🚀 go-pugleaf

Skrev wyang@freenet.columbus.oh.us (William Yang) i brevet 
<54qeno$kse@names.freenet.columbus.oh.us>:
>In article <MPG.cd9b3e65eef01939899d8@news.nacs.net>,
>Stan Brown <stbrown@nacs.net> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>Uhm, I really disagree here.  I run a large site (20,000 or so users),
[...]
>All large sites have a serious problem with junk e-mail, because my
>project is not uncommon amongst large sites in these kinds of
>problems.  I still do not understand why my site should be subsidizing
>commercial activity outside of our service area, at the expense of our
>actual mission.

Bill raises an excellent point. I've been looking at this from the point 
of view of the individual account holder (which I am). It's different 
when one considers the cumulative effect of junk mails on a large site 
(or even a small one, since I imagine they'd be proportionally the same).

I believe "denial of service", which is what Bill was describing, is 
already a civil tort. But I'm not a lawyer either, so I don't know.

Again, a reminder: the legal aspects are currently being discussed on 
misc.legal.moderated.

(posted and emailed)

-- 

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