Re: Responses to "Spam costs and questions" (long)

["Ross Wright" <rwright@adnetsol.com>]

On or About  6 Jun 97 at 23:41, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> If you set up your mailbox to accept e-mail promiscuously from
> anyone, then anything sent to it is "consentual".

Exactly.  And if you put an e-mail address on a web-site, it's fair 
game.  You consent to have me, at least, comment.

> The onus is on the recipient to filter out what they don't want (or

And not the onus of the Government to save us from the nasty bad evil 
spammers.

> to "filter in" only what they want, which is how I think we'll end
> up). Such filtering takes less time+effort than "repeated
> cease-and-desist notes".

Like any spammer listens to those anyway.  I was sent so many of 
those when I started, it didn't scare me at all.  But now I'm a 
reformed, kinder, gentler spammer.  Most times they don't even know 
they've been spammed.

On or About  7 Jun 97 at 13:53, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> talk about this (and I do hope Ross will will this of interest!),
> let's

You bet.  I'm bummed that I missed out on this whole conversation, 
it's a week old now.

On or About  7 Jun 97 at 13:53, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> Also instead of just building the biggest possible list of e-mail
> addresses, they build a targeted database, keeping track where a
> particular e-mail address was found.

That's right.  I've got different lists for the different places that 
I harvested them from.

> Suppose a person subscribes to
> a "porsche owners" mailing list, and goes to an investment- related
> channel on one of the IRC servers. In no time he'll be getting "junk
> e-mail" related to the interests he expressed - possibly even saying
> "I'm writing you because I saw you on the #invest channel on
> Tuesday, and I want to tell you about this hot new penny stock"
> 
> Left to itself, the market will stabilize and the occasional
> unsolicited bulk e-mail will be even less of a nuisance than it is
> now.

Please.  I beg all of you just to let it settle it's self.  No 
regulation is needed, or wanted.  It's not that bad.

On or About  7 Jun 97 at 13:37, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Such a law would be unconstitutional, I believe, and unjust. It's
> compelled speech: the government forcing you to say something.

I don't want anyone telling me what I have to put into the subject 
field of my bulk e-mailings.

> Depending on how it's worded, it could also impact core political
> speech, something the courts generally don't like.
> 
> -Declan

On or About  8 Jun 97 at 5:36, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> I don't think commercial speech should be treated as second-class
> speech. But my position is hardly surprising. 
>

Declan, thanks.  You are right that speech is speech.
 
On or About  9 Jun 97 at 23:45, Kent Crispin wrote:

And here's where it degrades into discussions about ads and sales 
tactics and all that stuff that the general public is so frightened 
of.  It's like salesmen are the reviled, untouchables in our society. 
Needed but hated.  These topics always fall to the level of 
the morals of given marketing strategies.

That's not what this is about.

It's about freedom to tell people about a product in any way that you 
can.

> > When a tobacco company says in an ad, "Joe Camel is cool", what
> > kind of contractual obligations does it assume?
> 
> None.  I did not say that all ads were part of a contract.
> 
> > Have you ever bought a used car, Kent?  Have you seen the language
> > in the contract that throws out whatever promises the saleguy made
> > that are not a part of the contract? 
> 
> Yes, but never from a used-car lot, always from people I know.  I
> have

=-=-=-=-=-=-
Ross Wright
King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services
http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia
Voice: (408) 259-2795