Dana Blankenhorn sees possible new anti-spam legislation in the US as regressive enough to shut down small e-mail publishers. He says “If the present anti-spam legislation becomes law, I will have to close my newsletter, A-Clue.Com, effective at the end of the year.”

The point here is not that Dana is doing anything wrong with his list, or that he is even breaking the law. The is a business decision. Since it is easy to be accused under the proposed law and difficult to defend, it will become much more likely that e-mail newsletter owners will be taken to court. And since costs for defending these claims could be high, the value of the newsletter becomes negative and it make business sense to stop sending via e-mail.

Another firm vote for RSS, but also a very sad day for the once effective communication tool called the permission e-mail list.