Intel v. Hamidi Oral Arguments

www.sorehands.com writes "This morning, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Intel v. Hamidi. This is a case where Ken Hamidi, an ex-employee of Intel build a website that complained of Intel's employment practices and sent emails to all of Intel's employees. Intel tried to block Hamidi's emails, then Intel filed a lawsuit for several claims including tresspass to chattel." ess' to the server and the first ammendment." Read on below for a few more notes from Mr. Hands about the Hamidi case (mentioned on Slashdot a few times before). Update: 04/03 00:56 GMT by T : That should be "Hamidi" throughout, not "Hamibi."

"Intel argued that Hamidi's sending the email disturbed the employees and interfered with their business. causing lost productivity.

Hamidi argued that Intel only complained because the the content. That Intel dropped the nuisance claim because Intel would have had to argue the content and that Intel could not file a libel claim, where did not dispute the truth of the statements in the email or the website.

This case will set the lines of control for one's own servers. From the spammer's claims that if you are on the internet, they have full rights to hijack servers and fill your mailbox with viagra offers, to the ability of an ex-friend filing a lawsuit when you asked for the $20 that they borrowed.

I spoke with Hamidi, and he takes the position that if you have email, then you are agreeing to accept non-commercial email because of the 'public access' to the server and the first ammendment."

Comments

Re:You're all wrong

[Lord Kano]

The "gives permission by connecting to the Internet" argument is completely bogus because that would be talking about implied permission, and Intel specifically told Hamidi not to send the messages in question. An explicit withdrawal of permission trumps implied permission.


When there is an SMTP connection to their mail server, that mail server gives permission again for that content to be passed through.

So what we have is implied consent because they are connected to the internet, a withdrawal of that consent by their explicit request, and a reinstatement of the previously withdrawn consent because their mail server allowed the connection(s), accepted the messages and delivered them to their intended recipients.

LK