CDR: Re: [Spam wars, continued...]

Greg Broiles gbroiles at netbox.com
Tue Nov 7 11:46:18 PST 2000


On Tue, Nov 07, 2000 at 10:50:25AM -0800, Eric Murray wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 06, 2000 at 08:37:31PM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
> > I agree with Jim that anti-spam laws are bad in principle;
> > in practice they're usually worse :-)
> > Some kinds of cypherpunks technology don't involve the law; some do.  
> > For instance, user-supplied filters can trigger libel laws
> > ("Hey, your filter called me a SPAMMER!  I'll SUE!").
> 
> Maybe I'm too limited in my thinking, but I don't see this actually
> happening with usr-level filtering.  Mostly for the simple reason that
> it doesn't make sense to send anything back to the spammer. 

Even if they did, there's no argument for defamation liability - 
all of the popular flavors of defamation (slander, libel, invasion
of privacy) require that the defamatory content be made available
to third parties (e.g., not the plaintiff nor the defendant). 

User-configured spam blockers don't create risk of defamation
(or interference with contract, etc.) liability - but supplying
block lists to other users does.

However, there's a line of caselaw which says that there's an
exception to traditional defamation liability, where the speaker
acts with a good purpose, to warn others of a perceived danger;
perhaps that would be a useful approach for the MAPS people
to take. They're the ones with their necks on the chopping
blocks. 

--
Greg Broiles gbroiles at netbox.com
PO Box 897
Oakland CA 94604






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