Fun_People Archive
17 Jun
A substantial opportunity for individual profit.

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 96 13:34:26 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: A substantial opportunity for individual profit.

[Here's that e-mail you asked for...  -psl]

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
Forwarded-by: Herb Peyerl <hpeyerl@beer.org>
Forwarded-by: ron@canuck.com (Ron Hill)

Recent increases in the volume of unsolicited commercial e-mail have created
a substantial opportunity for individual profit.  Here's how it works:

Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C):

	"It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to
	 use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device
	 to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile
	 machine"

A "telephone facsimile machine" is defined in Sec.227(a)(2)(B) as:

	"equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or images
	 (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular
	 telephone line onto paper."

Under this definition, an e-mail account, modem, computer and printer
together constitute a fax machine.

The rights of action are as follows.  Under Sec.227(b)(3)(B):

	"A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or
	 rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of
	 that State --

	  (A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the
	      regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin
	      such violation,
	  (B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a
	      violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such
	      violation, whichever is greater, or
	  (C) both such actions. If the court finds that the defendant
	      willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the
	      regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court
	      may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award
	      to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount
	      available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph."

That's right, you are entitled to receive *at least* $500 in damages from
the sender of each piece of unsolicited commercial e-mail originating in
the United States!  But wait!  There's more!

Just today, I received an unsolicited spam-mail ad from Cyber Promotions,
Inc.  They weren't advertising a product;  they were advertising their
*mailing list*!  A mailing list with over 900,000 e-mail addresses!  If they
sent their ad to everyone on that list, and if I get ads from just 0.01% of
those people, I'll end up with a cool $45,000 in my pocket!  And that's from
the efforts of just *one* company!  YIPPEE! I'M RICH!

I *really REALLY* hope I get spam from Hawaii this winter!

For the full legal text USC Title 47, Section 227, see:
<URL:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/227.html>.
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