FC: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech messages:

"Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04335.html

"Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04336.html

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Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:28:07 -0800
From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Cc: disenberg () gigalaw com
Subject: Re: FC: Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20030120214140.01aea960 () mail well com>; from 
declan () well com on Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 09:45:12PM -0500
Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad


A worthwhile analysis but it is worth also noting:

I think people fear not just candidate mail when it comes to
political spam.  Many people feel that dealing with spam must
be done in a content-neutral way, with no special punishments
or special exceptions based on _what_ the messages says rather
than how it is sent.

They fear political (or non-commercial) spam of all sorts,
mail not just from candidates but from anybody with an issue to
promote, which is tens of thousands of special interest groups
and possibly millions, when the price is low enough, as it is.

Most spam laws have tried to focus on commercial spam, hoping
it is less protected.  But the high court in Cincinatti vs.
Discovery Network ruled that in fact that's just what you can't
do.  If the problem being solved isn't inherently commercial,
you shouldn't use the lower protections on commercial speech as
a loophole.

(Not that domestic spam laws have much chance of actually working.
We have 25 spam laws now, I think, and none have done a whit against
spam nor shown much sign of doing so.  However, the definition of
spam also must be well stated even for non-governmental attempts
to get at spam.  I know of no plan to make that defintion not include
political or charitable spam.)

Single spams are indeed less annoying than phone calls, they are
less annoying that just about anything.  Spam annoys because of its
spam,spam,spam,spam high volume, just like the monty python sketch.
The content of the message is not relevant.

In fact, attempts to regulate only advertising fail, as a good percentage
of spam today is not advertising.  (The most common spam is a
confidence trick that offers no product for sale but offers to give
you 22 MILLION DOLLARS hidden in a Nigerian bank.)

If political spam were exempted and the volume were found to be low
enough to not affect greatly the utility of E-mail the way current
spam volumes do, it might continue to be tolerated, but I doubt it.

More to the point, existing spammers would find a way to make their
messages political.

"They're trying to ban cheap overseas Viagra!  People now know if
you go to Google and search for "cheap overseas viagra" you will
find good low priced suppliers.  But the government wants to make this
illegal.  Write to your congressman and tell them you want it to
be legal."

Political message?  or Ad?




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