[extropy-chat] Re: SPAM (was Depressing Thought. from Laurenceof Berkeley)

[kevinfreels at hotmail.com]

> You don't truly believe that people will only send you the
> mail in the way you want it to be sent, do you?
>
> If you do, your belief conflicts with your mailbox ...
>
No, but I do believe it could be regulated a bit. Here is what I don;t
understand, and maybe someone can clear this up.

OK. Currently, the sending of unsolicited email is illegal. Unfortunately,
the only penalty the senders seem to be paying is to have their sites
tracked down.
Now it is my understanding that these people are doing this in order to make
money from a website at some end point. Otherwise, they wouldn;t send the
spam.
So I see this as one possibility.
1.) Make the penalties stiffer with fines which increase with each instance.
2.) Make a standard set of subject lines for each industry
3.) Heavy fines or jail time for those who intentionally mislead in the
subject lines

Tracking the people should be as easy as having a task force follow a link
to their website, making a small purchase on a credit card, and following
the money. The FBI is very good at following funds. I don;t understand why
this should be any different. All it lacks is a real desire to tackle the
problem.

Am I missing anything here?