🚀 go-pugleaf

Everrod <goodbest@crl14.crl.com> writes:
>On Thu, 12 Sep 1996, Bill Atchison wrote:
>> I've been thinking about adding a tag line:
>> Unsolicited junk e-mail charged $5 per occurence.
>> Then actually send them a bill, with e-mail attached
>> and an itemized list of service costs and administrative
>> costs to process the bill ;)
>> When they refuse to pay, send it to collections!
>
>Good idea. Would a collection agency take such an account?  How could we 
>get the true identity and address of the spammer so collection could be 
>pursued?  To have any effect, the spammer must believe it can.

Simple answer: no.  But if it stops any of them, go ahead and use the
argument.

The reason why you couldn't collect and couldn't ever win in court is
becuase there is no contract.  You are not offering them a service even if
you try to make it sound that way.  (A rose by any other name... you know.)
Without their agreement to pay you, an understanding of the agreement,
and a mutual benefit to both parties, no contract exists.  It's just
responding to their theft of paid bandwidth with a feeble attempt at
extortion.  So be aware that if they challenge you, they've called your
bluff.

However, at the same time, the spammers are getting away with making others
pay for the delivery of their advertisement.  So you do have reason to
oppose them.  Just use something that has a chance of working, like
complaining to their site admins or, if that doesn't work, go upstream
from their site to complain.  You are justified to take any possible
(legal) action to shut them down if they're wasting massive amounts of
bandwidth funded by others' ISP payments.
-- 
Ian Kluft  KO6YQ PP-ASEL  http://www.kluft.com/~ikluft/   sbay.org coordinator
ikluft@thunder.sbay.org (home)  ikluft@cisco.com (work)           San Jose, CA