I never said spam was correct, ethical, or acceptable. But you are placing
the blame on the source of the information, not the party that improperly
uses it. The registrars all specifically forbid using their whois data for
unsolicited commercial email uses. (Regular junk mail is another matter.)
Anyone who uses the information for UCE is violating the contract under
which they received it. If they are willing to violate their contract, what
more can you do short of making the information completely unavailable
(which would restrict legitimate, intended use)?
I don't blame the existence of spam on the existence of spamware CD's. As
long as there is a demand for email addresses, there will be a supply. Only
when the use of the addresses becomes unattractive will the demand for them
dry up.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Cooper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: Re: MEDIA: Network solutions sells out.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chuck Hatcher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 8:04 PM
>
>
> > The lack of ethics is entirely with the parties doing the spamming. The
> > Whois databases are freely available public records. Bulk access to the
> > Whois information may make spamming more convenient, but even if if
there
>
> I disagree.
>
> It is an accepted fact that the only correct, ethical and acceptable means
of
> conducting commercial email campaigns is permission based, opt-in email.
>
> When I register a domain, I am certainly not thereby giving permission for
my
> email address, provided for domain administration purposes only, to be
used for
> commercial email purposes.
>
> Your analogy, with respect, is not much better than saying that because
there
> are spamware CD's being touted out there, with millions of email addresses
> illicitly scraped from websites etc., and which includes the latest
version of
> direct to MX spam-o-matic program, we should have to put up with it
because our
> email address was publicly available and makes spamming more convenient.
>
> If this data is to be continued to be made available by registrars, then,
when
> registering an email address against a domain registration, we should be
asked
> whether we expressly consent to that email address being sold, or
otherwise made
> available to third parties for commercial purposes.
>
> IMO - ICANN are setting an exceptionally bad precedent here, and should
think
> again.
>
> Adrian Cooper.
>
