Irvine Firm’s Tactic : Businessman Outfaxes Self in a Faux Pas
Irvine businessman Steve Ridinger has learned the “fax” of life: that flooding a governor’s facsimile machine with unsolicited letters is no way to protest a bill that would outlaw such so-called “junk-fax” correspondence.
Connecticut Gov. William A. O’Neill was so incensed by the hundreds of letters that jammed his machine last week that he signed a bill on Tuesday to restrict the use of fax machines to send unsolicited messages.
The letters--none invited, of course--urged a veto. O’Neill didn’t care. And Ridinger is rueful.
Because the lobbying effort was the backfiring brainchild of Ridinger, who is president of Mr. Fax, an Irvine company that sells fax paper, and an organizer of the National Fax Users Committee.
“Letter writing makes more sense,” Ridinger said Wednesday, conceding that his effort was probably ill-advised.
The committee is an informal group of facsimile machine users with a post office box in Mission Viejo. Late last week, the group faxed hundreds of one-page protest flyers to Connecticut businesses, asking that the messages be relayed to the governor.
The group tried to emphasize in their letters that facsimile machines provide a fast, cost-effective means of conducting business.
O’Neill was angered by the lobbying effort because the unsolicited messages tied up the machine, while his office was awaiting word on flood conditions in the state.
“Frankly, last week was the first time the need for this legislation was brought home to me,” O’Neill stated when he signed the bill Tuesday.
Governor’s aide Jon Sandberg said: “We tried to reach them to tell them that this was an ill-conceived campaign.”
Connecticut’s law is the first of its kind passed in the nation. It allows people receiving unsolicited messages via fax to seek up to $200 in damages. Fifteen other states, including California, are considering such measures.
A bill pending in Maryland would impose a fine of up to $1,000 on anyone attempting to fax messages to sell goods, services or real estate, unless the receiver gave prior permission or a previous business relationship existed between sender and receiver.
The National Fax Users Committee also mounted a fax lobbying campaign in Maryland. And, as in Connecticut, the governor’s office was not pleased when it received more than 300 fax messages last Thursday.
An aide to the governor called the campaign counterproductive, saying it might persuade Gov. William D. Schaefer to sign the restrictive legislation.
Two junk-fax bills currently are wending their way through the California Legislature, said Dan Friedlander, staff member of state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco), who wrote the Senate’s version.
The identical California bills are short enough to fit on half a sheet of fax paper and probably wouldn’t take but a few seconds to transmit. Senate Bill 487 and Assembly Bill 576 state:
“No person shall use a machine that electronically transmits messages or facsimiles of documents through connection with a telephone network to transmit unsolicited advertising material for the sale of any realty, goods, or services. Any violation of this section is a misdemeanor.”
The maximum fine would be $2,500, Friedlander said. A federal junk-fax bill is set for a hearing before a House subcommittee next week.
Ridinger’s company sells facsimile paper to about 30,000 customers, including 5,000 in California. The firm advertises by sending facsimile transmissions to 500,000 fax users nationwide.
In an interview Wednesday, Ridinger stressed that the amount of junk fax is relatively small. The average fax user gets 50 to 100 junk fax messages annually, he said, out of a total of 4,000 fax messages.
Most faxed material is business-to-business correspondence and not “publisher clearinghouse” type of material, said Elliott Segal, vice president of Mr. Fax.
The result of the lobbying effort was “frustrating,” Segal said, “because our intent was not to aggravate but to inform.”
Times staff writer Maria L. La Ganga contributed to this story.
