Ask HN: Will GDPR kill junk mail and email spam? - sgroppino
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usgroup
...in effect, yes it should because for you to have access to the email
address would have required user opt-in. IMO, it'll likely be the end of
volume based outbound email strategies in Europe.

I think resultantly the expenditure on inbound (e.g. ads) will increase, which
will drive prices up, which will drive infrastructure investment in things
like programmatic TV, and generally speaking more inbound channels.

If business was joint at the hip with advertising; it will be moreso after
25/05.

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BjoernKW
Spamming is illegal already. The people and organisations doing this don't
care about the law.

So, no additional EU regulation will achieve anything in terms of email spam.

Due to inherent limitations of the protocols used for email it's also hard to
identify and track down spammers, which is why authorities couldn't do a lot
about it even if they wanted to (and most spammers weren't outside their
jurisdiction anyway).

I think save for new email protocols that verify the identity of the sender
unfortunately, spam is just a fact of modern life. Modern spam filters
adequately deal with this problem.

Speaking of identity, there's another more eminent spam problem authorities
actually could do something about but for one reason or another are oblivious
to: Phone spam. Those automated or auto-dialed calls are really annoying (and
harmful to those gullible enough to fall for whatever scheme is sold during
the call) and there's not much you can do against them with reasonable effort
yourself.

Authorities on the other hand could because in contrast to email addresses
phone numbers are heavily regulated and the identity of the caller is usually
known.

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Rjevski
Junk mail is already more or less illegal in many countries - those that
continue are fine with breaking the law so I don't think they will care about
_yet another_ law.

