Re: Fraud and free speech

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 4:14 PM -0700 6/8/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:

>Well I would have to dissagre. Advertisements should be covered under
>contract law as verbal contracts. If I advertise that "X" does "Y" but it
>really does "Z" then this is clearly fraudulent behavior.

When I was growing up, advertisements that a product would make one
attractive to women, for example, were treated as marketing jive. And we
were all taught the old saw, "If Johhny told you to jump off a cliff, would
you?" (This along with "sticks and stones" formed the basis of my
proto-libertarian view.)

An advertisement is a tease, not a promise. If a advertisement for a
Pentium says it will run Macintosh software and run it at 600 Mhz, the
proper response is skepticism, not demanding a law be passed to stop such
advertisements.

The key lies in proper contracts, not in regulating speech.

(Oh, and it almost goes without saying that the same "lies" William and
others are so worried about in "commercial" speech happen all the time in
non-commerical speech. For every example of where commercial speech
involves lies or fraud, I can find similar or fully equivalent
non-commercial examples, ranging from lies like "I love you" to get a
partner into bed to deliberate misstatements to mislead an opponent. Why
should such "lies" be protected while putatively commercial speech is to be
subjected to an increasing number of limitations?)

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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