Slashdot Mirror
China Blocks Spam Servers
clafarge writes "I just read in the AP's LiveWire that, as reported by Xinhua News Agency, China has blocked 127 mail servers which it identifies as major sources of spam. Oh, happy day. They also published a list of 225 spam servers around the world just last month."
Guess they're following through on
this.
So is China evil because they censor the Internet? Or are they good because the block spam?
:)
Hard to see the world in slashdotter green-and-white, is it?
Being in China myself, I can't wait to see if this measure will block the 200+ spam emails I get every day. That would rock, evil-communist-empire-decree or not.
127 mail servers. Bah -- child's play
Come on now. It's a start. If this helps other countries and ISPs to admit that unsolicited commercial email is a real problem, then this is good news. 127 mail servers today, several thousand tomorrow?
And to pre-emptively strike at those who claim that spam is "free speech" and only godless communist countries would block it:
No, unsolicited commercial email (aka "spam") is NOT free speech. The burden of storing received email falls squarely on the recipient, thus sending email is a privilege not a right. In the exact same way you don't have the right to call someone up as many times as you without it being harrassment.
The contents of the spam is speech and protected, and nobody minds if spammers read aloud their messages to inform people that they can enlarge their penis or provide generic Viagra. In fact, I thank them. (I'm up to three rock-hard inches as of last week!) But their message delivery method uses other people's money and resources without permission. That's why it's evil.
Because there is no freedom to not listen to it. Free speech is something you can walk away from. Once the "speaker" follows you it's harassment.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"