Subject: Re: Guidance for spam-control on IETF mailing lists

From: "John Stracke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 16:02:27 -0500

>The behavour that bulk emailers exhibit is substiantly different from
>happened in this case.

The key point, though, is that there is no way for the recipients to tell 
the difference.  From my point of view, when I get customized spam (the 
sort with my name & address on it, rather than BCC:ing everybody), all I 
know is that it was sent by someone running a simple fill-in-the-blanks 
program.  I do not know, or care, whether that program was run in software 
or wetware; and I do not know, or care, whether that message went to 10 
people or 10 million.  Either way, the harm to me is the same.

>In fact if you look at the various forms
>of legislation around the world

Law has nothing to do with right and wrong.  If I can't look at a piece of 
spam and determine whether or not it infringes the law, then there is 
something wrong with the law.

/===========================================================\
|John Stracke                    |Principal Engineer        |
[email-masked]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.   |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.   |
|===========================================================|
|"What we have here is a failure to assimilate." --Cool Hand|
|Locutius                                                   |
\===========================================================/

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From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 18:35:47 -0700 (MST)

> From: "John Stracke" <[email-masked]>

> ...

That may be true in general, but it might be interesting to look at
how existing laws might apply to examples of spam.  I'm certainly not
a lawyer, but I suspect that the unsolicited bulk commercial advertising
email or "spam" that Mr. Kenres's organization sent me (and perhaps
other contributors to this mailing list) in October, 2001, violates
the California and Colorado laws.  Of course, even if I'm right about
that, the Hong Kong location of his organization and the passage of
time makes the issue moot in any practical sense.

To see if you received Mr. Kenres's spam, check the first two entries at
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22ima.%2Bcom%22+group%3Anews.admin.net-abuse.sightings
Notice for one thing that it lacks the required (and yes, stupid)
"ADV:" Subject line tag.

There are links to many laws at http://www.spamlaws.com/

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]