Canadian Judge Cites Netiquette in Anti-Spam Ruling 61
HadMatter writes "An Ontario Superior Court Judge may have made netiquette a principle of Canadian case law, according to this article in the Globe and Mail. A spammer was denied an injunction against an ISP who terminated an account on the basis that Spam is in breach of the emerging principles of Netiquette, and that Spam is not allowed unless a contract specifically allows it. The ISP says they had no choice unless they wanted to get cut off too. Could the law be catching up to accepted practice? "
Re:Fighting SPAM is *not* censorship... (Score:1)
People have the right to say what they want, but they don't have the right to demand that you buy them a soapbox to stand on.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
I think the reason a lot of old timers get so upset about spam is because it is such a disgusting betrayal of the belief that people are basically decent. There are things in this world that, although shaped like humans, view your kindness as an "available medium".
Re:My knee-jerk reactionary message to the article (Score:1)
Sure it costs money to receive mail, spam included, but it's not free to send it either. It all depends on your contract, if you mainly pay for outgoing traffic (isp's and content providers) or incomming trafic (most regular customers and universities).
The internet is a large number of (inter)connected networks, with originally everybody taking care for his own part of it, ad sharing the costs for connections between them. This has shifted a lot, but in a sense, it's still true.
Therefor, it's hard to say who pays for the messages, but it sure isn't only me!
Lawyer: Legal Issues (Score:3)
Mr. Geist has *really* got to go back and study legal history. In particular, he needs to study the history of the Common Law (English speaking); his response is inconsistant with it.
If you boil the whole thing down to its essence, the judge has ruled that custom is enforcable. Or, more precisely, that the law is not going to overturn custom on its own. The origin of the Common Law is judges *uncovering* the law, not making it. They did so by examining custom, and precedent became important because it showed that another judge had already found the custom. The dominance of the legislature in issueing law is (in the English speaking world) a twentieth century phenomenon.
ANother issue that needs to be addressed here is that of government involvement. This type of ruling is *exactly* the kind needed to keep government out of the picture. This is not legislation, or fiat, but a determination of property rights. There is a huge difference between the government determining what can or cannot be communicated, and the courts awarding or refusing to award damages for breach of property rights.
While one solution to *determining* those rights
would be for a legislature to decide, the better approach is probably to rely on custom, as this judge did.
This is not to say that there is no need for legislation to allow the private solutions. In particular, either legislation or changes in court rules need to address "joinder" and "venue."
Joinder determines the manner in which claims can be combined, while venue determines *where* they can be brought. In particular, I see value in allowing an ISP, as part of its service contract, to be allowed to act simultaneously on the claims of all its spammed subscribers. That is, if 1000 customers receive the same spam, it should be legally possible for the ISP to enter court for the whole lot at the same time; its not practical for each individual to do so.
Similarly, a well defined notion of which court the matter should be filed in would be useful, though not critical: the home jurisdiction of the spammer already has "in personam" jurisdiction, while the victim's jurisdiction has jurisdiction due to the contact made by deliberately sending the message into it.
hawk, esq.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
I'm not claiming that commercial e-mail should be illegal. I'm claiming that unsolicited commercial e-mail should be illegal.
I am sorry that I can't see the major breach of constitutional etiquette, maybe I'm just a stupid Norwegian.
But (being a stupid "euro" and all) my view is that businesses should not be allowed to "expand themselves and advertise" for my money, unless I freely and willingly give them that money, or if it's really solicited.
What constitutional right -- in your country -- do businesses have to use my money without my consent, by the way?
Re:Spam is not about freedom, it's about waste. (Score:2)
Sounds kind of like a web site to me...
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
I think that most advertisement is unsolicited. Television commercials, radio commercials, ads in the newspaper and the mail, billboards...no one asks for them, and many people find them annoying; personally I don't like having commercials interrupt a show I am watching, but that's the way it works. That's how the networks get their money and it's how the businesses can expand. If we say that unsolicited e-mail from businesses are illegal, what is to stop the crusade from going further to billboards, or newspapers, or radio commercials, or television commercials? If that is your stance and your crusade, that is well and fine, but at least admit it, take up the flag and prepare to go all the way. But to say that e-mail should be protected while every other medium is legal is a hypocrasy. And elitist. Just becuase it's the internet does not mean it's in some way higher than the rest. It's just another medium. And businesses do have a right to advertise in whatever medium they choose to.
As for businesses using your money without your conscent, I would argue that they pay the same ISP bills as you, probably more so. They have as much right to e-mail as you, and seriously, how much can it cost you? It's electrons for goodness sake! I would much rather have electronic junk mail than real junk mail - at least we don't have to sacrifice a natural resource for it!
Unless you consider electrons natural resources. Which I usually don't, there being so freaking many of them.
And for the record, I don't know why you think I think you're stupid, but it's obvious that you're an educated and intelligent
-zi-
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
Stealing? What is being stolen? Bandwidth maybe, but that could be said of so many things other than advertisements. And the "my property your property shared property" concept gets rather blurred as you reach the virtual mediums, doesn't it? What is mine on the TV? What is yours on the radio? What is his on the internet? Can you really define possession on a virtual medium? Television carries commercials and no one is outraged. Radio carries commercials and no one is outraged. Billboards scream commercials and no one is outraged. Commercials have been around even since the time of the "old timers", so why is it any different now? Just because it's a new untamed medium? It's still virtual. There is no you. There is no me. Just ten trillion electrons.
I admit it, if a business were to emplace a large rotating neon sign advertising their steak house in my front yard, yes, I would take approiate action (C-4 anyone?
All in all, it comes down to a simple annoyance and inconvience, but what a small price to pay for the exorborant power of the internet! Or television! Or radio! And, and this is a good thing, when you want to leave this undefined virtual world, there is always an off switch, and then you can rejoin the real world. When the day comes that there is no off switch...well, that's when we should get worried.
My knee-jerk reactionary message to the article (Score:2)
To : info@beaverhome.com,
postmaster@beaverhome.com
Cc : postmaster@globalcenter.net,
root@globalcenter.net,
abuse@globalcenter.net
Subject : Spam is NOT acceptable
You might thing it's the equivalent of electronic junk-mail, but there's a huge difference. In real-life junk mail, you have to pay for the printing and delivery of the mail. In spam, most of the charge is on the shoulders of the ISPs, who then take it out on your users. Would you like getting a million "have you seen me?" cards if you had to pay a tenth of a cent for each one? It seems innocent enough, but a million would be $10,000 at that rate.
Or how about this - would you like it if telemarketers started calling your toll-free phone number to sell you things? Sure, you could just hang up the phone, but each one costs you what, 10 cents? 200,000 of those is $20,000. Adds up quickly, doesn't it?
How much does it cost you and your current ISP to deal with each of these messages? I'm sure you're getting flooded with them by now.
I support the Canadian court's ruling against you. You had no right to spam, nor does anyone else.
Have fun trying to remove this burden from your name...
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Fighting SPAM is *not* censorship... (Score:2)
1) I've always wondered how much valuable Net resources are leeched by Spamhounds like these. 200,000 e-mails a day just from this one spammer? All the spam taken together must use up so much bandwidth/server space that I shudder to think of how much it costs us. I say "us" because you can bet the Spam hogs don't pay enough for their accounts to pay for all these resources, so we who use less bandwidth/server space subsidize the spamming through higher service rates charged across the board. Don't forget to add in Usenet server space, either: I was disgusted to find porn spam on comp.security.pgp.discuss today.
2) E-mail and Usenet spam are different from junk-mail, and so should not be treated as junk-mail. Many spam-houses argue that since junk mail is okay, the e-junk should be too. Wrong: Spam mail/postings cost the sender essentially nothing, so some Canadian store like this which couldn't afford to mail 200,000 brochures *can* e-mail 200,000 adverts--the cost is borne out by the service providers/usenet feeds, which pass the costs on to *us*. So, the real life analogy would be if companies could send us junkmail for free, but we were forced to pay the Post Office for our mail boxes--with the price being very high in order to subsidize all the postal carriers and real estate needed to process all the junk mail.
3) Our time is valuable, and Spammers steal it. I can just get rid of all my real-life junk-mail in a few seconds, but not so with Spam. Whenever I post to newsgroups with a real address, I get flooded with so much crap that it takes a long time to wade through--especially when I get "real-looking" subject lines like "Re: your posting.." which are designed to *mislead* us into reading them--in essence, this steals our time. Not to mention Usenet, which can be impossible--Usenet was designed for USErs to NETwork, talk to each other, exchange ideas and binaries. So, the very presence of Spam is theft--theft of our time, as well as the resources which were not meant for it. It's analogous IRL to being barraged by demented salesmen hawking everything from pyramid schemes to doggie pr0n every time you go out in public--harrassment in real life, and it shouldn't be tolerated on usenet except in places like alt.commercial.sex.ads or alt.get.rich.quick or whatever would be an appropriate NG meant for commerce, not casual discussion.
Just my humble opinion.
* * *
ERROR: DIVIDE BY CUCUMBER
RESTART UNIVERSE [Y/N]?
http://homestead.dejanews.com/user.sirwinston/f
Yeah. Spam sucks. (Score:1)
Example: I have an account on a certain nationwide ISP. (soon to change) I have NEVER given out the email address. I NEVER use it when submitting forms and what-not on web sites. Uh, come to think of it, I NEVER USE IT. I normally use my school email. Its much more reliable than any other service. I only use my ISP for connectivity. I use my school email for everything.
Which account do you think I receive the most SPAM on? Hmm?
I get more spam off my email address from my ISP (that I don't use!) than I have ever gotten before on any account. I repeat, I GET NO SPAM ON THE ACCOUNT THAT I USE MOST. Uh, wtf? If anyone has any ideas as to why this might be, I would love to hear them.
The ISP is EarthLink. We dial up on UUnet PoP's. Avoid at all costs. I'll be switching ISP's within the week.
Later.
But don't cut off your tounge to spite your spam (Score:2)
the poor spammer who got booted from their ISP.
But a few thoughts:
(1) If nettiquette becomes law, then it won't be nettiquette
any more. The principles of nettiquette are not always
precisely defined, because there's no reason they should
be: they're just customary rules of thumb.
(A favorite example: are you allowed to publically post
email that was sent privately to you? This is usually a
rude thing to do, but I would argue that there are
exceptions. What if it was a death threat?)
(2) If you look at the terms agreements ISPs are offering
these days, they are all decidely one-sided. They seem
to run something like: "We guarantee nothing, you agree
not to post anything that will violate any laws or
otherwise offend a little old lady from Passadena, if
you behave inappropriately we will yank your service, we
get to decide what's inappropriate, and we may change
this agreement without notice but you still have to
follow it."
The inspiration for these agreements is largerly the
necessity of dealing with spammers at the ISP level, but
this seems to have resulted in a world full of spineless
ISPs, ready to roll over at the first ominous legal
letter they receive.
What good is a constitutional guarantee of freedom of
speech if your wire can be cut?
Re:My knee-jerk reactionary message to the article (Score:1)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Some insight on tactics. (Score:1)
(4)-lexx:~> telnet lexx.truthandjustice.net 25
Trying 209.226.XX.XXX...
Connected to lexx.truthandjustice.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 lexx.truthandjustice.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.9.3/8.9.3; Sat, 10 Jul 1999 05:25:34 GMT
VRFY scarr
250 User Scarr [scarr@lexx.truthandjustice.net]
There... Now, a spammer conected to EarthLink might try something similar to verify E-Mail addresses, or they could be doing something as simple appending @earthlink.net or @earthlink.com to common E-Mail addresses, like adaml, or jsmith, etc...
There HAVE to be other methods. I don't believe it's in the financial or legal interests to give user information away, but you never know.
Spam is not about freedom, it's about waste. (Score:1)
I think that trying to decide whether or not a piece of email is spam is like having an elephant walk into your room, and you say "Is this *really* an elephant?" It's pretty OBVIOUS what constitutes spam.
As far as spam being wasteful, someone already pointed out how much of an extra load it is on large/popular mail servers, or domains with a smaller bandwidth. Are there any estimates on how much email being sent is unecessary spam? I would have to guess it as bei
Common Sense Added To Contract (Score:1)
The website for Nexx Online [nexx.com] does not show their contract. But from the FAQ, Nexx is not an ISP and only provides web hosting. There is no mention of spamming, probably because it's not easy to spam with the tools which they provide.
I think the spammer was spamming from ISPs, not from Nexx, and although spamming was not mentioned in the Nexx contract they cut off the spammer's response addresses.
So the significance of the ruling is actually that the Netiquette common sense was added to the contract. I think it is right, and wonder if "The Tragedy of the Commons" [free-eco.org] (game theory analysis, [stanford.edu] electronic commons) [ucla.edu] has been recognized by English law.
Re:No, YOU are not paying attention... (Score:1)
Re:Some insight on tactics. (Score:2)
sufficiently spam-proofed his email in usenet
postings, and on his URL page (thru a common
ISP) had used a gif of his email address instead
of typing into HTML (and no simple 'alt' text).
But this address still got spammed. How?
I'm about 95% sure that they looked at
the "www.bigisp.com/~username/" and quickly
arrived at "username@bigisp.com". And this is
rather easy to do through Altavista searching...
Spam is not about freedom, it's about waste. (Score:1)
What is spam? Who will decide what is and what isn't?
I think that trying to decide whether or not a piece of email is spam is like having an elephant walk into your room, and you say "Is this *really* an elephant?" It's pretty OBVIOUS what constitutes spam.
As far as spam being wasteful, someone already pointed out how much of an extra load it is on large/popular mail servers, or domains with a smaller bandwidth. Are there any estimates on how much email being sent is unecessary spam? I would have to guess it as being *at least* half the messages out there, if not more (simply because a spammer can fire off 100-200K of messages in a day). This is unecessary, and is a big contribution to the congestion out there. It is good in the sense that it forces networks to be upgraded to handle the load, but it would be nice to see this balance out so that eventually most networks are big, inexpensive, and spam-free.
ALL spam is a waste. Real-life spam uses up unecessary amounts of papeand ink, and usually ends up cluttering landfills, since the good majority don't recycle. Wrong to have the government step in? How can we NOT have them step in? This isn't "freedom," this is abuse.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
In other words, the law states that you have a choice about whether you want to receive telemarketing calls or not.
The problem with Spam is that 99.9% of all spammers hide their identity (or at least try to). You rarely get the chance to ask them to remove you from their mailing list. And even if that option exists, I doubt it actually gets removed.
If I had some sort of control over what I get and what I don't get, then I would be able to live with spam. However, I will never buy something from a telemarketer, and I will never buy something through uncolicited Email (or Spam). Those companies always get in my bad books (Sprint anyone)... I just don't like businesses invading my time like that.
Offtopic: Why does my response keep getting axed? (Score:1)
1000 Rembrandts in an email bomb is still spam. (Score:1)
Control over Content (Score:1)
The issue is not content, it's control.
There's a pretty good distinction between the "Liz Dole thing" and spam. It's a matter of interactive vs. passive technologies.
Most internet technologies are interactive. You specifically request data. If you don't want additional data, you stop it. The simple availablility of some content seems to really upset some folks. But, in keeping with the "Liz Dole" theme, just launching a 'web browser is not going to cause playboy.com to pop up on your screen; it takes the user's commands to do that.
There's also the issue that filtering technologies tend to also filter subjects such as women's health and gay lifestyle issues, which may or may not have more cultural significance than "Hot Lusty Teen Babes 4 U!!!!" But that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
Email is mostly passive. A user does not do anything specifically to receive data - it is sent to them by the actions of another. Granted, a user can attempt to assert some control over the process by using filters, limiting the distribution of their email address, etc... but the nature of the technology still remains.
I don't believe the issue itself is commercial content on the 'net. Instead, its a matter of who controls where or when that content is distributed.
Let's look at some personal examples...
I have a hobby. The hobby has a growning industry that has really began to understand the commercial prospects of the Internet.
There are a few possitive ways for this industry to take advantage of these possiblities.
I go to an information web site about that hobby. The site has banner adds. I don't mind that at all, since those advertising revenues helps pay for the upkeep of that site (if I don't like it, I can complain to the site's owner and ultimately stop visiting the site).
Meanwhile, I'll go to commercial sites for businesses having to do with that hobby. This is fine also, since I'm curious about whatever that business is selling. The second I decide that I've seen enough, I can stop the entire process.
I get regular commercial email from one of the local hobby businesses in my area. I don't mind that either, since I signed up for it at the business' site. This email is not unsolicited - I asked for it. And I am confident that it would stop as soon as I requested.
The way that a buisness would upset me would be to force their advertisements on me unwanted. Even though I'm interested in the hobby, I don't want email from the company unless I've asked for it. And ultimately, that would also apply to public discussion forumns like usenet (if a newsgroup is chartered for that hobby's commercial posts, that is another matter - once again, I can either subscribe to or ignore the group).
In each positive example, I have control over the decission to receive that data or not. When that control is taken from me, I get upset.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
Email is a medium for personal communication that occasionally gets used by _SUBSCRIBERS_ for discussion lists. It's not there to feed elephants. This does not mean I hate elephants or advertising.
Spammers steal not just a little bandwidth, they kill servers dead. It's a major pain in the ass to recover from a relay-rape, folks who had the misfortune to use an open server don't get ANY email, sometimes for days. The additional inconvenience is not just sending the spam to
This is not a small price to pay for the Internet this is the price that is paid for trusting people. There were 30 million people on the Net before there was spam. Spam _COSTS_, Ad's on tv pay for the tv show, Ad's on
If there is nothing wrong with spam, why don't they use their own names?
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
No! No! No! Any email sent to me in my private mailbox, I have to pay to receive. I don't want to pay for other companies adverts.
Also, I don't want my companys bandwith (we offer webbased emaiservices) to be abused by spammers who want to advertise. EXCEPT of course if the ones they send ads to have *requested* the ads.
If anyone want to send ads to our webusers, they better;
1. Pay us for the bandwidth they use.
2. Pay the users that they send the ads to, for their time, their extra phonebill, and so forth.
Re:Some insight on tactics. (Score:1)
You have the right to speak, not to be heard. (Score:1)
You have the right to speak and you don't want to be censored. Fine. But you do *not* have the right to be heard.
If a spammer wants to fill his web pages with banner ads, good and fine. I just won't 'listen' to it by going there (or by using junkbuster
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:1)
Re:Greeeaat. (Score:1)
It's true that a few liberal judges up there have taken a position that even pictures in and of themselves should not be illegal, but this liberal position was never adopted as the lex loci... I can only assume that this is what you've made reference too, else that you're joking (poorly).
BTW, certain provinces are more liberal/conservative regarding pr0n of any sort: Quebec being French and all, they're liberal and anything in the U.S. is okay, but other provinces have made such things as "money shots," anal, and lesbian sex "obscene" and illegal in all pornography.
If there are any further pr0n inquiries, resident expert Sir Winston will happily answer them.
Turning into accepted practive (Score:1)
I am an Australian user / admin and was wondering if any other ruling like this had been made.
It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:2)
Now there haven't been any comments about this article yet, but I predict that this ruling is not unfavourable to the
I don't endorse spam, and I think that schemes using e-mail to scam people out of money should be prosecuted under the full extent of the applicable laws. But the article pointed out that there are legitimate businesses who use e-mail to advertise, much like a circular in the newspaper, and this ruling appearently considers that spam. Laws to outlaw spam would be extremely hard to enforce and leave much room for interpetation. What is spam? Who will decide what is and what isn't? How many tax dollars will be spent on endless debates about what kind of e-mail is acceptable for you and what kind is not? Do you really want politicians deciding that for you? Personally, I think there are better ways to handle this, again going back to personal choice and responsibility. Don't want spam? Then instead of using just one e-mail address for everything, obtain at least two, one for private use between friends, and a public one that you can plaster everywhere if you like, to give to people you don't really know. A throwaway address if you will. If the spam on the public box becomes too intense, throw it away and start another. No loss. But I wager that if you keep the private address private, spam intensity will drop, probably even to zero.
The more power we give a government, the more power that government has. I think we can solve these problems with cleverness rather than blanket censorship and legislation. Junk mail doesn't hurt anyone. False schemes and illegal operations do of course, and as said above, those should be prosecuted. But junk mail is just an annoyance, and to get a government involved in that....I don't think it's necessary or desirable.
And to all non-Canadian
The true north strong and free.. (Score:1)
Yes, this past Canada Day was a good one, and Canada seems better by the day.
Re:Hmmm (Score:1)
Look at this quote:
>Nexx had received complaints from people who had received the spam
> and a warning from Nexx's network provider Exodus Communications
>Inc. that this activity violated Exodus's anti-spamming policies.
The ISP had an anti-spam policy, and this company went against it.
Tough darts, farmer! Ya break the usage code, ya get shut down.
OTOH, If Nexx doesn't inform their clients that their ISP has a no-spam rule, then 2 lashes for Nexx as well.
As far as I'm concerned, spam is spam, and is unacceptable for ANYBODY, no matter how big or small your company is.
If you have to advertise on the Net, and there seems to be no way out of this one
be freakin' legit about it and don't spam people! Yeesh...
I swear I'm gonna kill anyone who sends me more US long-distance savings spam. I live in Canada for ^&*% sake!
Pope
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:2)
All email that is sent from someone you do not know, to convince you of something is spam. Everything that is sent to me, without me requesting it - or it originating from someone I know - I regard as spam.
If I post my mailaddress at my webpage, of course people may send me mail there - about my webpage, or even just for fun. But for it to be spidered into spamdatabases - that's not good. I use two mailaddresses. One at hotmail - which is a virtual spamtrap. Using it when I post both to usenet and putting it in guestbooks - it has a tendency to be spammed from here to hell and back. The problem with this, is that it causes extra load to the hotmail servers. Not that I really care about hotmail - but I run my own webbased wemailservices too. And I really am FED UP with spammers who abuse my bandwith, my mailservers processing power and so forth.
And yes - spam DOES hurt. It takes bandwidth, they use 3rd party mailhosts which are misconfigured and allow worldwide relaying. Abusing the poor admins processing power and their connection-bandwidth.
Spam shall be fought, and we shall win the battle. All unsolicited junkmail should be eradicated, and I do not want my bandwidth to be wasted on some company wanting to market itself. If they really want to send email to my customers they should PAY MY NEXT BANDWIDTH UPGRADE.
Re:Spam is not about freedom, it's about waste. (Score:1)
Personally I do think some sort of "spam" should be legal. Not electronically, because it fills up my mailbox and its me that has to pay for it. Not to mention that it takes far too much valuable bandwidth that OTHER people than the advertiser has to pay for.
However, there should be a way to distribute information. A way for new, smalltime companies to say "here we are, and this is what we do". I sure as hell don't want all that stuff as papers in my 'In Real Life' mailbox neither - so exactly how to do that is a big question.
Free bulletinboards is one thing. Another good idea is that "you get paid to watch ads". I don't like alladvantage / gotoworld simply because they're pyramidal schemes which make everybody spam all their friends with "hey, be cool, join and put me up as your reference". Not to mention IRC spam and so forth.
Re:Hmmm (Score:1)
OTOH, If Nexx doesn't inform their clients that their ISP has a no-spam rule, then 2 lashes for Nexx as well.
Nah, no lashes to nexx whatever was the case. If an ISP does allow spam, it can only do so for ITS customers. No ISP may allow anyone to spam my mailbox.
If nexx didn't explicitly deny their clients to spam - I don't think they could've done anything if one of their customers spammed their other customers.
Re:Some insight on tactics. (Score:1)
VRFY scarr
.. or
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
Now you're assuming that all of us have the luxury of just having those two groups of people to choose from.
I can't stop using my public mail addresses just because you think it's a good way of dealing with spam.
And what do you intend to do when your private e-mail address no longer is private, because someone you knew accidentally got a computer virus that spread his/her mail contact list to a few spammers out there?
You're going to tell your university/school/employer that you need a new user name because of spam, right? And then you need to tell all those people who you think may have an interest in knowing your private e-mail address what your new address is. And with any bad luck, another of your friends gets the same virus (or perhaps it was never removed in the first place), and there you go again.
No, I don't think changing e-mail-addresses is the solution, sorry.
The solution is to make unsolicited commercial e-mail illegal, in order to make it possible to stop the companies causing the problem instead of treating the symptoms.
My thanks to the Canadian ruling; let's hope it spreads.
Community standards (Score:1)
Spam != Junk Mail (Score:1)
With spam (and faxes) the sender pays 1/2 the cost (the sending) but the receiver pays to receive it. If it didn't cost me anything to receive spam, I wouldn't mind it anywhere near as much as I do, but its costing me money to receive something I never asked for, and don't want.
And the argument that "its only a few K" is nonsense. Yes, _each one_ is only a few K bytes, but how much spam do you receive each day?
Anyways, most of the people who will read this know this already, but its worth mentioning again IMHO.
Re:Greeeaat. (Score:1)
As for the issue of "money shots, nor lesbian scenes, nor anal scenes"--no, it's not illegal to possess, and I never said it was. It is however illegal to distribute/sell such materials, which effectively makes them contraband. I have read many a complaint by Canucks in rec.arts.movies.erotica and the likes about this, so don't argue that it's still easy to come by this material in Canada, because you have to jump some hurdles my friend. People on the ng always complain that every great U.S. pr0nfilm we recommend is, if available, edited by around 20 minutes. It's not like here where I can go to the Capitol Video and get anything I want. Not to mention the poor souls who've been prosecuted. There have even been prosectutions for possession of written pornographic material about minors--i.e., stories, mere *words*. And as I said, the BC ruling is to be plugged soon. Count on it. And it hasn't helped the poor guy who's already been prosecuted and had his life ruined because of some words I could get from alt.se.stories right now.
BeaverHome.com (Score:1)
Re:The true north strong and free.. (Score:1)
Although we have some incredably stupid practices (Can you say CRTC?) most of the time we rule the world (blanket phrase - I don't actually think we rule the world to those of you who might want to start a debate)
Having said that though, I'm a little concerned about the legal precedence this might be setting, where nettiquite (or other standard social practices) becomes upholdable by law. What the judge is sayin is that because popular opinion is against you, you are wrong. Yes, this is taking the case to an extreme, but it's a trend I don't want to see started. Just because I like Linux doesn't mean I'm wrong, it just means I'm different (better!) than some of the other computer users out there. Just because someone (sigh, I hate to say this) Spams me doesn't mean he's wrong, it means that he's not right by our accepted net.standards. Isn't the net about non-standards though? Freedom to express - yes, spam isnt' an expression, but again, it's a road I don't want to go down.
Just my $0.02 CDN
Todd.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
I think there need to be distinctions made in the blanket word of "spam". There's a difference between a business legally and rightly advertising through available mediums and a spammer who will try to wreak havoc by promising people "get rich quick" and "free money today!" schemes. The former I would not consider spam; the latter of course, and I think that schemes to cheat people out of money and the like should be prosecuted. But legitimate businesses have a right to advertise, just as you have a right to mute the TV when a commercial comes on, or leave the room when the radio goes to commercial, just as you have the right to delete the ads in your mailbox when they come in. Do we really want to deny businesses a true and legitimate right to advertise? What precident does that set?
I know many would not cry to see businesses castrated, to have all commercialization eridicated, but look at the big picture; in a free market capitalist system businesses grow in part by advertisement, and that of course has it's pluses and minuses, but to outlaw advertisement, on any medium, paints a bad picture and will harm business, especially the small businesses.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
RELEVANT(!) newsgroups also spam.
And some people call RELEVANT(!) advertising
on webpages spam.
I agree as far as the shit in my mailbox is
concerned (I actually do not care; usually I get quite interesting spam I must say), but ng
advertising, if posted to relevant groups, is
not spam in my book, but a way of marketing your
products. Webpages the same.
Re:Spam is not about freedom, it's about waste. (Score:1)
The difference between paper UCE and e-mail UCE is that the former is paid for by the sender, but the latter is paid for in part by the recipient: the USPS claims that they are funded entirely by service fees levied on the sender (including postage fees), and not by e.g. taxes, but I have to pay for my own Internet connection (indirectly in my case --- I'm using a "free" dialup provided to CMU staff, but I get that in return for *work*). I should not have to contribute to the cost of unsolicited mail: if J. Random Company, Inc. wants to send unsolicited mail to me, let *it* foot the bill.
Re:It's not just ham...it's SPAM! (Score:1)
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but that comment does actually frighten me. Commercial e-mail illegal. Companies causing the problem. Don't you see a major breach of constitutional ettiquette (not to mention a right or three) in blaming and punishing businesses for trying to expand themselves and advertise? Let's leave the businesses alone and concentrate on the real criminal spammers, those who would be fradulant and steal money from too trusting people.
And before anyone says it, yes, businesses can be fradulant too, all businesses are not perfect, and those breaking the law will be punished. But for the most part I think most businesses play it legal, and their rights should not be infringed.