Re: Spamming in California
I typically do not respond to the comments other attorneys make about my responses, but I must reply to Mr. Walton's claim that he is "appalled" by what he calls a "knee-jerk" analysis.
First off, I will yield to Mr. Walton's specialized knowledge on the subject of whether the applicable laws are federal or state. He says there are no federal laws regarding spam and he is more expert in this area than I am, so I must have erred in this aspect of my response.
However, my discussion of the requirements of the law is correct and is perfectly consistent with his, so I don't understand his attitude toward what I had to say. He writes as if I said it was illegal to send unsolicited bulk emails under any circumstances, but that is not what I wrote. I explained that there are laws which govern spamming, but I did not say they prohibit it. I said there are penalties for violations of these laws, but I did not say all spam would necessarily be in violation.
I stated that your plan to use a false return address is a violation, which wasn't quite correct, either -- you must provide either a valid return address or a toll-free telephone number so that recipients may contact you and have their addresses removed from your future mailings. Almost all legitimate mass email operations use the reply option instead of the toll-free number, but I should have explained this other option.
The bottom line, though, is that (as I explained) your plan to steal bandwidth and not let recipients know how to contact you is illegal, but there are ways to send bulk email legally. Mr. Walton must have misunderstood what I said; hopefully he will be as "appalled" by his own errors as he was by mine.
