Ruling a defeat for Intel, a victory for free speech

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Ruling a defeat for Intel, a victory for free speech
By Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist

News and views, culled and edited from my online eJournal:

STILL PROTESTING: Chip maker Intel overreached when it sued a former
employee who was sending e-mail to his ex-colleagues to complain about the
company's actions, the California Supreme Court said this week in a decision
that may ultimately have important free-speech implications.

The court said Ken Hamidi wasn't legally ``trespassing'' on Intel's
computers by sending unsolicited e-mail because there was no harm to the
company's systems. The ruling meant that Intel couldn't use inappropriate
laws to keep out Hamidi's speech.

Predictably, Intel and its supporters are raising the specter of massive
spamming as they denounce the ruling. But a look at the opinion, available
on the state of California Web site (www.court
info.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S103781.PDF), shows that the four justices in
the majority did grasp the issues and the consequences of their ruling.

Intel and other companies have no fewer legitimate tools to combat spam than
they did last week. They do have fewer ways to prevent people from using
their free-speech rights.

One of the most striking things about the opinions, pro and con, was the way
the various justices reached for metaphors. Was Hamidi virtually holding a
protest sign on the street, or was he breaking into the mailroom and
delivering letters to 30,000 employees? Neither, actually -- but the
majority wasn't persuaded that he was doing any real harm.

Although this was a state case, perhaps it might be helpful precedent
someday for overturning a horrible federal-court ruling from a couple of
years ago. In that case, e-commerce powerhouse eBay was able to block a
now-defunct company called Bidder's Edge from using software to look through
the eBay site, among others, to let people know what items were being
auctioned and where the best deals could be found. That case was an
anti-customer travesty.

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