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Polticians Against Spam... Unless They're The Ones Spamming
from the it's-all-in-the-semantics dept
Have you ever noticed how politicians often create laws that don't apply to them? We've reported in the past plenty of times about political spam and even called out a few would be politicians for spamming. Of course, when called on it, the politicians always try to squirm out of it and redefine spam so that their emails aren't spam. Take a look at this situation in Florida, where the Attorney General, Charlie Crist, pushed hard for tough anti-spam laws in the state. However, now that he's running for governor, he's apparently spamming away at the voters, trying to generate support for his campaign. When confronted about this, a spokesperson for the campaign redefines spam to make it okay: "This is not spam. This is truthful, it's straight forward. We're honest. To be spam it has to be, under Florida law, defined as being deceptive." So, it's okay to fill up everyone's email box with unwanted emails as long as your honest about it? That's one way to look at it -- though, most people (by which we mean, most voters) tend to consider any unsolicited, unwanted bulk email as spam.
Reader Comments
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Have you ever met a truely poor politician?
... seriously this is like comedy. The entire administration is under fire from every direction on every screw-up you could think of. They're putting out fires is what they're showing you right. You don't pay very close attention then like most people.
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Re: Have you ever met a truely poor politician?
Oh and yay the strike is over.... any coverage of the oddity
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Strike
Its a shame its over too. The ones getting really screwed on that deal were the "Labor" Unions. Have you ever noticed that when the union gets you a 3% pay increase it asks you to give them 4% more of your income for the "privelage" of being represented by them? I know my actual income has been steadily decreasing ever since I joined the union just because my worthless union. Back before I became a union worker I was making way more money, and the amount I was making was actually going up.
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spam
Spam is just a pain period.
Politicians may think they are getting their message out, but I would like to see a non-partisan study detailing how many people actually read this stuff.
When I get it, I glaze over and toss it unread into the garbage can. When it turns up on my email I filter it out or use instant delete.
If there is a person out there who actually reads spam I would like to hear from them.
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Re: spam
Read it? Hell, I now have a 37" penis!
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Exactly
Besides being a Florida citizen, I'm aware of all the crap the politicans do to try and get me to vote for them. While I haven't had any spam from Charlie Crist just yet, I do remember the painful presidential election last year. Somehow no matter what filters you apply, political crap invades your inbox. This despite the fact that I may or may not of already decided on who I'm going to vote for. Then there are the automatic telephone calls, because nobody likes to talk to a real person, right?
I'm tired of it, who I vote for is my private decision and they have no right to get up in my face to tell me why I should do this or that. Especially when they aren't going to do so in a way that is even respectful of my potential vote. Gee, maybe the politicans could get a clue instead of treating us like cattle. Its hard to be convinced that they have my interest at heart when they're treating me like an idiot and wasting my time.
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spam?
oh, goodie. so I don't have to worry about prosecution when sending massive amounts of my jahova's witness conversion persuasion messages.
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Paradox
Let's get this clear. Under Florida law, email is only "spam" if it's deceptive.
- Suppose I send out a lot of bulk email from a Florida ISP, all labelled "spam".
- This means it's not deceptive, so it's legal, and it's not spam.
- But I just labelled this legal email "spam". That's deceptive! So it is illegal spam after all.
- Goto 2.
Florida collapses into a hyperspace bubble, saving the rest of the world from its politicians.(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
times are tough
I've nailed the RNC for not only spamming, but
spamming with email lists that are quite ancient.
Nothing like getting political spam to email
accounts which have been inactive for 10 years!
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Goofy
At first I thought so too, but after reviewing the Florida law, the spokesman is correct in that it may not have been Spam.
The law is worded in a tricky way. From what I understand, as long as nothing about the email is false, anyone could legally send you thousands of spam and you'd be SOL, unable to stop them.
Although I suppose I'm not surprised. Leave it to Florida, the hanging-chad capital of the world, to goof up yet something else. The law misses the point of what spam is.
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