Senator tackles spam and RFID
Published: 03 Sep 2003 15:10 BST
Senator, the last time you spoke with us on the spam issue, your SB 12 had just gone down to defeat in committee, while a competing bill that Microsoft supported prevailed. You warned at the time that amendments to that competing bill would come to light, and yours would live to fight another day. What's happened?
Most of the SB 12 contents have gone into what was a competing bill. So, the bills have in effect been merged, and many of the items I was concerned about have been removed from the bill. The current measure that is still alive in the legislature looks a great deal like SB 12.
What's the status of that bill?
I believe it's on the assembly floor. We should be seeing it back in the Senate for concurrence fairly soon.
What's your view of the way federal lawmakers are approaching the spam fight?
I'm concerned that the bills in the US Congress, which require people to actively opt out of spam, are worse than nothing. They don't solve the problem. They legitimise spam, and they put the burden on computer users to deal with it. It does this despite having certain knowledge that most spammers are hard to track down, don't maintain opt-out lists and move their email addresses all the time.
They basically expect that spammers are going to become good boys and girls and keep a list of everyone that's asked to be removed from their spam lists, and I think they are extremely naive. We need to go the other way. People need to have control over their in-boxes, and we need a national permission-based standard.
You held a hearing last month about RFID. What worries you about the technology?
Well, the concern is not the technology itself, which is neutral. It is what happens if the tag gets attached to the identity of the purchaser through, for example, payment by credit card. Then you suddenly have a tag that has also recorded the identity of the purchaser and, as we heard at the hearing, you could have a situation in which you have a scanner or antenna in a doorway.
If a tag was embedded in a pair of sneakers, the sneakers could provide a link to identify the shoes' owner when she walks through the doorway. So it is the loss of privacy that is the concern with RFID tagging.
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