Major ISPs unite in spam fight

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There is a fine line between....: Your rights to free speech and my rights to privacy and not have my home invaded 40 times a day with the same fraudulent and annoying emails.

Spam crosses that fine line by a long way. It is one thing to get a single email in a month, or even a week, from, say Fujitsu about their newest models of Lifebooks. I have three of them so they have some suspicion that I have an interest there. I am not interested in a new one right now, so I can ignore that easily enough. But 10-who knows how many emails a day offering to give me diplomas, from unaccreditied universities of course, to back my lifetime of working knowledge, and for them to verify it if I am checked on, all for a modest fee.. that is not free speech. Especially when I get that day after day.. or 30+ offers to sell me drugs, without a presciption. You condone that as "free speech"?

I would not mind any of those ads, if I only got one of them in, say, a week. Though a reputable company would get the hint when I did not respond to it after a few solicitations. These people don't, they just figure that if they send out 10 million of them and 10 to 100 people respond, they make money and who cares how many people they annoy, shock or otherwise expose to improper items and images.

I think it is like telemarketers. I pay for my phone, so I don't think that they have a right to annoy me. I don't think I should have to change my number once a month to keep they at bay, and I should not have to do the same things with email to have a little piece of mind.

I will grant them the right to advertise.. once in a reasonable time period. That is free speech. But what they do is far and away from that ideal and should not have the protections that were meant to be in place so that I can sit here and say that I am annoyed with George Bush for... or Bill Gates for... or even Linus because... That is what free speech was meant for, to share and express ideas, not hawk your products, not propagate fraud.

A fine line, but don't you think they have long crossed it? Or are you involved in that type of advertising?; Posted by: CLB_z Posted on: 03/10/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use