> What to do? Someone sent me this bit of info, and I was wondering if
> anyone has heard of this:
> ****
> Unsolicited advertizing e-mail to any computer with an attached printer is a
> violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1992 [TCPA]47 USC 227 and
> FCC 47 CFR 64.1200. The illegal e-mailer owes the recipient of such e-mail $500
> for each violation. This can and has been upheld by many courts across the
> country.
This is misleading. It's true that it, the statute, has been upheld in
many courts across the country, but the statute prohibits unsolicited
faxes, and that's how it's been upheld. The paragraph Wolfram quotes
however, makes it look as if the sentence immediately preceding, that it
applies to junk mail as well as to faxes, has been upheld in many courts.
In fact, the question hear never been ruled upon by any court.
There is a suit that was just filed on this basis, on December 26, in U.S
District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, in Erie, Pa.
There are no rulings yet. The theory of the case is that a junk email
recipient's computer is a fax machine within the definition of the
statute, which is A "telephone facsimile machine" is defined as "equipment
which has the capacity (A) to transcribe text or images, or both, from
paper into an electronic signal and to transmit that signal over a regular
telephone line, or (B) to transcribe text or images (or both) from an
electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper."
The problems with this line of reasoning are that a) it's clear that
Congress did not have email in mind when it enacted the statute, and the
transcripts of all the floor discussions, committee reports, etc., bear
this out, and some other provisions of the Act are inconsistent with this
interpretation, and b) if it's correct, than a lot of nonjunk mail
violates the Act, too (e.g., it's illegal to send an email from a computer
that does not automatically add your telephone number).
-- Terry Carroll | "Al Gore is doing for the federal government what Santa Clara, CA | he did for the Macarena. He's removing all the carroll@tjc.com | unnecessary steps." Modell delenda est | - Bill Clinton, September 20, 1996
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