On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Michael G. Schabert wrote:

> >1) Criminalize unsolicited commercial email. Unsolicited commercial
> >facsimile transmissions are illegal, as far as I know, so there's precedent.
> 
> I'm afraid that this is not precedent. Faxes take up phone lines and paper,
> and cost money. If you're receiving your email, you're voluntarily using up
> your phone line, and a UCE is only taking up about 2 seconds of it on a
> 9600 modem. Most users are on unlimited-time accounts and don't pay for
> time online. They're available in the whole US, so there's not much need
> for pay accounts unless you have extremely small online requirements. Some
> argue that foreign countries are not so blessed. Well, as unfair as it
> sounds, that's tough, since US laws cannot be enacted to serve just foreign
> users.

Well, since we are beating a dead horse, I might as well put my $0.02 in.  
There is an effort to ammend the current statutes governing unsolicited 
faxes to include UCE.  There are also a number of web sites that are 
devoted to fighting this cause, one of the best being 
		http://www.cauce.org/

Now on the area of cost, UCE DOES cost, but not necessarily at the end 
user.  It is the ISPs that are bearing the brunt of the cost.  There is 
an ISP out there that is fed up with dealing with all of the UCE.  
Their reasoning is that their customers have paid for the right to use 
the storage space, training, and customer support for their system.  
UCE, in the form of spam, is an unauthorized  use of those resources, and 
can be billed for.  They have billed at least one offending spammer for
disk space, customer training, and support.  Last I heard was it was in 
collections.  

> 
> Laws are not the answer. The answer is to make it unprofitable to use UCE.
> The only reason that it's used is because idiots respond and buy the
> products. If they find that it's a dead-end street, they'll stop trying to
> use it. Hit them in the wallet & they'll go away.
> 
> Mike
> 
> Bikers don't *DO* taglines.


I hate to say it, but the above argument sounds like the same argument
used to rid the world of child pornography.  Trying to make UCE
unprofitable is ridiculous without some kind of law to back it up. 
I know I'm being extreme, but the fact of the matter is that THERE ARE
ENOUGH IDIOTS OUT THERE to make it profitable!  Not only do laws need 
to be changed/passed, but THEY NEED TO BE ENFORCED!!!  

With that said, time to get off my high horse and go home and read all 
the spam I got today.

-Jim

___________________________________________________________________
Jim Kreuziger                        Politics: From the greek poly,  
Jet Propulsion Laboratory            meaning many, and tics, 
phone:  (626) 306-6605 work          meaning bloodsucking parasites.
e-mail: jimk@dareangel.jpl.nasa.gov  
___________________________________________________________________

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