I think rather that that was the point I was trying to make:
No matter the laws on any books, currently there is no law saying Sprint, UUNet, etc., can't redefine that law for their own use. They don't call the police to shut you down - they just do it themselves to anyone on the chain of IP addresses that doesn't comply. And, sure, fax-spamming has been illegal here in America for what, ten years? The one time I got fed up and found the right authorities to call, they laughed at me. And I've never ever been able to tell that calling one of the 1-800 numbers for automatically getting off of a fax spam list seemed to help - the next week there were the same offers for vacations and ribbons. I think we need to learn a lesson from the US's anti-spam laws - both fax and e-mail: they are unenforceable. Too many violations for a nonexistent department to handle. We have to handle it ourselves. We have to come up with guidelines. We have to make sure our peers respond to those guidelines. And in the end, it won't matter because the supreme gods (well, UUNet at least) just won't care and they will go about cutting you off at the knees irregardless of your policy. Well, considering I was doing fax-broadcasts to 1000's a decade ago (legally - press releases...not ads...and so kept up on the laws) and now handle hundreds of mail servers, to me that is the way it is and will continue to be since that is the way it has been for so long. Certainly made me feel better ;-( John T. Jarrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of POWERHOUSE Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 1:14 PM To: Kris Benson Cc: opensrs discuss Subject: Re: Spamming Go ahead, manufacture me a email. That is what the headers are for. And as far as having them all send me spam, Go ahead. That is why I use my filters to BLOCK unwanted emailers from sending me email. As far as your defenitions are concerned, according to congress, Email CANNOT be considered Spam, as long as long as it has 3 elements. 1) A way to be removed. 2) The user MUST delete the email from his list, if s/he gets a removal request, and 3) You must display Contact information in the email for the reader. That was as of 8 months ago, and I have not check since then. Yeah, that is for the USA, NOT Candians, or most other countries, That is my point. The whole WORLD should have the SAME laws on it, since their is NO barrier to the internet. Geeze, I talk to people all the time, who I have to remind myself, they are in other countries! I get customers from all over the globe, and It amazes me all the time, that the Internet is so FAST. Don't Get me wrong, I don't think that you should just be able to make up a email address, and start sending email there. What I'm saying is that people act like, if you send them a piece of email, and they don't know who you are, a lot of people act like you killed their best friend, or Mother! It's NUTS. Especially, if they have a vendetta against someone who they USED to chat with, through email. Now they start reporting them as spammers, and who's to defend the one who sent the email? NO ONE, because the "Spam Police" have the user shut down before the person even knows what hit them!!! BTW: Most people would not know how to modify the headers, BEFORE they send the email, as the server creates it ENROUTE. Here's YOUR IP newmail.netbistro.com ([204.239.167.35]) Hackers, and Crackers would know how to cloak all that, but that is a WHOLE new topic! The common "Spammer" would have NO IDEA how to do it. I'm all for creating a system, where a Legitimate business could NOT get into hot water, just because some crys Spam, unless it really IS spam. but the business, will have more problems if it was not, they would more than likely have to have their account re-opened, and lots of other things, so i just think that their should be some kind of PROOF that must be shown. and then the accused should be able to defend themselves. If you think I'm against spam, go look at our default page, where if someone does a search for our domain, and goes to our IP address they will get this message... http://www.segn.net Richard http://www.firstratehosting.com http://register.firstratehosting.com/cgi-bin/reg_system.cgi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kris Benson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "POWERHOUSE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Swerve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "opensrs discuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 12:41 PM Subject: Re: Spamming > POWERHOUSE wrote: > > > > No, I do agree, that Fax blasting is WRONG. That does cost people money. > > Email Does Not. Just like if your are watching > > TV and you see an ad. You have a choice to watch it or NOT. In your Snail > > Mail. You can through the letter away or NOT. > > Mr Powerhouse: > > This argument is weak. Very weak. In fact, it is based on a fallacy. > e-mail does cost people money. I know that as an ISP, we pay traffic > charges, and CPU time on our mailserver is not free either. As a home > user, I pay connect-time charges. What does the spammer pay? Relatively > little in comparison. It is truly the recipient that ends up swallowing > the costs. > > This is opposite other mediums: > Fax: you will likely get it long distance, costing you pennies (especially > if you have a decent fax machine) and costing them about 40 cents per > page. > > Mail: you pay nothing to recieve it, the sender pays about 40 cents per > envelope to send it (plus medium costs) > > TV: you pay relatively little for the cable service when you compare to > the thousands or millions of dollars spent to run a 30 second ad. > > > I just don't think people should be able to cry spam, when 75% of the time, > > they have signed up for something somewhere and > > they just forget about it. I am a webhost. Not a reseller either. I do not > > shut down my clients for spam, unless the person who sent > > it cannot verify that the person in some way either emailed them FIRST, or > > You know how easy it is to manufacture an e-mail message? There's a > reason that they're not quite as rock solid as a handwritten letter in > court. > > > Then it's NOT spam. X being critical factors. Then when people ask to be > > removed, and they are NOT removed, they should get a fine > > or something like that, to keep the "balance" on the internet. I just don't > > think that their should be 1000 different laws as to what constitutes > > Spam. If that is the case, and say you have a customer, who falls under the > > Spam is the common term for UCE or Unsolicited Commercial E-mail. > Dissecting this term, we find that the message must meet three > qualifications: 1, Unsolicited -- user did not request this information; > 2, Commercial -- someone somewhere is going to profit from this; 3, e-mail > -- must come by e-mail. > > If it fits those three categories, it is spam. > > > Just because they are you customer, don't mean you have the right to send > > them email, and that is a what I'm talking about. Their > > That is debatable. A company-client relationship changes it from > unsolicited to solicited. > > > everyones got them and they all stink. I know mine does to a lot of people, > > but I think that is the way it should be. Filters work, but they could also > > filter out GOOD email. Like maybe a domain Expiration warning. Things like > > that. > > > > anyways, Not everyone agrees with what I think, and I don't agree with what > > everyone thinks. Life goes on.... > > Spam is wrong. I'm sure it could be arranged to have all the list members > start forwarding their spam to you, if you want proof... > > -kb > -- > Kris Benson > ABC Communications > +1 (250)612-5270 x204 > +1 (888)235-1174 x204 > >
