, an intellectual property lawyer, said it was like "paying protection money to mob bosses.
RH: Ronald Hilton - 08.16.03
The ruling of an American judge blaming us, the victims, for receiving spam, shows that the advertising lobby controls even the courts. Compare these two reports from Edupage. In South Korean an anti-spam law is working. In the US the spammers will be bribed to stop spamming and will thus make money anyhow.
Toughened anti-spam legislation in South Korea is credited with a drop in that country's incidence of unwanted e-mail. The law was strengthened in December, raising the limit for monetary damages and instituting criminal penalties for spammers.
Wired News, 15 September 2003
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60431,00.html
This will confirm the worldwide impression that Americans are obsessed with making money, and that money controls politics and the law.
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