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[Blake]

Ireland is tired of spam and is putting legislation into law that will fine spammers up to 250,000 Euros if convicted according to this siliconrepublic.com story. The story does not go into specifics of the law or what an email needs to contain in order to be in compliance (e.g. CAN-SPAM has several rules that marketers must follow in order to be compliant), but references "spammers" as a general term.

Lost in the noise of all of this let us not forget the difference between a "spammer" and a "spam message".

Spammers are people who send nothing but spam 100% of the time. Spammers utilize botnets to conceal the original message sender and utilize networks that they otherwise have no right or license to use.

Compare this to a (accidental) sender of a spam message.

Most ESPs occasionally sign up customers whose intentions are to use the ESPs network to send out email to purchased lists or to people who did not specifically opt-in to receive that mail. Of course, this is unbeknownst to the ESP until the email goes out and the complaints roll in about spamtrap hits, unknown user rates, and users hitting the "This is Spam" buttons in their webmail clients. The good ESPs will shut those folks down immediately and make them go troll their email elsewhere. Does this make these ESPs spammers? No. Are they culpable under this new law? Not sure yet, but those details will certainly come forward. READ MORE