SIOTEL STOP SPAM

Part 1:
We feel that our email accounts, being a communication medium that is considered to be within our personal domains, should be subject to the same privacy conventions and laws as any other means of communication which is considered to be within our personal domains. These other communication mediums include our land-line telephones, facsimile machines, and cellular telephones, amongst others. These other means of communication have certain limits placed upon them with regards to whether, when and how commercial marketing messages can be disseminated through them.

Part 2:
We feel that, much like the facsimile machine, the ability to shift the cost of delivery of emails from the sender to the receiver of those emails, lends this communication medium to much abuse at the hands of unscrupulous individuals or entities. Indeed, much abuse already takes place. Because of this, we feel that the only effective means of stopping this abuse is to require all email marketers to utilize double-opt-in marketing, under strict penalty of law.

Part 3:
We feel that the classification of email as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) or UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email), commonly known as 'spam', hinges not upon content, but upon consent. Without our consent, no spam email should arrive at our email accounts. It matters not whether the email in question carries legitimate header information, is sent from the sender's true IP address, carries tag lines such as 'ADV:' or 'ADLT:'. If we did not consent to receiving that email, it is a violation of the sanctity and privacy of an extension of our personal domain, namely our email accounts. Because of the cost-shifting characteristics of email, it is somewhat akin to someone accosting us against our wills in our own homes, yelling marketing messages at us, then forcing us to pay them for their time and trouble of delivering those marketing messages!

Part 4:
We believe the governmental organizations dedicated to stemming the abuse associated with spam should focus on a 'top down' approach, meaning that they should focus their efforts on the most prolific of the professional spammers first, in an attempt to bring these professional spammers' email marketing operations either in compliance with the public's wishes (double-opt-in marketing) or have these professional spamming operations disbanded.

Part 5:
We believe that spam email has become such a burden to our everyday personal and business lives that something must be done immediately. We believe this to be a large enough issue that it could possibly sway our choice in elections to those candidates who take a stance on spam more in tune with the public's wishes.