Subject: Re: The Spam Debate, and closing the list...
To: Mason Loring Bliss <mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us>
From: Michael G. Schabert <mikeride@prez.buf.servtech.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 09/15/1997 17:43:19
>1) Criminalize unsolicited commercial email. Unsolicited commercial
>facsimile transmissions are illegal, as far as I know, so there's precedent.

I'm afraid that this is not precedent. Faxes take up phone lines and paper,
and cost money. If you're receiving your email, you're voluntarily using up
your phone line, and a UCE is only taking up about 2 seconds of it on a
9600 modem. Most users are on unlimited-time accounts and don't pay for
time online. They're available in the whole US, so there's not much need
for pay accounts unless you have extremely small online requirements. Some
argue that foreign countries are not so blessed. Well, as unfair as it
sounds, that's tough, since US laws cannot be enacted to serve just foreign
users.

Laws are not the answer. The answer is to make it unprofitable to use UCE.
The only reason that it's used is because idiots respond and buy the
products. If they find that it's a dead-end street, they'll stop trying to
use it. Hit them in the wallet & they'll go away.

Mike

Bikers don't *DO* taglines.