Our report on the Cato event: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51370,00.html --- Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:49:06 -0700 To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>, wcrewsat_private From: "Richard Johnson" <rdumpat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Events: Cato spam panel TODAY, EFF dinner 4/16, Big Brother awards At 01:44 -0500 on 27/03/2002, Declan McCullagh wrote: > --- > > Subject: Spam panel Wednesday at Cato. -wayne > Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:15:50 -0500 > From: "Wayne Crews" <wcrewsat_private> > To: <declanat_private> > ... > The Cato Institute > invites you to a Policy Forum > > The Spam Wars > What Can Be Done about the Annoying, Unsolicited E-mail That Is Driving Us > Crazy? > > featuring > > Howard Beales > Federal Trade Commission > > Chris Hoofnagle > Electronic Privacy > Information Center > > Rebecca Richards > TRUSTe > > Jerry Cerasale > Direct Marketing Association Very interesting. This panel includes a member of the main organization blocking or perverting all anti-spam legislation that has been attempted to date. Specifically, I am referring to Jerry Cerasale of the pro-spam Direct Marketing Association. The DMA uses its br..., er, I mean lobbying muscle in Congress to try to ensure that DMA members can continue to spam with impunity while the chickenboner scammers are wiped out. Heck, they've even gone so far as to effectively say that we email server operators and ISPs should be providing a free subsidy for the DMA members' postage-due marketing. Also interesting is the presence of a TRUSTe representative. TRUSTe has never done anything against their members who spam, and I hear is now even disclaming any authority over member email abuses. I've been watching TRUSTe from the beginning. I was IS Director at a fairly large (and thankfully now quite defunct) privacy violation firm when TRUSTe was being formed -- we had a rep on the board. I speak from personal experience then and since when I say that anyone who believes TRUSTe is about protecting consumer privacy, rather than about putting bureaucratic delay barriers between privacy violaters and their victims, hasn't been paying attention. TRUSTe exists to take money from firms that want to violate privacy, and who thus need a PR cut-out to induce victims to give up and accept their abuse. Despite one unfortunate period where execs went around threatening specious SLAPP actions against critics, TRUSTe has performed that PR function admirably. The FTC representation is interesting as well. The FTC has no mandate regarding spam. Instead, they deal with fraudulent trade practices. However, only some spam is for fraudulent deals. The real danger to the usefulness of email for personal communication is from so-called legitimate companies who decide they can use our mailboxes as their billboards without providing us any compensation. That really has nothing to do with the FTC. The presence of the two pro-spams along with the FTC rep, and the total lack of any representation from CAUCE, CAUBE, or those who actually fight -all- spam in the trenches at ISPs, is quite telling. Clearly, the DMA's lobbying is paying off. They're attempting to have the email abuse their members perform declared "not spam", while focusing all attention on the poor stupid scammers. I therefore suggest the forum will be less than useful for the real world fight against pro-spams like the DMA, who would, as much as any chickenboner scammer, force us to eat their spam, at our cost, on our private property. That forum thus isn't going to shed any new light on the real issues: spam as invasion of personal space/privacy spam as trespass to chattel spam as theft by conversion Spam is all about prior consent for delivery. Spam is not about content, no matter how fraudulent or disgusting the content may be. Regardless, I will continue to refuse to let packets from pro-spams in the DMA onto all private property under my control. Well-behaved visitors are allowed, but those who paper my systems as if they were free billboards are trespassers. If they want me to accept their crapola, they'll have to negotiate a separate waste disposal contract with me, and I won't be cheap. Richard -- My mailbox. My property. My personal space. My rules. Deal with it. http://www.river.com/users/share/cluetrain/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Politech dinner in SF on 4/16: http://www.politechbot.com/events/cfp2002/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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