🚀 go-pugleaf

Skrev heller@nacs.net (Jettero Heller) i brevet 
<54ln21$sjj@tracy.nacs.net>:
>: > *****WANT TO GET YOUR MEESSAGE TO*****
>: >                100,000+ PROSPECTS A DAY?
>
>Send them a copy of:
>-------------------------
>Lately, there have been a few messages in this newsfroup complaining
>(with justification) about increases in the frequency of unsolicited
>commercial e-mail.  Be aware that this cloud has a silver lining.  Under
>US Code Title 47, you can make *at least* $500 from each instance of
>unsolicited e-mail.  Assuming that there is an inexhaustible supply of

(I deleted quotes from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1992.)

This has been discussed recently on misc.legal.moderated. Though it's not 
unanimous, the most clearly reasoned opinions seem to be that (a) the law 
doesn't apply to junk emails and (b) even if it did, it would be 
practically almost impossible to collect. For a legal argument, see
    http://www.panix.com/~eck/junkmail.html

Please don't kill the messenger: i agree on the odiousness of junk email, 
but I have grave doubts that this particular way is an effective 
countermeasure.

The problem is that junk faxes (a) tie up equipment so that it can't be 
used and (b) cost the _recipient_ money for supplies. Junk emails are 
certainly annoying, and I yield to no one in my hatred of them, but we 
must realize that (barring mail-bombing) they do not constitute a denial 
of service. As for costing the recipient, this one used to be easier to 
demonstrate; but now that even the big ISPs are going with flat-rate 
pricing it's harder to argue.

Action by Congress is needed to extend us protection against junk emails.
But I fear that, to some extent, this is something we're going to have to 
learn to live with, just like advertisements on the supposedly 
commercial-free PBS and NPR.

(posted and emailed)

-- 

Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio USA
email: stbrown@nacs.net               Web: http://www.nacs.net/~stbrown/