Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
I think it's more about the principle of it. No sane, sensible, tolerant person would go as far as to try to regulate spam. Or, indeed, UBE-friendly ISPs. But bulk mailing is such reprehensible behavior that it surely deserves a pile of social and technological sanctions. Blacklisting, shunning, DoS attacks and teergrube-kinda software immediately spring to mind, a combination of the first and last perhaps being the least intrusive. I totally fail to grasp why governments seem so intent on criminalizing most such measures. To me they seem like the essential ingredients of basic cyber-hygiene.
I guess it's just that govs see that they're losing power and thus are scrambling to get themselves involved everywhere. or, on a slightly less malicious scale, they're equally desperately trying to show that they *do* have something of consequence to contribute. maybe DMCA (as much as I hate it) and the breaking of micro$oft (as much as I love it) both stem from the same emotional source.