Spamming

[James C. Sewell]

At 06:09 PM 8/20/96 -0700, Rich Graves wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Vipul Ved Prakash wrote:
>
>> I don't know if there has been much discussion on the ethics of spamming
>> here? Is spamming free speech? 
>
>Yes.

No.  I think we can all (most) agree that spam-email is like junk-snailmail.
In that case there are a few things to consider:

  1. Junkmail requires the SENDER to pay for it, not the recipient.
  2. Junkmail is under the full authority of the Postmaster.  If
     they do anything illegal they have an authority to which they
     must answer and may face criminal charges for.
  3. You can't legally stuff mailboxes by driving around the neighborhood.
     It is against the law for me to walk up to your mailbox and put 
     something in it.  Should the same be true of emailboxes?
  4. Junkmail is usually at a lower priority than "real" mail and 
     due to costs is usually easily identifiable.  Email isn't.

  And one relating to only email:

     I don't want to have to spend 10 minutes letting Eudora sort
     through my mailbox because my filter rules are so numerous and
     complex due to me trying to block spam.

  We must remember that the First Amendment does not allow us to say
any thing at any time via any medium we choose.  There are limits
to it, usually in the name of public safety and harassment.  There
should be similar limits in the Internet.
  I'm not saying we shouldn't let you tell others how get rich quick
but that you should not be allowed to mail to *@*.* just to tell the
world how great we are.

 Jim

Jim Sewell - jims at tansoft.com    Tantalus Incorporated - Key West, FL