September 30th, 2005
Return of the Junk Fax
By Dan Mitchell
New York Times
In the hierarchy of annoying advertisers, the porn spammers and the pump-and-dump stock promoters dwell at the bottom. Not far above them are junk faxers, who spew unsolicited advertisements to your fax machine, using your phone line, your ink and your paper in the process.
Most junk faxes have been illegal since 1991. Since then, a federal law and Federal Communications Commission regulations have kept most machines free of unsolicited ads. But that may be changing. Why? "Because Congress just pumped new life into the junk fax industry," according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org), which issued a communication on the subject this week.
This summer, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Junk Fax Prevention Act. The "Orwellian-named" law removes one of the few protections against fax abuse, writes Chris Jay Hoofnagle, director for the center’s West Coast office in San Francisco. In a loophole similar to one in the Can-Spam Act, which has done essentially nothing to stem the tide of unsolicited commercial e-mail, businesses are allowed to junk-fax anyone with whom they have an "established business relationship."
"In effect," Mr. Hoofnagle writes, "this means that any business that you call or visit can fax you, even if you don’t give the business your fax number."
But "Bruce," commenting on Prawfsblawg, a blog started by a group of law professors, points out that the worst offenders will fax away regardless of any laws. "In my experience," he writes, "junk faxes don’t tend to come from businesses you’ve actually dealt with, but businesses you’ve never heard of and are exceedingly unlikely to ever patronize - the same as spam, really."
Comments
- Posted by david on October 20th, 2005
I use a fax machine in my home for personal use. One day I started getting junk faxes which cost me a lot of money in ink and paper. I tried calling the number at the bottom of the fax ads to have my number removed, but to no avail.
I filed a complaint with my local telephone company. They put a trace on my line which records where all the calls to my phone come from. I then reported the date and time of each junk fax call to the phone company who in turn give it to my local police department. A very professional sgt. at the police department wasted no time in contacting the local police where the junk faxers are located. This took place a couple years ago and I have received no junk faxes since.