>Massachusetts House Bill 4581, intro'd June 12, 1997
>AN ACT RELATIVE TO UNSOLICITED ELECTRONIC MAIL
>
>SECTION 1. Chapter 166 of the General Laws is hereby amended by
>inserting after section 42B the following section:-
>
> Section 42C. Except as otherwise provided herein, a person shall
>not send or cause to be sent unsolicited electronic mail to solicit the
>purchase of real property, goods, or services.
>
> The provisions of this section shall not apply to unsolicited
>mail that is sent to a person who has a pre-existing business
>relationship with the sender.
>
> As used in this section, "electronic mail" means an electronic
>message that is transmitted between two or more computers or electronic
>terminals. The term shall include an electronic message that is
>transmitted through a local, regional or global network of computers,
>regardless of whether the message is viewed by the recipient, stored for
>later retrieval, or printed on paper after receipt.
Let's see. "An electronic message that is transmitted between two or more computers" Sounds like usenet news to me.
Are ISPs going to turn off misc.jobs.offered? misc.jobs.contract? What about ne.jobs? Too bad that this bill is about to ban them. The ISP's that don't will be fined, too, if the enforcement language is added, that I saw being discussed.
The commercial job shoppers that advertise in these news groups certainly "aren't paying", according to the anti-spammers definition.
I think that the difference is that they don't annoy the anti-spammers. These job shoppers just quietly go about their business, and don't engae people in flame wars. And they have been around for a long time, so no one really noticed that they ever weren't there.
"Local, regional, or global network" sounds like interstate commerce to me. Sounds like a quick stop in Federal court, and this law is gone.
I just want to illustrate that this is a very poorly thought out law.