> Is it my imagination or has the size of spam greatly increased? The capability of e-mail clients to show offsite graphics has improved. That is, your e-mail message can connect to the internet to display graphics that are located elsewhere, within the e-mail message.
Many very nice newsletters I get are formatted this way, and it doesn't appear to take up any space for the graphics on my e-mail account, since the graphics are usually REFERENCED TO (via HTML redirection) rather than INCLUDED IN the e-mail. The coding to do this is probably what is making the e-mail bigger, if the graphics were actually included, it would be 400-500K rather than the paltry 97k. > Lately, instead of getting URLs to web sites, I'm getting HTML > files with references to GIF or JPEG files that are attached to the > message. The worst I got recently was 97K! How large does spam have > to be before the federal government passes effective anti-spam laws?! Your e-mail client is downloading temporary graphics to display, and this does add to the bandwidth of the downloaded message, but in my understanding are not an embedded part of the message. But yah, it's still getting downloaded to your computer as an 'internet temp' file. All those graphics do go down your internet pipe, one way or another! > > When such laws ARE passed, I think the penalties should be greater > for those who send these large spam messages. For example, instead > of suing to enforce a flat charge for each individual instance of > spam (Re: that recent lawsuit in the Oregonian) it should have been > a charge per kilobyte. Unenforceable. Plus, IMHO, passing Federal laws against this is NOT proper use of Federal law, Federal laws have no jurisdiction of spam from other countries, for instance. It's within the realm (as the Oregonian lawsuit examples) of personal lawsuit, IF and ONLY IF you can identify the spammer, ONLY IF you can prove that they've been sending you large messages after repeated requests to desist. I understand your emotional outrage, but that cannot determine law. The quite legitimate Apple Computer QuickTime e-mail updates would have to pay exorbitant fees to send ads promoting new features (lots of HTML graphics). Not spam, it's good advertising that I read. Legitimate Post Mail Spam is probably the only thing keeping the Federal Post Office alive at the moment, considering how many personal messages are sent by E-mail rather than post lately. (is that why they're raising postage stamp prices!?) Microcharging per Kilobyte is not something that is billable, for technical reasons, I hope it NEVER becomes reality... I want to pay $50 per month for unlimited surfing on my DSL line, and unlimited (more or less) e-mail capability. I DON'T want to step into every website and get microcharged for content. That could add up to a LOT of money. What if I e-mailed someone who microcharged for incoming e-mails? Would I know? Would I have to digitally sign an agreement every time? I don't want that hassle! Content providers should be able to charge for content up front. But a built in system of payment would be abused. And don't forget, the criminal element who usually promotes the *stupid spam* has no regard for federal law, and will never be there to pay any imposed fees. It would be a bad thing to overcharge legitimate, and ethical companies to advertise via e-mails. Marjorie, I feel your pain. But I am in business for myself, and would not wish to be hit with a huge fine for e-mailing a prospect, however innocent that e-mail might be. Federal Law might put me in prison for that, if I couldn't pay the fine! Sorry for the length of this post. Lots of issues here. Keep asking the good questions Marjorie! Leland. _______________________________________________ spamcon-general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
