FC: John Gilmore's proposed principle for anti-spam action

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Wed Nov 06 2002 - 08:48:09 PST

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    [I agree with John. --Declan]
    
    ---
    
    To: declanat_private, gnuat_private
    cc: politechat_private
    Subject: Re: FC: SpamCop's Julian Haight replies to Politech, and other 
    defenses
    In-reply-to: <5.1.1.6.0.20021104213920.02a3cd10at_private>
    Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 09:49:11 -0800
    From: John Gilmore <gnuat_private>
    
    Declan, aren't you comforted by knowing that your online email
    newspaper is being censored not because of what it says, not because
    of its own subscription policies, but because of the policies of its
    neighbors in a rack in some windowless room?
    
    EFF's first principle of antispam is "Any measure for stopping spam
    must ensure that all non-spam messages reach their intended
    recipients."  Even if you would prefer a watered-down version like,
    "No non-spam message should be INTENTIONALLY blocked", SpamCop's
    policy clearly violates that:
    
       Since complaints from their spam-victims don't seem to have any
       effect, perhaps complaints from their paying users will!
    
    SpamCop is making a deliberate attempt to use YOUR subscribers and
    YOU, against your will, to pressure third parties into doing what
    SpamCop orders them to do.  Many other anti-spam organizations,
    frustrated at their lack of actual power to order people to do things,
    have used the same tactic.  Perhaps it was Paul Vixie's MAPS that
    originated the tactic, blacklisting entire ISPs until they followed
    his orders.
    
    Furthermore, the third party involved is not even a spammer, and has
    probably never sent a single spam in their life!  They merely run a
    server that forwards email to its destination.  (Every router on the
    Internet also forwards email to its destination.)
    
    Congratulations again on being censored in order to apply pressure to
    such evil gnomes as these.
    
    	John Gilmore
    
    
    
    
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