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Spam Laws Worldwide: Consenting to Gmail Spam
Posted by Rebecca Bolin on Friday, May 14 @ 20:57:10 EDT Spam
Aaron Pratt, a clever Gmail tester, is starting a project to study the strength of Gmail's spam filters and figure out how long it takes to fill a Gmailbox. His website proclaims:
Spam my shiny new G-mail account at prattboy@gmail.com Give my address to spammers, newsletters, annoying people, whatever...
But can he even legally do this? By declaring on a webpage (which may have not even been put up by him) that he wants mail from annoying people, is that enough to meet "opt-in" spam legislation? This particular user is American, and CAN-SPAM is an opt-out regulation, which lets anyone send him anything until he opts out (update: see how he might consent using CAN-SPAM here)(except illegally labeled explicit spam, of course), but this isn't true elsewhere...

Australia would require a user to consent, which means " (a) express consent; or (b) consent that can reasonably be inferred from: (i) the conduct; and (ii) the business and other relationships; of the individual or organisation concerned." If not for the harvesting provisions, I would say that even posting a Gmail account makes a good case for "inferred consent," which could be horribly abused. In any case, anybody saying that spam is ok at this address seems fine, even if they were wrong.

At least Australia's definition is better than Ireland's: ""consent" by a user or subscriber means a data subject�s consent in accordance with the Acts and these Regulations." Got it. Consent means consent. Looks like it's pretty easy to consent to your (or someone else's) e-mail address being spammed.You could probably even argue coherently that as long as this blanket approval is up, an opt-out is not binding in any regulatory scheme. So you annoying people just have to make sure your labels are on properly.

Pratt has gotten plenty of help testing the filter with subject lines like "Sexy girls offer mortgages for your viagra;" he claims that ADV: does not trigger the spam filter, and it is about 25% accurate.

**Update** See how Pratt's consent might work under CAN-SPAM!

For more international spam law, see the Spam Laws Worldwide Index.

 
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Consenting to Gmail Spam

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The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.

Re: Consenting to Gmail Spam (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, May 15 @ 10:19:07 EDT
Thats sounds a really interest experiment.

telendro [www.telendro.org]


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Re: Consenting to Gmail Spam (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, May 15 @ 12:08:31 EDT
I would think that /^adv:/i should definately trigger the spam filters, but most spammers make SURE that spam cannot be automatically filtered so easily, because they know we would zap it all if we could :/


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Re: Consenting to Gmail Spam (Score: 1)
by ILikePi on Saturday, May 15 @ 17:29:28 EDT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://127.0.0.1/
The quickest way I've found to begin getting spammed is to post on USENET. A couple years ago, I created an email address with my ISP (they give me 7 with my account) specifically for that purpose. I only posted a couple messages, but it didn't take long at all for my address to be scooped up.


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Re: Consenting to Gmail Spam (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, May 19 @ 08:48:32 EDT
i think its a great idea to test the capacity of of the email server


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Re: Consenting to Gmail Spam (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, May 20 @ 12:31:24 EDT
What if he actually is a spammer who wants to know the spam tha can go thru the filter ?

Evil evil... :)


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