> I agree - unfortunately the congresscritters did not seem to have meant
> including email in the fax law (even though the rationale against
> postage-due junk and denial of intended use look pretty identical for
> both). I think it should be very high on the priority list of everyone -
> particularly you Americans, of course ;-) - who cares about preserving
> some usefulness in online communications to push for an amendment to that
> law (which should be a lot easier, and would make more sense too, than
> making a new one for the Internet) to make its scope broad enough to
> definitely cover email.
I don't think the rationales are identical. At least when the statute was
enacted, and probably even now, most fax machines were direct-to-paper,
and cost the recipient money to receive. I think most email systems do
not bill recipients on a by-message basis. I know some do, but most don't
particularly those for companies who maintain their own email servers. I
guess you could look to disk storage as a cost, but that's reclaimed by
hitting delete.
I really hate spam, but I'm wary of entrusting our legislatures with
regulating communication on a content basis, because the same rationales
can be used to regulate content in ways we don't want.
I would probably approve an anti-spam law if it had enough safeguards to
prevent the same rationale from being used to suppress other
communications. Some potential restrictions of which I would approve:
1. requiring senders of unsolicited commercial to maintain a list of every
address to which its sent its email, _and_ requiring it not to send more
than one email to an address on that list in some time period (e.g., two
years), unless the recipient has specifically responded to solicit
further mail. This would give one free spam, after which the spammer could
not send more unless requested.
2. Having a national registry of email addresses specifically requesting
no spam, and requiring spammers not to send email to addresses on that
list.
Outside of the spam issue, I would really approve of legislation that
prevented the sale of mailing lists (whether email or snail mail, or
telephone numbers). Itd' never happen, though, because politicians rely
on such lists for fund-raising contacts.
-- Terry Carroll | "Al Gore is doing for the federal government what Santa Clara, CA | he did for the Macarena. He's removing all the carroll@tjc.com | unnecessary steps." Modell delenda est | - Bill Clinton, September 20, 1996
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