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Court rules for Intel in mass-mail case 83

Posted by Hemos from the spam-or-not dept.
Rudolf writes "Here in Sacramento, CA, a court has ruled that an ex-employee of Intel does NOT have the right to send mass-mail to current Intel employees. The judge ruled that "The mere connection of Intel's e-mail system with the Internet does not convert it into a public forum." The court finds that Hamidi's e-mails are not protected speech." The Sacramento Bee has the story here. " I'm torn on this one-I'd hate to get the mail from this guy, but the EFF (quoted in the article) has a good point as well.
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Court rules for Intel in mass-mail case More

Court rules for Intel in mass-mail case

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  • Spamming is not free speech (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm not a lawyer, and there may be some far reaching issues in the ruling that I don't understand, but I think that free speech should be used as an excuse for sending mass, unsolicited e-mails to large groups of people.

    If this person was unlawfully terminated he should take the appropriate legal action. If he wants to tell his story to the world, he has that right. However, he should use an appropriate public forum to tell his story and express his views. Setting up a web page, which he did, seems like a good idea. He could talk to the local news, and see if they will run a story on the issue.

    The problem I have with what he did is that Intel's mail server is not a public forum. Sending an e-mail to 30,000 of their employees costs Intel a significant expense in loss of productivity from those people. If he sent a single mailing to 30,000 people stating his case, and pointing them to his web page for fruther info, I think it would still be wrong, but he would have some reason to claim he was trying to inform others. However, he continued to send unsolicited e-mails to all 30,000 people. I don't think you can consider that to not be malicious.

  • Re:Free Speech is Free Speech. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The problem with this idea is even though the email was being sent to 30,000 different people, the owner of all of the email was Intel, and they can do what they want with it. The email accounts receiving the mail are not owned by the individuals, these were not personal accounts.

    Now if the he still wants to spam all Intel employee's and can manage to track down their own personal email accounts, that is his right, and Intel can not effect that. Those users of course do have the right just like Intel to add this loser to their Killfile and be done with him.

  • Public Network or Private Network? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't think there is any doubt that Intel is trying to protect unwanted traffic from its private networks, but are the networks in question really private?

    If John Smith works at Intel and his Internet email address is jsmith@intel.com, then is this a public or private email? If it's public then emailing his account is hardly criminal trespass, simply because it's connected to a public network. There's an expectation of "publicness."

    But if Intel gave out internal accounts as well, say jsmith_secret@secret.intel.com, well then how is there an expectation of publicness? intel.com is public, but the secret.intel.com network is not. There's a firewall/filter protecting it.

    Basically, if Intel doesn't want people emailing their employees, then they shouldn't give their employees PUBLIC Internet accounts and keep them all on internal, private email. Of course, this means they can't play in the outside world, but it's a give and take.

    A. Coward

  • Re:They SUED FOR DAMAGES. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I do agree with Hamidi in this case, he didn't spam Intel, because spamming is commercial, and Intel did receive the e-mails when they could have just refused to receive the mail, granted that what he is whining about is petty, what we are arguing about in Slashdot is not.

    It would be like suing any Racist shows on the radio who are playing on a radio station that you happen to be listening to, saying that the show is wasting your electricity when you could easily change the channel or turn the radio off and not have your electricity wasted by unwanted nonsense, Their bandwidth got wasted because they are connected to the internet and they didn't filter out Hamidi's emails.

    This guys guilty as sin, and we all know it.. Anyone who thinks he isn't, lemme know, so I can start blasting your email box with junkmail from hudreds of sources, and see how much you think it'd be legal then.

    You don't want to threaten, I bet I have a bigger email box with huge bw that can hose your network in minutes if not seconds

  • Re:Can We Extrapolate... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, yes you can sue companies that send you junk mail (soliciations) if you take certain legal steps. Check out JunkBusters, a great site on how to combat the junk... their anti-junk mail page is at http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/junkmail.html.

    In my mind, it comes down to the facts that
    1) Intel asked him to stop
    2) Its Intel's internal network which had to handle the traffic.
    3) Even setting up a killfile take admin time, which costs money.

  • Re:EFF person is wrong (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This ruling is SCARY.

    It makes it so that their networks are not common-carrier. Extend this toward ISP use. ISP's have the right to control what goes through their electronic infrastructure and what is stored on their servers. Or how about AT&T? They have a right to control what goes over their circuits. Or how about China? They have the right (which they exercise) to restrict what goes over their lines and on their servers.

    A ruling that doesn't give them those rights to permit censorship is even more chilling.


    Also, do not forget that more and more communication is being done electronically. Giving rights for electronically censoring voices you do not like from your organization is wrong.

    The question is are intel's servers 'common carrier'? If they are then they have no right to censor anything passing through them. (Though users may complain and set up filtering) If they are NOT a common carrier, then all ISP's and networks logically cannot be a common carier. That is chilling, it means that any ISP no matter its size or span can control what its users see..

    (Anyone remember that China filters out geocities from their population because of dissenting opinions on it?)

    Lets not ENCOURAGE censorship please.

    Scott Crosby crosby@qwes.math.cmu.edu

  • This is Scary. This is what China does. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This ruling is SCARY.

    It makes it so that networks are not considered common-carrier. Extend this toward ISP use. ISP's have the right to control what goes through their electronic infrastructure and what is stored on their servers. Or how about AT&T? They have a right to control what goes over their circuits. Or how about China? They have the right (which they exercise) to restrict what goes over their lines and on their servers.

    A ruling that doesn't give them those rights to permit censorship is even more chilling than a ruling banning censorship.

    Also, do not forget that more and more communication is being done electronically. Giving rights for electronically censoring voices you do not like from your organization is wrong.

    The question is are intel's servers 'common carrier'? If they are then they have no right to censor anything passing through them. (Though users may complain and set up filtering) If they are NOT a common carrier, then all ISP's and networks logically cannot be a common carier. That is chilling, it means that any ISP no matter its size or span can control what its users see..

    (Anyone remember that China filters out geocities from their population because of dissenting opinions on it?)

    Lets not ENCOURAGE censorship please.

    Scott Crosby crosby@qwes.math.cmu.edu

  • Some thoughts. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This one is laced in analogy:

    A) Not blocking out the mail after the first time is the electronic equivalent to leaving your front door unlocked after you've had your house broken into once. Very stupid.

    B) Going onto Intel's private network and broadcasting that kind of crap is the electronic equivalent of breaking into someone's house, going into their bedroom, and telling the guy how much of a jerk/idiot/etc. he is at the top of your voice, through a megaphone, while defacating on his floor. At least twice as stupid as point A.

    C) This guy's "speech in a public park" theory is wrong, see my point B.

    D) This is not a matter of "Its free speech, you aren't forced to read it". Its unsolicited, its unwanted, its tying up private resources, and its annoying. E and F tie into this.

    E) Putting up a billboard beside a road is a good example of free speech. The electronic equivalent to this being a web page.

    F) Going into someone's house and writing on their walls is a good example of trespassing and vandalism. The electronic equivalent is dropping tons of mail onto Intel's users.

    Summary: Intel could have handled this better. However, they handled it nowhere as badly as this idiot from faceintel.com.
  • IANAL, but:

    If you've posted your email address on a web page or in a news group, I'd say you were giving tacit permission for someone to send *pertinent* email to you. You're not giving permission to be put on spam lists, however, so yes, I'd say this means you can sue a spammer.

    If I step into your front yard, that technically is trespassing, although you couldn't make a case out of one incident unless I either (a) refuse to leave when you ask me to, or (b) you have "Posted: No Trespassing" signs.

    Of course, when you file a lawsuit, you have to show that the defendent has caused you some damage, economic or otherwise. One unsolicited email wouldn't make much of a case, but 30,000 does.

    I'm with Intel on this. Intel told the guy to stop, and he refused. Unsolicited email *is* trespassing, and I for one would like to see some class-action lawsuits filed against spammers.
    --
  • Posted by Mojoski:

    I see, so Intel should be expected to expend the amdin resource to block his mails, and then he simply starts sending from another address and the update their filters so he moves again, and on and on and on. As a advocate for freespeech I have to tell you that this was not protected freespeech. If he wants to make his site and then post announcements about it in the appropriate intel related newsgroups, and get TV networks to publish his story, whatever, then that is protected speech. But he does not have the right to use the resources of Intel to deliver his speech to the Intel owned email boxes of this employees. I'm glad they went after him because idiots like that are the ones who water down our right to free speech.
  • Posted by Mojoski:

    If this guy had printed his letter and sent it COD to all of these employees in their office locations, would you support that right? This is basically what he has done by trying to use Intel's network to deliver it. Sure, if he did, Intel could sort all of his COD letters out and have the post office return them to the sender, but that would require Intel to expend the manpower to do so. It's simply not this man's right to use up resources of Intel's to get his story out.
  • Posted by The Evil Dwarf from Hell:

    I pay for a PO box. So by this ruling I can prevent any junk mail sender from sending crud to my box. My PO Box is a limited resource, the Post Office would frown pretty heavily if I suddenly started getting 1 Ton of catalogues every day. Personally I think Intel will lose this one on appeal, although I hope they win since I really despise spammers.
  • Posted by katwoman:

    Can you sue? I think it's a great idea. These guys (http://www.kclink.com/spam/index.html) actually did so. The last update on the case was several months back, but it's still a fascinating story. Whenever someone you don't know sends an email you didn't solicit and probably don't want, they've decided their right to get their message across supercedes your server space and bandwidth. Once you inform them that you're going to start charging for that space, sue away.

    Kat
  • Intel does not provide a public network. They pay for the systems that provide those services within their company, and as such are responsible for the information flowing on those systems. I think Intel is well within their rights to enjoin this private individual from utilizing the resources of their company.

    And THIS is the crux of the whole matter.

  • No, you're wrong. You can't compare a bulletin board with mail. The proper analogy would be if he sent snamil mail to all of Intel's employees, and Intel sued him for trespassing because their mail room had to deliver all of his mail.

    I doubt that any court would uphold a suit for trespassing based on the use of internal mail room resources to deliver snail mail, so why should they consider it trespassing when it's done by email?

  • I agree with your point, and I often use that argument against email spamming. But I think the situation here is a little different. First, the bulletin board analogy (what I was originally responding to) is very weak in this instance. A much better analogy is the use of mass snail mail, simply it also uses company resources for delivery. Email uses the mail servers; snail mail uses the mail room. Mass mailing of either type is a misuse of company resources. Second, I don't think that it makes sense to accuse him of trespassing. Neither mass snail mail nor mass email involves his presence on Intel's property, either physically or electronically. He wouldn't be accused of trespassing if he had mass snail mailed, so why should he be accused of it when he mass emails?

    I do think it's well within Intel's rights to stop accepting either email or snail mail from him, and even to get a restraining order if the harassment persists and they cannot easily block the incoming mail. But comparing his offense to a physical bulletin board, which requires physical trespassing to post something, does not make sense.

  • You cannot send a C.O.D. package to someone who has not specifically requested it.. It's against the law, period..

    But the problem is that there is no 'law' that states that email is different. I'm wondering why they didn't enforce it as spam and sue.. ;-P
  • As these where unsolicited emails, does this mean I can pound 200,000 in YOUR mailbox? And yes, you can issue a restraining order that will prevent someone from sending you physical mail legally.. They basically just got the electronic form..
  • True, but the right to inform them at WORK using Intel resources isn't covered. It would be the same as forcing Intel to have a mass meeting of employees that anyone can call at any time.. It's NOT free speech.. He can hold banners on the sidewalk, but he can't stepone foot on company property.. This was their e-walkway that he was treading on..
  • Sure, you can MAKE them STOP sending you email.. That's all they did.. They did NOT sue for damages here, just to make him stop.. E-Restraining order..
  • EXACTLY what I've been trying to say here.. They didn't sue him for billions from one sending. They requested he cut it out, and he didn't, so they enforced their right to say 'You are NOT welcome to use our professional email system'..
  • Not only that, but this message wasn't sent over some sort of public list. It was individually addressed to each email recipient. It was targeted, and not something that was broadcast to everyone.. God forbid if they had an address like everyone@intel.com ;-P
  • Not quite true.. You see, any email address marked @intel.com is targeted twards intel. A person does not 'own' the individual address at intel, intel allows them use of it. They also have the same rights as everyone else to say, 'Your mail is not welcome, please stop'. Once that happens, it must stop, or it's against the law. That's all they did, was enforce the fact that they didn't want it.

    If I started shipping boxes of condoms to your moms house, I wouldn't be breaking the law. If she asked me to stop, and I did it AGAIN, that's against the law. Same applies.. They warned him several times before taking these steps..
  • Ok, so they added damages in there, and promptly dropped it. I stand slightly corrected. The judge did not 'force' them to drop the charges, they did that themselves.

    This guys guilty as sin, and we all know it.. Anyone who thinks he isn't, lemme know, so I can start blasting your email box with junkmail from hudreds of sources, and see how much you think it'd be legal then.. ;-P
  • Few points here.

    A) I don't just 'happen' to open my mailbox, it's specifically addressed. The radio idea just isn't the case here...

    B) Tell me, if they did filter the mail messages, how would that NOT use bandwidth? They don't just magically disappear upstream, you know.. And you've obviously never tried to filter 25,000+ messages at a pop. THat isn't just a few second of proccess time..

    C) (THIS will get the message rated to -1 I'm guessing, but here we go anyway)

    Go ahead and try, buddy. I'm not sure if you know exactly how many hits www.ups.com get's A SECOND, but I'd love to see you try to bring it down. Our WAN has 68 T1 lines being serviced, all with access to the 'net. That's IN ADDITION to what's being used for www.ups.com. Face it buddy, mine's bigger then yours.. ;-P
  • Guys and gals, your barking up a tree here that doesn't exist..

    Sure, anyone can sue anyone to make them STOP SENDING you email.. It's an electronic version of a restraining order. That's all that was done here..

    He would have the right to contact any of these employees at their home addressif he liked, but he didn't. He used a professional contact address for personal use.

    They didn't throw him in jail here. They didn't collect millions in damages. NONE of this happened.. He wasn't put to death. He was merely ordered to stop. Just as if you had a restraining order against an old flame. That's it..

    Let's not make this something it's not. They did the equivilant of posting a 'No Trespassing' sign the first time he did it. The next time, they took him to court to say stop.

    I think they are using the same right we all have. To tell someone legally that they aren't wanted and to keep the heck away.
  • That means that they can screen this guy out if they want to. Seems to me it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to do it that way than to take it to court...

    But that still means that Intel has to spend money due to his mailings. Why should they have pay for something that is not in their business interests?

    If you receive unwanted snail-mail you end up only wasting the time spent to browse through it and dispose of it. The sender has paid the bulk of the costs. In the case of Hamidi, I bet his costs to send all the messages was less than the business costs for an Intel admin to examine and set up blocking for his messages.
  • ...just like I have a problem with non-secretaries who say "Can I ask what this is about?" before deciding whether to put my call through.

    What is wrong with this? The employee is just looking out for fellow employees' time and wasting of their employer's resources. If you are being asked that, you have not yet proven that the call is worthy to interrupt part of the business.

    At my place of employment we rarely get unexpected outside calls. Due to this we tend to be able to tell when it is a sales or polling call and will sometimes use that type of line to "flush" them out. We don't have time to deal with those type of calls so it is best to end them as soon as possible. We have actually been forbidden by our legal department and our department director to answer polls and unsolicited sales calls in the company's name (or at least we believe they did and use that to our advantage.)
  • You are damn right they control what goes through their electronic infrastructure and is stored on their servers.

    That means that they can screen this guy out if they want to. Seems to me it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to do it that way than to take it to court, but I guess when you employ all of the lawyers you have to come up eith things to keep them all busy.

    Not that I agree that this guy it RIGHT in what he is doing. It seem to be a pretty petty and juvinile(SP?) thing to do, but if Intel doesn't want to receive emails from the Internet, they can disconnect their systems or use some kind of filter. They have no more right to stop people from trying to mail them than I have to stop people from sending me junk snail mail. I think. :-)

    /dev

  • So this means that the next time some guy comes up to me on the street and starts telling me that I should repent or be saved or something, and I tell him to shutup, and he doesn't, I can duct tape his mouth? :-)

    This is a strange multifacted issue. I honestly don't have a real opinion, but just tend to not like large companies with lots of legal muscle. Bad past experience.

    /dev

  • Analogies are dangerous things, but consider this one nonetheless:
    If someone is unwelcome on my property, should I be required to put up a fence to keep him out? Maybe this isn't quite the same, since killfiles don't cost money (except the sysadmin's time).
    Also, how would we view this case different if he sent a 10MB PowerPoint presentation about alleged labor law violations to 10,000 employees, tying up 100GB on the mail server?
    Christopher A. Bohn
  • Sure Intel has the right to control what goes through their electronic infrastructure... but it is then also their responsibility to set up filters/controls to prevent email they don't want getting in.
    • if the person gathered a list of all the email addresses before leaving and then spammed everyone ... then i can tend to agree with Intel...
    • but if the person sent an email to the "everyone@intel.com" address which happened to allow email from the outside... then I feel it is solely Intels responsibility. They need to only allow people in that group/list to send to that "everyone" addresss

    I guess this means I cannot send the spreadsheet with everyones salaries to everyone in the company once i leave >-)

    Federico

  • Not quite on topic, but nothing has been said about Internic for a while here.

    Here's what I sent to www.ftc.gov tonight:

    I am concerned about the way Network Solutions is doing business and how it will affect the nature of the Internet. They have been operating under an exclusive contract with the US government for the past seven years.

    www.internic.net has been a central site for Internet registration information for that time and has come to be regarded as the central point on the Internet for locating domain registration information.

    Now that the government has expanded the registration services to allow other companies to also provide registration services, Network Solutions has effectively perverted the Internic services by changing the web page for Internic to redirect to the Network Solutions web page. While this was not against any ruling involved in de-monopolizing domain registration services, it is certainly against the spirit of it!

    Internic has always been a shared resource of the entire Internet, and now Network Solutions has unethically claimed control of it.

    Whatever the Federal Trade Commission can do, I hope you can do something.

    Thank you.
  • Suppose Intel has a bulletin board in its cafeteria where the company posts safety notices, holiday schedules, and so on. It sure isn't fair game for any outsider to post notices. I believe there are exceptions for union organizers, but not ex-employees in general.

    Don't see that an internal email system is any different.

    Now if Hamidi wants to organize a union, and does it thru whatever processes exist, that would be a different story.

    --
  • As a public sector worker, I have read about somebody spamming some state's employees with e-mail, and the court ruled in the spammers favor. I'm coming up with nada on a search right now. IIRC, the matter was that since e-mail was a way for the public to communicate with the public workers, anybody could send e-mail to any public worker, even if it was not job related. The state wanted to limit the e-mail to those people who could best use the "information", but the judge disallowed that.

    I don't think we can say that this will be the last word on the subject. One case does not make the law for the rest of the country.

  • We're not talking about offensive messages - merely ones that Intel felt were untrue and that slammed the company. He's not following people around, calling them up, etc... I think that there is very little reason for a trespassing charge. I mean, it just doesn't work that way. If that were true, then any person would be trespassing any time they sent email to someone else! I don't endorse this kind of tactic, but I think this was an extremely poor decision.

    Leilah

  • The company argued that Hamidi's e-mail -- sent on separate occasions to as many as 30,000 Intel employees -- were the equivalent of trespassing on the company's private computer system.

    Yeah. Go ahead. Send me some mail. And I'll sue you for trespassing on my private computer system.

    So does this mean I can sue a spammer?

    Or hell, anyone else who e-mails me?

  • The problem with this is that I think it is a very bad idea for the government to step in simply because a piece of email is unsolicited. The key point is that Intel had already asked him to stop.

    There are times when an unsolicited email can be worthwhile. It would be a mistake to ban them, as there is no clear way to determine what is meant by unsolicited. Certainly most of the mail we get was not specifically requested. A clearer legal standard is one that requires the person to stop if he is so requested. This is a clear and unambiguous standard, and it does not have a negative effect on free communication.
  • This is not what is at issue in the case at all. The question is whether the man has a right to use Intel's computers to send the email. It is basically about property rights. Intel's servers belong to Intel, and so they have a right to prohibit specific people from using them. If the employees have non-work email accounts, then intel would have no right to ban email to those accounts.

    In fact, I think all free speech issues boil down to property rights. My right to freedom of the press derives from the fact that the owner of the press has given me permission to print on it. My right to speak derives from the fact that I own my lungs and vocal chords. My right to give a speech derives from the fact that the owner of the building where I am speaking has given me permission to do so.

    By the same token, my right to send email derives from the fact that I own my computer, and the computers between me and the destination have all consented to be used in this manner. If someone on the 'net asks me not to send email to his computer, then I have no right to do so, as this is an invasion of his rights to control what goes on his computer. I am free to send my packets by another route, or to go with another ISP, but I have no necessary right to use his computer for my communication.

  • Can I sue American Research Group when it sends me about a dozen unsolicited ads for IT training to my home address. I mean, my trash can is a limited resource and if I need to toss more stuff out than the city deems as appropriate, I have to pay extra for it.

    On Intel:

    For a high technology company, they seem to go to the courts pretty damned quick in cases where a simple technology-based fix might be far easier and cheaper to implement. One wonders what the ex-employees are saying that's making them so nervous...

  • That's right, they do. Which is why, since he was sending the mail from his home machine and not hiding the source in any way, they should have blocked his mail at their mail hub instead of taking him to court. As it is, dangerous precedents would be set whichever way the ruling went.
    --
  • Even better, it's like a phone call with call blocking.

    Let me make my point short and sweet: Intel is prosecuting the wrong action.

    For Intel to complain that they are receiving email Mr. Hamidi is WRONG. For Intel to complain that their employees are being harrassed by him is RIGHT. That's the key difference.

    Mr. Hamidi is, however, correct to liken his action to making a speech outside Intel's building. He's shouting through open windows, that Intel could close to him anytime they want. How tough is it to install a new address in a mail filter?

    So, NO, Intel is not being trespassed upon. They have simply not shut a simple window to block the ranting of an irate neighbor. They may call the cops and make the guy shut up, but they may not claim he is infringing on their property rights.

    To use another analogy, Hamidi is no worse or different than an annoying telemarketer, and Intel has a very capable robotic calling attendant that could easily not accept his calls. It's up to them to do so.

  • I don't see any reason not to categorize this man's emails the same as spam such as "Make Money Fast", "Hundreds of Sexy Young Girls Are Waiting For You!!!", and so forth. They're all unsolicited and they tie up resources for those who receive and process them. Individuals who pay for the time it takes to download spam from their ISPs are understandably upset about receiving it, as are their ISPs when they have to handle it. I don't see any reason a corporation shouldn't demonstrate the same unhappiness with the appropriation of their mail-handling resources, whether or not they agree with the content that is transmitted.

    I don't agree with the argument that this case makes any email's sender liable to suit for trespass. If you have a publicly posted email address with a specific purpose identified, then you certainly wouldn't be able to sue people who used the address for that purpose. /.ing the posted ZDnet comments address with arguments about an article, for example, isn't trespass even if there are 30000 replies because that address was provided for that purpose. If Intel had provided a public "cranky ex-employees" email address, then they wouldn't be able to sue this guy for posting to it (although 30000 times would be a bit much). But unsolicited email to a public email address which doesn't match the purpose of that address is spam, plain and simple.

  • Ouch (Score:1)

    by ddt ( 14627 )
    I hate junk mail, but Intel has a track record of suing its competitors out of existence. Makes me feel awfully sorry for the poor wretch. I'd have felt better if the recipients of the mail e-filed a class action suit, instead of the suits at Intel shutting him down. Ya know? I mean after all, it's the management he was berating, not the engineers, and it's the management who forced him to shut up. I got the impression from an article I read about him several months ago that he was basically a middle man. Intel employees who heard the dirt were feeding it to him, and he would in turn expose it back to the rest of the employees. And it seemed from the article that his tactics were just the result of the cold way they booted him.

    I dunno. I hate spam as much or more than the next guy, but this ruling leaves me with a queazy feeling.

    =-ddt->
  • The guy started a website called a few years ago called FACE Intel [faceintel.com] (Former and Current Employees of) which was dedicated to exposing all sorts of human rights violations inside the company. How valid all of these allegations are I can't say first hand, but the site has a pretty big following.

    There are some updates on the site from yesterday saying that many damage claims and clauses of "nuisance" have been dropped, and other updates show a string of charges had been dropped as the case progressed.
  • The Judge forced them drop all the damage claims if Intel wanted to win a summary judgement. Read it here. [faceintel.com] And scroll down to "Intel's Motion is DENIED"
  • That is a different situation. The difference is this: when a company mails you junk mail, they pay the postage. When a company (or person) sends you junk or spam email, you and whoever runs your email server are forced to pay for the "postage". You pay it because you are paying for your email, or if you get free email, the server admin still pays for it, as they pay for the server, disk space, bandwidth, etc, which is basically what the "postage" cost is.
  • The difference is who pays for it. I posted this above but here we go again:

    If a person sends you bulk/spam snail mail, they pay the postage. It ends up in your mailbox, which is government owned, and you have paid nothing for it. You see it, toss it in the garbage, and it has cost you about 5 seconds of thought. Admittedly stiil somewhat unfair, but you paid no money for it.

    If a person sends you bulk/spam email, there are two situations:

    1. you pay for your email account. In this case, you are paying for the space this email is using on your mail server. Not only that, your mail server is paying for the bandwidth it uses, memory it uses, and disk space it uses as well.

    2. you get email free. Your mail server admins still pay for the space, bandwidth, etc.

    So... the difference comes down to who paid the postage. With email, you are forced to pay the postage, like it or not, and that is wrong. It would be akin to a telemarketer calling you collect, and forcing you to accept the charges to listen to his spiel.
  • This guy sent unsolicited bulk email to a targeted group. He did NOT set up a mailing list that people subscribed to, he did NOT limit his communications to friends and former colleagues, and he did NOT pay for the network resources he used. How he got the addresses, I don't care. What he had to say, I don't care. Whose network it was, I don't care. I don't see that his position is any different than that of the average spammer. Note that most spammers claim that their actions are protected by freedom of speech, just like this guy is.

    I don't doubt that he was screwed by Intel, and I don't doubt that he had something worthwhile to communicate to Intel's employees. But either you're against spam or you're not. I don't want my mailbox jammed with spam that's there for my own good any more than I want it jammed with get-rich-quick schemes.

    Comments, disagreements, and counterarguments are invited.
  • IANAL, but I've never heard of laws against sending things to people. I know you can't send someone something unsolicited and then bill them for it, but I would think you could send someone all the free gifts you wanted to. So send those condoms to my mom - she'll just think they're oddly-shaped balloons, anyway :)
  • ...he didn't spam Intel, because spamming is commercial...

    While spamming currently appears to be motivated by commercial interests, but I could imagine endless examples of non-commercial spam. Consider the following potential spams (remember, these are hypothetical):

    The Christian Coalition sends a bible verse to everybody on the internet, every day.

    Al Gore thinks that internet email would be a cool way to campaign, so he emails his platform to every email address in the country. (Hey, there's no controlling legal authority that says he can't!)

    Mothers Against Drunk Driving emails everyone on Friday afternoons, reminding them not to drink and drive that weekend.

    31337 h4x0r5 decide that rather than owning web sites, they would prefer to send everyone emails saying "1 0Wn y0uR m411 s3rV3r"

    The list could obviously go on. Unsolicited bulk email is spam; I don't care if it's commercial or not. I've said elsewhere in this discussion that this was an act of pure spam, and I've yet to see a decent argument against that. I think this is a good thing. The courts have ruled that a particular spammer cannot send email to a particular server. If it is appealed and upheld, we've gained a pretty good precedent to use against spammers.
  • Mostly, the only reason I came up with the idea of accepting an e-mail was to appease those who would say, "what are you going to do about e-mail you want, but don't know its coming."

    In saying you gave permission, I intended it more to mean that I can forbid anyone to come on my land without my permission, but that if someone shows up I want to talk to, I can invite them back at a later date. However, if I didn't say anything to you, previously indicated that I didn't want you there ("No Trespassing" sign) or told you purposefully to go away, then that's that.

    In a way, sure I get to decide your fate after the fact. You trespass, I prosecute. You e-mail me after I've said no (list, spam-blocked e-mail address, whatever), I prosecute.

  • Intel's servers are PRIVATE. They are not common-carrier because Intel operates them solely for Intel's use and profit. AT&T, on the other hand, operates and markets its networks for the public's general use (and AT&T's profit), so AT&T is common-carrier because they allow people outside their organization to use their network on a regular basis to conduct unmonitored communications.

    This is more akin to tell you to quit calling me. AT&T, GTE, SWBell, whoever, cannot make that determination for me because they have no relation to me other than customer/provider. Intel, however, can make that determination (i.e. prohibiting non-work phone calls/e-mails, etc) because their network is only for their use.

  • Rulings like this only strengthen my position: I want the option to have a ban on spam in my e-mail box. I want to be able to go after any person or business who sends me advertising or electronic mail I do not want. It's already illegal to send me junk faxes, so I want it illegal to send me junk e-mails.

    The Intel employees have the inherent right to do their job unobstructed by outside forces that do not concern them. This guy's complaint did not concern them because they a) aren't unionized and b) since they aren't, they deal with management on an individual basis. His experiences are not necessarily those of the other workers.

    I like the idea of electronic trespass. If someone e-mails me without my permission (it would be implied that if I replied FAVORABLY, such as a long-lost friend e-mailing me and I replied back with a positive response, then I have given permission), then that is trespass. Its the rough equivalent of putting up a sign in my front yard. Sure, I can delete the message, but that's like informing me I have to tear down a sign on my own land that I didn't ask for in the first place.

    Free speech, I believe, should always apply. Conversely, though you may have the right to speak, I have the right not to hear you.

  • The EFF does not have a good point here. intel.com is a corporate network. They're not public property in any way. There is no fundamental right to send e-mail to intel.com, microsoft.com, slashdot.org, or any other privately-owned network. It couldn't be simpler than that: the right of free speech does not trump the right to private property.

    If intel.com is a public park, then I'm the Statue of Liberty.

  • Well, there is a slippery slope here. After all, if he had a legitimate complaint that he thought the other employees should know about, that should be protected. But if he was just harassing, that's bad.

  • Nope, you are wrong (Score:4)

    by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Wednesday April 28, 1999 @10:10AM (#1911853) Homepage
    The rights of Intel to control their own servers is not in doubt. In fact, I wonder why Intel didn't implement a global killfile across its mail servers instead of going to court -- that would have been the easiest way to deal with the problem. Remember the discussion on /. some time ago -- your right to talk does not imply my obligation to listen.

    However, the issue in this case was different. The question was, did the guy have the right to SEND e-mail. The right of Intel to block it was not in doubt, but Intel wanted the sending of e-mail to stop, and the judge supported them.

    This is rather interesting: the ruling implies that the owner of a mail server has rights with regard to people sending mail to his server. Leaving aside the denial-of-service attacks, I belive this is new and I don't really like it. Think about it: can AOL prohibit you from sending any e-mail to any @aol.com address? Do you want it to be able to?

    Kaa
  • Intel obviously has the rights to control what goes through their electronic infrastructure and is stored on their servers. A ruling in the other direction would be even more chilling.
  • . They have no more right to stop people from trying to mail them than I have to stop people from sending me junk snail mail. I think

    Well, aparently they DO have the right to stop people from emailing them. You also have the right to ask companies not to send you junk mail, and you can sue them if you wish. Not that it is guaranteed to work and it probably will cost you a lot of money, but you can do it. Why are you upset at Intel for using their rights?
  • Your metaphor is incorrect for this case. It is more like someone on the street takes a megaphone from you and starts telling you that you should repent of be saved or something and you ask for your megaphone back.

    The court is not stoping this person from speaking, he can still call these employees at home (or at work), mail them letters, talk to them in person off the job, wave semaphore flags at them, or whatever. He just can't use Intel's property to do so after they have asked him to stop.
  • He likened his actions to making a speech in a public park near Intel? Not even close, methinks. He used Intel's resources (mail servers, etc), which means they should be allowed to determine who gets to use them. It wouldn't cost Intel anything for him to have a speech in the park.

    He still has the right to send every one of those employees a good old fashioned US Postal letter. That really *is* a public service. And he'd have to use his own money. I don't think he would have gotten the EFF on his side if he'd said "Hey, I want to spam these folks, but I can't afford the postage. Can you turn this into a free speech issue?" The founding fathers never said you specifically have a right to email.

    There is a valid issue hiding in there, that there's a *potential* precedent for a company to single out somebody and say "Ok, you there - we don't like you, you can't use our service." I'm pretty sure a similar case happened many years ago when Compuserve got into a fight with a customer (over some shareware he'd written), so they stopped his service. He sued on the grounds that he had a right to that service (back when CServe was one of the few ways you could get service). I can't remember the outcome of that one, though.
    I think I remember the guy winning, with the courts agreeing that, like phone service, you can't cut the person off because you don't like what they're saying (just like if you call your mom and say "Bell Atlantic sucks", they can't decide to stop selling you service).

    I have a problem with someone trying to limit my ability to communicate over the net, yes - just like I have a problem with non-secretaries who say "Can I ask what this is about?" before deciding whether to put my call through. I don't have a problem with a company instituting solutions on the order of "If you send 30,000 emails through our server in 10 minutes, we'll bar you for life."

  • How is this any different than calling up all the employees at their office phone #s?

    Sure, there are a lot of implications to this case, but I don't see how it's really new territory.

    I think they should have used their own resources first. They should set their mail filters to junk mail coming from his known addresses. If he kept switching them to avoid this, I would think legal action would be justified. Take the exact same situation and apply it to telephones. It just makes sense.

    --

  • The problem here is that there is a clash between the idea of freedom of expression or speech and stopping someone who is harassing people. It sounds to me like this bloke's lawyer argued on "freedom of speech" grounds what should have simply been a case of harassment. Not that I would know what of I speak, not being a lawyer.

    How to make that distinction? I wouldn't have a clue. But really, if someone was making obscene or offensive phonecalls to people at a company that they had been sacked from, would that person be able to argue that stopping him was a violation of his human rights? Not bloody likely - he'd be hit with criminal charges. That is what I think should have happened here (IMNSHO).

    himi
  • I too want to be able to ban unsolicited e-mail, but not strongly enough to condone the idea of doing it retroactively.

    It is difficult for me to support the idea that you give your "permission" after the message has been sent. That gives you (as the recipient of an e-mail, or the owner of the e-mail storage) too much power. You get to decide my fate as a trespasser after the damage has been done.

    Now if there was some way of publishing your preference (i.e. a public directory entry where I could find out what flavor of spam you like [yes, this is only a dream]), that is more reasonable. Or if I sent you a message once, and you bounced it back or told me to stop bothering you, then I can see some form of `trespassing' being applicable. Otherwise existing harassment laws should be your only recourse.

    In any case, this Intel thing should fall under the aegis of harassment, not trespass.

  • I'm afraid I have to agree with the courts on this one. Just because you want to say it doesn't mean I have to listen, or that I have to let you use my resources to broadcast your message.

    The article quotes Bill McSwain of the Harvard Law Review:

    "The issue of the case is which is more important: Intel's right to protect against trespass or Hamidi's right to free speech," he said. "To the average Netizen, the message is: If you're sending messages to people's e-mail boxes, they can stop you no matter how important your speech is."


    Well Duh! Free speech doesn't mean required listening. I delete unread spam regularly. Does that mean I'm violating someone's free speech? No, I'm exercising my choice to listen or not. Under the argument proposed above you have to read all spam, like it or not. Next stop: postage due junk mail you're required to read, and long distance collect calls from telemarketers you cannot refuse without risking violating the marketer's right to free speech.

    Intel does not provide a public network. They pay for the systems that provide those services within their company, and as such are responsible for the information flowing on those systems. I think Intel is well within their rights to enjoin this private individual from utilizing the resources of their company.

    Dave
  • email is a public communication no different than a letter in the US Mail

    This is (generally) true

    And no one should be able to tell him he cannot send an email because they don't like what he says

    They're not telling him he can't send email; they're telling him he can't send email TO THEM, which is perfectly reasonable.

    You're also right about existing protections against harrassment - but other people tried to turn this from a harrassment issue into a 'free speech' issue. Fortunately the courts ruled correctly.

    Free speech != right to be heard. You can say anything you like, but you are not allowed to force me to listen. 1984 has nothing to do with it.
  • Because they asked him to stop sending email to Intel. He refused. There is a law against recieving unwanted mail after requesting to stop.

    One, 30k emails do tend to take up space and moving them around tends to cause bandwith traffic. Would you like to foot the bill for that wasted space and time even if you had the means to pay it without serious harm? I wouldn't because I can spend the resources elsewhere. The guy can do pretty much anything he wants except when it involves other peoples property. Yes, the Internal email system is the property of Intel. You can send all the messages you want over the net but once an Intel router has to handle it, then you can be considered tresspassing since they did not want to handle it.

    RB
  • I didn't see that it was applied to plain mail. Unless a court decision specifically interprets the ruling that way, it should just apply to email communications.

    All these analogies comparing email to mail are comparing apples and oranges. Mail, is a service provided by the govt sanctioned monopoly which a user has to pay to send items through and unless specified, the reciever has to do nothing to recieve it. (Specified means pay on delivery methods but you can always refuse to pay. P.O. Boxes are a different story. They could be considered similar to an email box becuase you are paying for the service)

    Email services are essentially free for the sender since one message gets sent to a mail server and then gets duplicated and sent. The only person has to really pay are the recievers. They have to provide space for the message to reside on and provide bandwidth to route the message. Since the message has to be transported through a private entity, then it can be considered theft of resources. Of course, the sysadmin can put a killfile on the main message reciever but any person with half a brain can get around it. Snail Junk mail filtering is much harder to circumvent.

    RB
  • They requested the guy to stop. He didn't. They essentially closed the network to him. So it is a private network in this case.

    RB
  • In fact, I wonder why Intel didn't implement a global killfile across its mail servers instead of going to court

    This is like asking why someone whose pocket is picked doesn't get pants with a difficult-to-open button on the pocket instead of calling the cops -- one or the other may be the more practical option, but when it's a matter of protecting your property the latter is certainly a legitimate recourse.

  • You cannot send a C.O.D. package to someone who has not specifically requested it.. It's against the law, period..

    With e-mail, the user and ISP incurs the costs before the user sees what he's gotten. It's equivalent to sending a COD package knowing that the user will have to pay for all his packages sight unseen if he wants to get any packages at all.

    But the problem is that there is no 'law' that states that email is different. I'm wondering why they didn't enforce it as spam and sue.. ;-P

    It's been done by several ISPs -- there are a few examples mentioned in The Netizen's Guide to Spam, Abuse, and Internet Advertising at http://com.primenet.com/spamking/.

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