NationStates Jolt Archive

The Anarchic Communuty of Bearbrass encourages everyone to vote against the spam proposal.

It will waste money and damage our economies. It will require legitimate business to comply with costly and time-consuming regulation.

It will not work. Anyone wanting to send spam will still be able to do so, using a non-UN member as a base. Just as, in the real world, the USA's efforts to block spam don't work: they are a real cost to legitimate non-US businesses that have some dealings with the US, but do absolutely nothing to prevent spammers operating from Nigeria, Pacific Islands, or anywhere else outside the US.

The ways to deal with spam are:
(1) technological - filters are improving, and within 2-3 years will have substantially mitigated the problem;
(2) individual and collective responsibility for your own destiny: if you don't like the way a business does its marketing, then don't buy from it. Organise others to join a boycott. Don't expect the government to legislate all your problems away for you!

So what should we do about resolutions like this in future? What about proposing a resolution that imposes the tax burden for this kind of resolution on the people who vote for it? That is, if you support the resolution, you have to subsidise the tax burden of UN members who voted against it. This could be done by working out the tax cost of the measure and:
- if you voted in favour of it, your economy bears 150% of the standard cost;
- if you voted against it, your economy bears just pay 50% of the standard cost;
- if you didn't vote, you pay the standard cost.

What do others think? Is it worth proposing a resolution like this?

(1) technological - filters are improving, and within 2-3 years will have substantially mitigated the problem;
This is true as far as it goes, but this only prevents messages being read. To stop the big problem that spam creates, (using large amounts of resouces unessesarily by flooding servers with millions of unessesary e-mails), there needs to be a way to stop them being sent.

As for 150% of the tax burden to countries who approve the proposal, you'll probably find you don't have all that much support.

firstly, the tax burden thing - the point of the un is that all members abide by its resolutions whether you voted for them or not. its just like a country - the fact that you voted against a tax hike does not mean that you don't have to pay for it, otherwise the system would fall aprt. i accept that dealing with spam is very difficult, and the resolution is unlikey to stamp it out entirely due to the reasons you put forth. however, it is the un's duty to frown upon that which is wrong and spam can probably be counted as that. we must send a message to those that send this crap out that what they are doing is wrong, so that the technology when it is available has its full legal backing.

Jixie

While getting rid of spam is a worthy goal, the pending proposal is not a proper way to do it. It provides a way for a moderately clever hacker to destroy a legitimate, law-abiding business. The hacker would simply drop an e-mail list on the server of the target business and generate an e-mail to that list soliciting clients for that business. A single such attack by a hacker, under the current proposal, could expose a business to millions of dollars of liability.

There are other, better solutions available for getting rid of spam.

Spam should be dealt with by market forces. Spammers conduct this activity for one reason, IT PAYS!. If consumers (recepients) refuse to respond to the annoying messages they get, in time spam will disappear. If a radio or television advertisement illicits an unfavorable reaction, it is discontinued. No business, legimate or otherwise, is going to expend any resources if doing so does not increase revenues. Stop buying crap for spammers.... NO SPAM! No need for official intervention, and the ensueing unforseen and regretable consequences

- if you voted in favour of it, your economy bears 150% of the standard cost;
- if you voted against it, your economy bears just pay 50% of the standard cost;
- if you didn't vote, you pay the standard cost.



We think that the idea is excellent, though it would never pass. We also think that the UN needs to address the broader issue of unfunded mandates. Much UN legislation inflicts high costs on member states, costs which are easier for larger, wealthier states to pay for, while smaller states are stuck footing a bill disproportionate to their economic means.

Some other governmental institutions have legislation banning unfunded mandates on subordinate institutions. We are hesitant to support this at the international level because it might mean the UN would simply raise their membership dues to cover funding, but we would be interested in suggestions on how to address the problem. At the least, we would suggest that the UN must do an economic impact report on the affect of their legislation on member states and provide a funding clause in legislation. We would appreciate further suggestions.

The ways to deal with spam are:
(1) technological - filters are improving, and within 2-3 years will have substantially mitigated the problem;
(2) individual and collective responsibility for your own destiny: if you don't like the way a business does its marketing, then don't buy from it.

1) Spammers continually find ways around filters, although I'm sure better filters will decrease the spam, no filter is perfect. What about the problem of legitmate emails getting labeled as spam? Some people don't use filters because they are afraid of this. Better filters won't help them.
2) I know no one who has ever bought Vi@gra online, or the guarenteed to make you attractive pills. I didn't sign up for it, I don't buy it but I'm still getting it.

This proposal is idiotic and not well thought out. I would have voted for it if it wasnt the banning of SPAM more as requiring all spam users to set up a system where they can take their email off the list of the system like the bill recently passed by Congress for Telemarketers. So therefore i vote no.

The Democratic Republic of Kreeckia does not support any resolution that will hurt or restrict it's citizens private business. There are exceptions but this resolution does not meet the criteria, SPAM is a public nusance but not a matter for legislation by government.

We simply cannot allow the governments of the world to dictate how a private company markets it's product. If as it has already been proposed the people do not agree with the way a company markets than boycotts are in order and then and only then should the governments of the world support a boycott of business on the federal finance level. :shock:

Valena said:


1) Spammers continually find ways around filters, although I'm sure better filters will decrease the spam, no filter is perfect. What about the problem of legitmate emails getting labeled as spam? Some people don't use filters because they are afraid of this. Better filters won't help them.
2) I know no one who has ever bought Vi@gra online, or the guarenteed to make you attractive pills. I didn't sign up for it, I don't buy it but I'm still getting it.

1) The filters don't need to be perfect, they just need to be good enough to cause a substantial drop in the profits of the spammers, and then spamming will die away. There are powerful economic reasons why spamming needs to be curtailed; much research is devoted to the problem; and it will be successful in due course. There is no need for governments to blunder around trying to solve it - their efforts will create cost, and cause unintended problems.

2) Bearbrass accepts Valena's assurances in relation to Vi@gra. But could there be a significant other in Valena's life who wishes Valena to give it a try, and has secretly arranged for the encouraging emails to be sent?

There are currently some open source software choices for combatting with junk mail, some of them being e-mail clients, one of them which is a decent pop/imap (usually ISP email addy) free client called Mozilla Thunderbird, with spam detection on, it usually removes spam instantly. http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird

The Democratic States of Guyonia are appalled that such a poorly-thought out proposal should be put forward for the UN to consider, but is heartened that most nations contributing to this thread feel likewise. In which case, can anyone explain why, at this time, only 14.4% of UN members who have voted on the proposal were against it?

If this proposal passes, the Government of Guyonia will certainly consider putting forward a referendum requesting of the Guyonian people their opinion on the matter of leaving the UN until such time as other nations' governments stop trying to foist nonsensical policies upon us.