Ban On Spam?

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Ban on Spam?

Since the early days of the Internet with it’s slow connections, to today’s high tech version that plays a major function in everyday business, most advancements have been positive ones. Unfortunately one advancement that has not is Junk E-mail. These junk e-mails, (also known as “Spam”) can be described as useless messages are plaguing our Internet Service Providers (ISP) mail systems. The result of this is slower connections, a loss of time and of money. Therefore, in this work we will explore effects of Spam, (negative and positive) and will even decide if it is possible to make this practice an illegal one, even with the protection of our Constitutional First Amendment rights
The question of whether or not junk emails could actually be made illegal does not have a short or easy answer. Yes it is true that these mails slow down many ISP servers by the massive amount of traffic they create, but do they really cause that much of a problem? Years before many of the current telemarketing laws were passed, companies could call whenever they felt that people were home, and attempted to pass on a good (and many times bad) deal to the consumer. This resulted in calls ranging from the early morning, to dinnertime, and lasting until the late hours of the evening. Now clearly this was a problem that needed to be alleviated. In contrast to the ring of each telephone throughout a person’s home, an E-mail box simply shows that a mail has been sent. In this case of E-mails, users can simply click on their delete button and the mail would be no more, that’s it. This gives companies who use Spam as a commercial tool a valid point. In addition, they also have a friend called the First Amendment on their side.
The 1st amendment is thus far most likely the reason that Spam has not been made illegal, or controlled by the Federal government. Clearly stating that, “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the freedom of speech, or of the press…” law makers are desperately attempting to find a loophole to gaining legal action against Spam. Despite the opposition of some free-speech advocates, the legislation is creeping closer to the House floor.
Now for such legislation to be put into law, a bill would have to be proposed in the House of Representatives. A committee would devise a Bill and once debaters of both sides finished their arguments, a vote would take place.

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