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WA Wins First Case Against Deceptive Spammer
GPFCharlie writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running this article about the first victory by a US state against a spammer. Apparently the judge ruled that a civil trial was not even necessary, since the state had already proven their case. The law was upheld by the WA Supreme Court and an appeal was turned down by the US Supreme Court. Next phase: penalties. How about 5 million hand-written apology letters?"
...being put on your apology letter mailing list!
- Peter
I think society should be run on purely utilitarian grounds. In other words, we should run the state, and by extension our society, by the principle of what gives the greatest good to the greatest number. This allows us to throw out Judaeo-Christian notions of morality entirely, to be replaced by an inherently scientific notion of justice. We simply give the highest punishments for those crimes that cause the greatest unhappiness.
Under this simple and fair scheme the death penalty would be used less on murderers, rapists etc (who, really, only cause harm to one or two people at a time) but would be used a lot on spammers (who cause a small amount of unhappiness to many millions of people). By simply adding the small amounts of happiness caused to these millions up, we see that the *total* amount of unhappiness caused by spammers is far greater than that caused by the typical murder, rapist or arsonist.
This would allow us to institute the death penalty for spammers and put an end to this terrible scourge. Next time I see an email urging me to visit animalporn.com, I want the full recourse of the law to hunt down these terrible spreaders of unhappiness, the biggest scourge of our times, and electrocute them to death in a chair in Nebraska.
It is just and it is right, Utilitarianism points the way forward.
"I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to Sorry Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power."
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Yes, SPI, writing a contract forces any reader or potential reader to be bound by it, whether he agrees to it or not. Sigh, with such sophisticated knowledge of law (not to mention common sense), it's no wonder Open Source companies find it so hard to stay afloat...
How about 5 million hand-written apology letters?
Hello Mr. Donkey.
This letter is not junk mail! You have received this because you have chosen to opt-in to receive special apologizes from this company.
We sincerly apologize for sending you unsolicited e-mails informing you of exciting offers for new companies.
By receiving this apology letter, you have been selected by our database to receive an unlimited amount of incredible offers by direct mail from super-value-offers direct.
To discontinue receiving these apology letters, please point your browser to 192.168.0.4/unsubscribe
The Internet is generally stupid