One reason commercial e-mailers struggle with Unspam CEO Matthew Prince—struggle being a euphemism for “would like to see pushpins jammed into his gums”—is that he uses intellectually dishonest arguments to defend his parasitic business model.
Unspam runs so-called “child protection” do-not-email registries for Utah and Michigan. Marketers who want to include references to anything it is illegal for minors to view or buy are supposed to scrub their lists against these registries once a month for $5 per thousand addresses checked in Utah and $7 in Michigan—an extortionary scheme that threatens to price law-abiding e-mailers who send even such harmless messages as beer-brewing tips out of e-mail.
Prince has lobbied for these laws across the country, helped craft the bills, and has made clear he wants them passed in as many states as possible.
Now comes news that Prince claims his scheme is an experiment in democracy.
In a recent article in Tooele County, Utah’s Transcript Bulletin, Prince claims he believes having states create and tinker with anti-spam e-mail laws will help bring about a successful solution for battling unsolicited e-mail that others can replicate.
“This country is strong because it is a bunch of little democracies,” he was quoted as saying. “The good ideas rise to the top.”
Prince’s statement is true. But he isn’t advocating for a bunch of ideas to be played out in a bunch of little democracies. He’s lobbying in state after state for one industry-crushing, irresponsibly bad law that is essentially cookie-cutter in all but the smallest details.
Moreover, his argument works only if the effects of individual states’ actions are contained. In the case of so-called “child protection” no-e-mail laws, every commercial e-mailer is forced to operate under Michigan and Utah’s onerous regulations because e-mail addresses generally don’t have geographical information attached to them. And each state that enacts a Prince-inspired anti-spam law places an even heavier burden on companies that are already law abiding while doing nothing to solve the problem of unsolicited e-mail. This is exactly why the federal government passed Can-Spam, remember?
While Unspam’s CEO pretends to school us in Democracy, his company makes a mockery of it.
In a recent article in Tooele County, Utah’s Transcript Bulletin, Prince claims he believes having states create and tinker with anti-spam e-mail laws will help bring about a successful solution for battling unsolicited e-mail that others can replicate.
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