From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Question about unsolicited Internet Email.
Keywords: question legal use email
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:28:48 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.

In article <r+kpc!+@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>ag129@cus.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant) writes:
>>Have we got companies conducting
>>corporate business over research segments of the Internet, because they
>>don't know any better? I'm not saying that these universities or this
>>network provider are involved, but it's only when something like a random
>>mailshot happens that we would ever find out about it!
>
>There he goes with that "we" crap again.  What is it with a few of you
>Brits that you think you're involved in internal American affairs?
>Or even know enough to intelligently comment?

Sigh. I've only ever flamed once on 'the' net, and I don't want to
have a second time. )-8

This is *not* an internal American affair - it is clear that the
mailshot at least reached Europe and Australasia, if not other parts
of the world also. I hope your "If it comes from America it's an
internal affair, no matter who else it affects" attitude is not
typical - I don't think it is.

I'm no lawyer. I don't know what international, British, American, or
any other law has to say on this subject. I don't even know what it
says about international paper mail, telephone calls or faxes.
However, it is clear to me that, in the same way as a ship from
country A has to abide by country B's import regulations if it wants
to send goods to that country, a country *should* be able to enforce
its networking/telephony/postal regulations on those sending material
to the country.

That may sound parochial, but it has to be acknowledged that laws vary
between nations, and these variations have their roots in the cultural
and sociological differences between the countries. From what I
gather, American advertisers use more aggressive tactics than British
ones, and in any case, plenty of US recipients of the message objected
to it also. For a company to even contemplate such a mailshot without
stopping to think that many of their intended recipients would live in
different countries, or use networks within the country governed by
different regulations looks extremely foolish, to say the least.

>This hypothetical really brings the issue to a head.  It points out that
>if some net does not want a certain kind of traffic, it is its 
>responsibility to do the filtering.  Since there is no "commercial"
>bit in the IP header, the whole concept is silly.  The "solution" to
>your problem is the one I suggested a few days ago. Either pull the 
>plug or accept the net as it exists.

Ho hum. The flaws in this argument are gaping. America is just one of
many countries who would take grave exception if they were not able to
extradite drugs trafficers for offences committed in the USA. Would it
be reasonable to expect the US to accept all responsibility for
filtering imports into the country? If I posted a kilo of 'free
sample' heroin to random households selected from US 'phone
directories and then claimed that US customs should take
responsibility for finding the parcels, or stop all mail between the
UK and USA, would that be reasonable?

No - I'm not saying that e-mail mailshooting is comparable to drugs
running. I'm just trying to extrapolate upwards to a situation big
enough to grasp, while avoiding being melodramatic as much as
possible.

--Clive.
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,news.admin.misc