Unsolicited E-Mail

by

US Postal Inspection Service's web page on chain letters and other mail fraud: http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/chainlet.htm

Please send any future net-abuse complaints or comments to one of the following addresses:

- abuse@psi.com
- abuse@interramp.com
- abuse@pipeline.com

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 sub-section or the regulations prescribed under this sub-section, 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.

security@green.isca.uiowa.edu
abuse@green.isca.uiowa.edu
webmaster@green.isca.uiowa.edu
root@green.isca.uiowa.edu
operator@green.isca.uiowa.edu
postmaster@green.isca.uiowa.edu

At most sites, not all of these addresses exist, and you'll probably get bounced mail. One of these addresses *should* exist at all sites. Personally, I *don't* recommend that you just send it to postmaster and leave it at that. As postmaster receives a copy of all the bounced mail and such, it's often just a blackhole for mail. That's why sites like pipeline, aol, prodigy and netcom have an abuse address, as they just ignore stuff sent to postmaster. Also, something like webmaster likely gets far less mail, and will be more helpful in directing you to the best address for your complaint. If you find any more addresses to send this mail (like the ones I have listed at the beginning, e. g. abuse@netcom.com), be sure to send it my way (messer@grfn.org).