Previous Politech messages: "Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04335.html "Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04336.html --- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:28:07 -0800 From: Brad Templeton <bradat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Cc: disenbergat_private Subject: Re: FC: Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20030120214140.01aea960at_private>; from declanat_private on Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 09:45:12PM -0500 Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad A worthwhile analysis but it is worth also noting: I think people fear not just candidate mail when it comes to political spam. Many people feel that dealing with spam must be done in a content-neutral way, with no special punishments or special exceptions based on _what_ the messages says rather than how it is sent. They fear political (or non-commercial) spam of all sorts, mail not just from candidates but from anybody with an issue to promote, which is tens of thousands of special interest groups and possibly millions, when the price is low enough, as it is. Most spam laws have tried to focus on commercial spam, hoping it is less protected. But the high court in Cincinatti vs. Discovery Network ruled that in fact that's just what you can't do. If the problem being solved isn't inherently commercial, you shouldn't use the lower protections on commercial speech as a loophole. (Not that domestic spam laws have much chance of actually working. We have 25 spam laws now, I think, and none have done a whit against spam nor shown much sign of doing so. However, the definition of spam also must be well stated even for non-governmental attempts to get at spam. I know of no plan to make that defintion not include political or charitable spam.) Single spams are indeed less annoying than phone calls, they are less annoying that just about anything. Spam annoys because of its spam,spam,spam,spam high volume, just like the monty python sketch. The content of the message is not relevant. In fact, attempts to regulate only advertising fail, as a good percentage of spam today is not advertising. (The most common spam is a confidence trick that offers no product for sale but offers to give you 22 MILLION DOLLARS hidden in a Nigerian bank.) If political spam were exempted and the volume were found to be low enough to not affect greatly the utility of E-mail the way current spam volumes do, it might continue to be tolerated, but I doubt it. More to the point, existing spammers would find a way to make their messages political. "They're trying to ban cheap overseas Viagra! People now know if you go to Google and search for "cheap overseas viagra" you will find good low priced suppliers. But the government wants to make this illegal. Write to your congressman and tell them you want it to be legal." Political message? or Ad? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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