Spam Control Considered Harmful

Tue Oct 28 21:24:35 UTC 1997

As a customer with separate ISP connections for business and personal use, I would
pay, as a feature, for SPAM blocking that was managed by my ISP. I believe ALL your
major business customers would pay to have SPAM blocked from delivery to their
employees.

Being upfront with your customers will most likely be very beneficial, as well as
mildly profitable.

Cheers,

Marty

Rik Schneider wrote:

> Jay,
>
> I am a little confused here.  First you state that I am wrong for stating
> that IAP's informing users of any blocking is an ethical issue.
>
> Then you state that lying about any blocking is an ethics issue.
>
> IMHO not informing customers (paying or otherwise) of these blocks is as
> bad as lying about them.
>
> Rik Schneider
> Unix Systems Administrator
> Net Asset LLC
> 1315 Van Ness Ave
> Suite 103
> Fresno CA 93721
>
> On Tue, 28 Oct 1997, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Oct 28, 1997 at 11:38:15AM -0800, Rik Schneider wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Oct 1997, J.D. Falk wrote:
> > > > On Oct 28, Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg at ripe.net> wrote:
> > > > > Some of them are esentially centralsied methods of controlling Internet
> > > > > content.  Paul's anti-spam feed for instance prevents users of some
> > > > > providers from seeing spam.  The user has no choice; they cannot opt to
> > > > > receive spam other than by switching to another provider.  Even worse:
> > > > > they may not even be aware that they are "missing" some content.
> > > >
> > > >   Users should be aware if their ISP is blocking something,
> > > >   no matter what it is.  However, that's not a technical or
> > > >   operational issue...I'm not sure what category it is.
> > >
> > > How about "ethical issue"
> >
> > Not at all, Rik.  The only time it becomes an ethical issue is if you
> > _lie_ to your paying customers about what you are doing.  As long as
> > you tell the customers what you're doing, then they have the option to
> > vote with their wallets.  There are better than 4000 IAPs in this
> > country; no one has any excuse for limiting how those people can
> > operate their business on this particular point on the grounds of 'free
> > speech'.
> >
> > The first amendment only limits the _government_, anyway; this has been
> > the topic of much case law.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -- jra
> > --
> > Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
> > Member of the Technical Staff             Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued
> > The Suncoast Freenet      "Pedantry.  It's not just a job, it's an
> > Tampa Bay, Florida          adventure."  -- someone on AFU      +1 813 790 7592
> >

--
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