Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest counties in the US. It’s also one of the most liberal and the council is mad. Now this:

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) - A Montgomery County judge has thrown a wrench into Maryland’s tough anti-spam law.

Judge Durke Thompson has ruled that the law is unconstitutional because it seeks to regulate commerce outside the state’s borders.

Thompson’s opinion was filed late last week. The judge threw out a case brought against a New York e-mail marketer by a George Washington University law student.

Maryland was the first state to pass a law penalizing people who send mass e-mail. But now, more than three dozen states have anti-spam laws on the books, so the ruling could have implications elsewhere.

Laws in California and Washington were declared unconstitutional on grounds similar to Thompson’s ruling in Maryland. But higher courts overturned those decisions.