FTC to Congress Lawrence Lessig Was Right 9/16/2004 - 1,002 views, 1 Comment
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A lot of people scoffed at Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig when he announced that he would wager his job against the efficacy of a bounty system to track down spammers, offering that if it didn’t work, he’s resign his position at Stanford. However, in a new report by the Federal Trade Commission to Congress, the FTC has said that such a bounty system would indeed work, provided that the rewards were high enough - like in the 100,000 to 250,000 dollar range. The problem, however, is that the bounty funds would have to come at taxpayers’ expense, as the FTC acknowledged what every ISP and anti-spam outfit has known all along - your odds of collecting on a judgement against a spammer are near zero. Also of note is that $100,000-$250,000 is more than the rewards offered for narcing on criminals and even terrorists. Not surprisingly, the DMA has opposed this, saying that we should allow more time for law enforcement to work, and that we “shouldn’t rush into such a system”. You can read more about the FTC’s comments here. And you can read Professor Lessig’s comments on anti-spam bounties here.
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A bounty would be cool, but the right solution is private right of action for statutory damages.
That’s what’s worked for junk faxes.
A stupid/misleading report. Nearly all spam is UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email)
It’s easy to find the sender of UCE. The purpose of UCE is the C in UCE - Commerce.
You buy what the spam is advertising (usually purchasable with a CC or check), and you follow the money.
Buy it with a CC, request a chargeback and the identity of the seller.
Check has the seller’s bank info on it when you get it back with your statement.
(The latter is very convenient when you get a judgement against the spammer in small claims court and they don’t pay.)
BTW, I’ve seen proof the above works.
I disagree with each of the recommendations of the FTC report, which are based upon false conclusions :
* tie eligibility to imposition of a final court order, rather than
to collection of civil penalties;
* fund reward payments through appropriations, rather than collected
civil penalties;
* restrict eligibility to insiders with high-value information;
* minimize eligibility disputes and associated costs by exempting
the FTC’s decisions on reward eligibility from judicial or
administrative review; and
* establish reward amounts high enough to attract insiders to
provide high-value information.
Comment by Joe blow — 9/21/2004 @ 6:59 pm