Anti-Spam Laws Sound Nice, But Won't Do Much

from the and-what's-plan-B? dept

The press is going spam crazy now that Congress has finally agreed on a single spam bill, which will soon be signed into law by the President. However, the people who actually understand the spam problem are slamming this law, and a new UK anti-spam law, both of which will do little, if anything, to stop spam. In some cases, both laws can be seen to legalize certain forms of spam - which will be exploited as a loophole by just about every spammer with at least a few functioning brain cells. As the article points out, both laws are great if you believe that spammers are law-abiding, honest people. Otherwise, they're terrible. However, with all the talk (good and bad) about these spam laws, how come no one is asking how we're going to measure the success or failure of these laws? Everyone just assumes that they'll work (or they won't). Shouldn't we have a built in way to check up on the results six months from now and (more importantly) shouldn't there be a plan B in the likely event that these laws do nothing to slow the spam problem down?

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