From: chris230@juno.com (Chris J Samuelson)
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:48:06 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Spamming
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960821145232.006fe294@tansoft.com>
Message-ID: <19960821.170816.6486.1.chris230@juno.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Wed, 21 Aug 1996 10:52:32 -0400 "James C. Sewell" <jims@MPGN.COM>
writes:
>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@tansoft.com    Tantalus Incorporated - Key West, FL
>
>
Why should the spammers pay for it, any more than anyone else should. 
They are still 
in some way paying for the E-Mail I assume, by keeping up a server or
paying someone else for the convienince of E-Mail.  If they tried to
force spammers to pay money they would have to have a way to decide if
someone was spamming.A good excuse to read E-Mail?