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by Vince Vittore
Telephony
When Monty Python launched its Spam skit more than two decades ago, little did anyone know at the time that its dialogue could end up describing the in-box of many consumers on a typical morning. Last week's passage of a Senate bill to outlaw spam of the pixelized variety and set up a do-not-spam list won't do anything to stop the unwanted e-mail from flooding networks.
Spammers, like the online casinos and other vices that legislators find distasteful but that have enough demand to make a business, will find a home in a Caribbean nation that will welcome their tax dollars. Or like carnies running scam games of “chance,” they'll disappear into the night and reappear under a new name.
Once again, legislation will lag technology. However, there is a provision in the bill that could turn carriers into heroes if they're willing to take some risks. In the Senate bill, ISPs would be allowed to sue spammers. And if there's one thing carriers do well, it's drag other companies into court and tie them up in long legal battles. True, they can sue the spammers now, and AOL has attempted to do that with varying degrees of success, but the new law provides for some real punishment. The Senate bill and its companion in the House of Representatives, which will be signed about one nanosecond after passage, may end up being more symbolic than effective in the real world.
But it presents carriers with an opportunity for a little grandstanding on the part of subscribers. Instead of standing idly by while ads for “male enhancement” and that secret Nigerian investment waste more bandwidth, carriers and other ISPs have been given a weapon to slow the river of spam to a trickle. While not being able to clean up in-boxes, the new law at least will give service providers the opportunity to put on a good show of faith for consumers.
telephony
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