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What counts here is not whether you were interested or not but rather whether you solicited the information. If you receive the spam and do not want to pursue it through the various complaint processes that is OK for you.
OPT-IN is the only model that will work. OPT-OUT will guarantee a never-ending spew of "this is a one time mailing" spam. And you can bet that it will NOT be the only time that the spammers send you those "one time mailings." They have already demonstrated their lack of ethics by stealing from you in order to advertise to you. They will just claim "that is the only one I sent; someone else must have sent those other ones."
"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
William of Ockham (1285-1347/49)
Michael S. Lorrey, <retroman@together.net>, writes:
>
> hal@rain.org wrote:
>
> > Michael S. Lorrey, <retroman@together.net>, writes:
> > > Using automated systems to mine the net of email addresses of
people you do
> > > not know and have never indicated an interest in knowing you or
anybody like
> > > you, your company, or your product, nor has indicated any
interest in your
> > > customers products is already illegal, it just hasn't been
tested yet in
> > > court. All someone has to do is apply the old mail and wire
tampering, fraud,
> > > and harassment laws to data miners and spammers.
> >
> > Really? Then I guess I should go to prison. Recently I saw a
reference
> > to an interesting-sounding crypto paper published earlier this
year,
> > but I couldn't find the paper on the web. I sent unsolicited
email to
> > the author asking if he would mind sending me a copy. He did not
know
> > me, he has never indicated any interest in knowing me or anyone
like me,
> > or my company, or my product, or my customer's products. From
what you
> > say, what I did is illegal and I should go to prison.
> >
> > No doubt many more people will end up in the same boat if we
continue to
> > criminalize behavior as some people are suggesting.
>
> Since you were interested in his product, it is obviously not an
offense. Get a
> clue.
So it is OK because I (the sender) was interested in his (the
recipient)
product. Above, you indicated that it was necessary that the
recipient
be interested in the sender's product. You are changing the rules as
we
speak.
Spammers are interested in my product - in the money that is in my
wallet.
By your new reasoning, their spam is OK. I don't think this is what
you
mean to imply.
The point is, there is unsolicited email which the recipient is happy
to
receive, and there is unsolicited email which he is not happy to
receive.
People are trying to propose rules by which the sender should know
which
of the two categories his email will fall into.
Throwing people in jail because they misjudged the happiness of the recipient is not a good way to solve this problem.
Hal
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