CDR: Re: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers

[Jim Choate]

On Sun, 5 Nov 2000, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Well, let's take this up one level of abstraction. We can stop spam
> from flooding our inboxes (an economic bad) by:
> 1. law

"Congress shall make no law ...".

> 2. AUPs with backbone providers/hosting services (industry self-regulation)

I oppose these because I don't think some organization should have control
of my speech simply because I purchase a service from them. If I buy, for
example, a 128k ISDN line what the content of that 128k is most assuradely
isn't my providers interest. It violates the spirit of the 1st.

It is also clear that for any 'self-regulation' to be effective it must
fall into one of two, and only, categories. The first is a traditional
free market where the individuals make the decisionin in toto. The second
is the traditional control economy (where there is 3rd party involved in
the transaction). So, which sort of 'self-regulation' do you want,
autarchic or socialist?

Economics in general is not the way to set ethical standards.

> 3. cypherpunkly end-user technology

I obviously support anything an individual wishes to do with respect to
making choices, provided they don't involve me without consent. This
aspect should be pushed strongly.

4. social contracts (for those of anarchist and libertarian bent)

Considering human psychology, not bloody likely.

5. technical standards (ala Open Source)

Which raises the interesting point with respect to Lessig and his 'code is
law' theory and the real power of Open Source standards. It provides a
mechanism to prevent the exact sorts of scenarios that Lessig poses in his
book. The Open Source community has an opportunity to keep the technical
standards in the hands of the people and out of governmental influence.

In the case of physical spam, there are resource limitations that simply
aren't extant in a digital network. I believe that this distinction, under
appreciated by almost all, is going to sink any attempts at really
resolving this issue. I'm afraid we'll just have to live with spam, which
means our primary protection is #3 above.

To be honest, I don't think there is a lot of hope for the Open Source
movement to be this effective with respect to 'Open' technical standards.
Even though the cost of entry into the market is next to nil once the
product is written. Put it on the primary distribution site and it goes
out. I'm afraid this may be a case where the free market approach dies. My
own view will be because of the economics of greed. It seems to me that
most succesful open source authors do it because it helps their
professional career. As a result the projects they work on will be
strongly related to their professional interests as well. This, at least
in my mind, is one of the primary reasons we don't see the level of
innovation extant that is possible with this approach.

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