Electronic mail, unsolicited commercial; narrows scope of spam statute, penalty. (HB1)
Introduced By
Del. Manoli Loupassi (R-Richmond)
Progress
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Introduced |
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Passed Committee |
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Passed House |
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Passed Senate |
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Signed by Governor |
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Became Law |
Description
Unsolicited commercial electronic mail (spam); penalty. Narrows the scope of the existing spam statute to cover only those emails that constitute unsolicited commercial electronic mail (spam). Commercial electronic mail is defined in the bill as electronic mail, the primary purpose of which is the advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service. Spam is defined as a subset of commercial mail that is unsolicited. The definition of spam excludes emails that are transmitted by a sender to a person with whom the sender has an existing business or personal relationship.
Any person who (i) falsifies or forges the transmission or routing information of spam or (ii) knowingly sells, gives, or distributes software designed to facilitate the transmission of spam is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The penalty for sending spam rises to a Class 6 felony if the person sends a certain volume of spam in a given time period or generates a certain amount of revenue from a spam transmission.
This bill corrects a constitutional infirmity identified in the ruling of the Virginia Supreme Court in Jaynes v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 443 (2008). In its opinion the Supreme Court held that Virginia Code 18.2-152.3:1 (anti-spam statute) is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk emails, including those containing political, religious, or other speech protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. View Full Text »
Outcome
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Comments
Commerce - Spam
The bill is unnecessary. Email already has spam blockers. Legitimate business opportunities and advertisements will be forced out of the internet playing field. Bad idea. Think. We get "spam" in the physical mailbox. Should that be illegal? This is not problem-enough to justify adding to criminal activity.
The sender pays for physical spam. The recipient pays for e-mail spam. None of the cost is borne by spammers, and all of it is borne by the neutral networks that bear the spam, the servers that receive it, and the individuals (like you and me) who pay for the bandwidth to download it. That's the difference, and it's a mighty big one.
94% of e-mail is spam. It's completely out of control. Those of us who run e-mail servers spend a huge amount of time fighting spam. It's very expensive, both in time and in real dollars, an enormous drain on the economy. (Imagine if ISPs could eliminate 94% of their mail server infrastructure! That would be huge!) And, of course, the overwhelming majority of it is selling products that are illegal or that are scams. Penis enlargement pills, counterfeit Viagra sold from third-world countries, porn...it's a cesspool.
This bill is deeply necessary, and I'm grateful to Del. Loupassi for introducing it.