Originally Posted by mithrilG60

As a general rule I disagree with that, look no further than the recent melt downs in the real estate, financial and employment markets to illustrate that the free market is incapable of being effectively self-regulating. Free-market self-policing allows too much latitude for natural human greed to take over and spiral things out of control.

That said, in this context it's mostly correct simply because there's absolutely no way any gov't can regulate spam. The only way any gov't can regulate a company that exists entirely in the digital domain is if that company has physical foothold in the country. Most of the mass email marketing company's have their base of operations in unregulated regions such as Russia and 3rd world nations that care more about the tax base than the actions of the company. Such a company isn't going to give a rats arse about the US (or any other foreign) gov't passing anti-spam laws simply because there's no realistic way of enforcing any of the penalties associated with them.