28 wins, and counting
Secretary of
State Websites
The AEA is a fairly powerful lobby, so we
need your help. Sign this
online petition to tell the California Legislature and the AEA
that California citizens support the fight against false & deceptive spam.In 2004, California was about to have the strongest anti-spam law in the country (Business & Professions Code § 17529), until it was largely preempted by the federal SURE-GO-AHEAD-YOU-CAN-SPAM Act. It is generally acknowledged that CAN-SPAM was a failure; the amount of spam has increased dramatically since then. CAN-SPAM even made much spam legal, as long as it meets certain conditions.
But, even as federal law mostly preempted state anti-spam laws, Congress expressly allowed the states to regulate false & deceptive commercial email, 15 U.S.C. § 7707(b), so Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.5 is still in effect.
However, some spammers have been able to exploit loopholes and ambiguities in the law, and judges don't always understand the technology.
Which is why I co-wrote a stronger anti-spam law for California, which is currently working its way through the California Legislature as AB 2950, sponsored by Assembly Member Jared Huffman.
The San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report on the bill.
Importantly, the bill only targets false &
deceptive commercial email... and last time I checked, there is no
First Amendment right to false & deceptive commercial speech.
Companies that advertise in truthful email will not be impacted by
the new bill. So you have to wonder, Who is
going to oppose a bill that only targets falsity & deception?
Answer: the
American Electronics Association is opposing the bill.
Which is odd, because reducing false & deceptive spam – in addition
to benefitting consumers – will also benefit AEA member
companies, as ISPs, as recipients of commercial email, and as
legitimate advertisers. Although the AEA publicly promised to
work with us to strengthen current law, it turns out their problem
is actually with current law, in particular, the fact that the law
holds the advertisers strictly liable for advertising in false &
deceptive spam sent by their affiliates. But the fact is,
advertisers are [unjustly] enriched by false & deceptive spam, so
they should be held liable.
The AEA has agreed to several minor changes to current law
(clarifying venue, specifying statute of limitations, and adding
standing for district/city attorneys), but objects to the real
substantive proposals (adding injunctive power, specifying that
false domain registrations violate the law, prohibiting deliberate
misspellings in subject lines and sending spam from multiple domain
names to deceive spam filters) and is trying to weaken the
attorneys'-fees-for-prevailing-plaintiff provision, which is common
for consumer protection statutes.
The AEA is a fairly powerful lobby, so we
need your help. Sign this
online petition to tell the California Legislature and the AEA
that California citizens support the fight against false & deceptive spam.
Contact your
Assembly Member and
Senator to let them know that you expect them to vote for a
stronger California law prohibiting false & deceptive spam.
|
You can copy & paste the text below:
Dear Assembly Member /
Senator _______________: |
