Send the following response to anyone who sends you junk e-mail. Change the subject of your response to: "Legal Notice Regarding Junk E-mail/Spam". You might also want to reword the first sentence to specify your exact e-mail address. Also send a copy of your reply to:
postmaster@(their address)Be sure to include the complete original spam including all header information. Simply copy the original spam and its header information after the legal notice. Also remove any residual CCs and BCCs in your e-mail header - you don't want to inadvertantly propogate the spam!
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Legal Notice Regarding Junk E-mail/Spam
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
Unsolicited and/or commercial email is not permitted at this address;
immediately remove the address from which this email was sent from any
mailing lists you may be using. Your address has been recorded
automatically and any future mailings to this account will result in
your being billed for message transmission and storage services at a
flat rate of $100.00 per message received.
Your receipt of this email communication constitutes legal notice and
acceptance of this policy. This is the only notice you will receive.
Bills left unpaid after 30 days will be forwarded to your service
provider and assessed a 50% late fee. After 60 days unpaid bills will be
referred to applicable credit reporting and collection agencies.
A second unsolicited email to this account will also result in action
against you under the terms of applicable U.S. law, including Title 47,
Sec.227(b)(1)(C) of the U.S. Code, as follows:
US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C):
"It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to
use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device
to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile
machine"
A "telephone facsimile machine" is defined in Sec.227(a)(2)(B) as:
"equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or images
(or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular
telephone line onto paper."
Under this definition, an e-mail account, modem, computer and printer
together constitute a fax machine.
The rights of action are as follows. Under Sec.227(b)(3)(B):
"A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or
rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of
that State --
(A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the
regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin
such violation,
(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a
violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such
violation, whichever is greater, or
(C) both such actions. If the court finds that the defendant
willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the
regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court
may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award
to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount
available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph."