I think whether it is illegal to send junk e-mail is a much more
difficult question (leaving aside the question of whethr it should be
illegal), depending on how the sender connects to the net.
If the spammer connects by dial-up over the public phone system, than
those calls are subject to the laws and regulations governing the
making of harassing phone calls. The e-mail may not per se be
legally actionable, but the phone call to the ISP for the purpose of
sending e-mail for purposes of harassment could be held to constitute
the making of a phone call for purposes of harassment.
The definitions of telephone harassment includes making calls after
being directed not to do so again by the recipient. (The gray area
is whether "the recipient", in this case, would be construed to be
only the ISP or would be considered also to be the recipient of the
e-mail, or whether the call would be illegal if it were for the
purpose of harassing a thrid party -- the recipient of the e-mail
-- rather than the ISP who is the recipient of the phone call.).
Anyone can send anyone *one* unsolicited message. I don't like it,
but am unconvinced that there is any way to stop it. (I get a lot
that begin, "I saw your web site" or "I saw your FAQ". The worst
yet was junk e-mail advertising the sale of junk e-mailer software
that collects adddresses from web sites or newsgroup postings and
archives. I'm geting more and more junk e-amil, but more of it is
targetted based on my postings, etc., not completely random -- not
that that makes iot any more accetable.) But sending follow-up
messages after being requested to desist is, IMHO, harassment.
My standard response to junk mail (copied to the postmaster of the
sender's site) is as follows. What surprises me is how often I get
personal, apologetic replies. I think most spammers are one-timers
who really don't understand what they are doing wrong:
I consider all unsolicited e-mail solicitation,
advertising, and telemarketing to be harassment.
I do not knowingly patronize or contribute to,
and I actively discourage my friends, associates,
colleagues, customers, and suppliers from
patronizing or contributing to, any business or
organization that advertises or solicits
in this manner. If you have a product or service
to offer, or organization or event to promote,
I suggest you post a message in one of the appropriate
newsgroups (such a as "rec.travel.marketplace" for
travel products and services), which exist
precisely for this purpose, and where those who
are seeking such information would logically look.
For users within the APC networks, there is a
"Headlines" service to bring postings of special
significance to the attention of users who do not
usually read the relevant newsgroups, with minimal
burden on network or user time and resources or
intrusion on those who aren't interested, or who
already have read the newsgroup postings.
----------------
Edward Hasbrouck <ehasbrouck@igc.apc.org>
Around-The-World Specialist, Sundance Travel, Inc.
660 Market Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104 USA
phone +1-415-677-0799 (ext. 302), fax +1-415-391-1856
CST reg. # 504696; IATA,ARC,ASFA,ASTA,APTA,PATA,ETN,WTT,API
http://www.moon.com/authors/hasbrouck.html
http://www.moon.com/links/airtips.html
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