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Canadian Privacy Law v. E-Mail Harvesting
sbowles writes "Canada's Privacy Commisioner has ruled that a business e-mail address is personal information protected under the federal privacy legislation (PIPEDA). Law professor Michael Geist (a leading e-commerce and privacy law expert) received an unsolicited request to buy seasons tickets from the local football team. His e-mail address had been harvested from a University website. The ruling indicated that 'You are allowed to collect and use publicly available information, but the use has to be directly related to the purpose for which the information appears in a directory or notice.'"
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...to send email to.
Great so can I post my email address for the purpose of having potential vendors contact me with the stipulation that they must also pay me royalties for the use of my address?
Could this be SPAM where the spammer pays you.
So this would also make your boss sniffing around your email illegal in Canada?
What's to be expected when you randomly give out contact information online? It's a public domain, anyone who chooses to can contact you wether or not it's against the law. If you don't want to deal with it, don't put it out in the first place.
I don't not believe there isn't a God.
Oh Canada oh Canada, why can't we have ye common sense in USA?
No, it's to have pertinent sent to. My email address appears above this post -- if you want to discuss it with me, fine, if you want to attempt to sell me V1AGRA, then kindly fuck off.
My phone number's in the book, that doesn't mean I want you to ring me and see if I'm interested in double glazing.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Document Act (PIPEDA), essentially all the information on a business card -- title, name, and business address and telephone number -- is not considered to be personal or protected under the legislation, which came into effect Jan. 1, 2004.
Because e-mail addresses are not specifically mentioned in the Act, Assistant Privacy Commissioner Heather Black pointed out in her ruling that an e-mail address, whether publicly available, is not covered by the PIPEDA exemption.
This makes sense to me. The only reason this act does not cover addresses is that they're not mentioned. Clearly, if the phone number, etc would be considered public, the email address should also be considered public.
"Canada's Privacy Commisioner has ruled that a business e-mail address is personal information"
Just because it is an email address used for business it is still personal for you. Information that is sent out via that address is still connected to you and is a medium for you to state what you have to say/type. In fact many companies automatically add a disclaimer at the bottom of company emails basically saying "Views expressed in this email are not nessesarilly the views of this company"
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
Too bad canadian law only applies in Canada...
Almost had a Soviet Russia joke there...
In Soviet Russia, bad jokes miss you!
So, it appears that Canada again is the first one who has made a reasonable* approach to fight against spamming?
*Reasonable from a legal POW, none that it would change anything.
I tried using a new hotmail account to get rid of spam...didn't work.
Here is the professors university home page , from where i guess the email id was harvested. Looks like the spammers should have read his biography and field of speciallization before having sent that mail :-)
He even hosts this site regarding privacy issues
I could have seen much further had it not been for the giants standing on my shoulders
Don't be an idiot. Lots of businesses have to accept mail from everyone and can't use an auto-whitelist since it would alienate potential customers.
My wife does consulting and sometimes she contacts sites (partner@somesite.com) to explore possible partnerships. Well, it has happened now twice that she was reported as a spammer. The first time, our ISP (city-run cable company) immediately disconnected us with no explanation. When I finally contacted them, they were unapologetic and threatening at first. Needless to say, we switched ISPs.
The bottom line is, I hate spam, too, but sometimes people are far too trigger happy to report legitimate business inquiries as spam.
Canada becomes a more appealing place to move to. The fact there is an actual government post to protect citizens' privacy... it boggles my American mind. Someone actually tries to protect privacy, and they work for the government?
I think this makes an excellent assertion that placing an email in a specific location should limit it to the purpose it was placed there for. If I own a business and provide customers and interested parties with contact info on the company webpage, that address should not be spammed with penis growth ads and I should be legally entitled to damages for having to install spam filters and pay admins to further maintain them.
No penguins were harmed in the making of this post.
Au contraire; Canadian privacy laws have actually helped businesses, as individuals (customers, etc) are able to trust that their personal data is safe and proceed to do business. This was even discussed on /. a while back; I'll try to see if I can find the sources later on.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I'm pretty sure the PIPEDA legislation does not expand beyond the Canadian boards. So while this is a good attempt to regular Spam generated within Canada to Canadians it does nothing to stop Spam coming in from other countries.
There is a law suit between Canada's two major airlines. Air Canada alleges that Westjet harvested flight information from its web site. They are also arguing that, although the information was publicly available, the way it was harvested amounted to a misuse.
l
It's a little more complex than that but the two cases sound similar. Also, as far as I know, the Privacy Commissioner doesn't have the powers of a judge. Having said that, I wonder if the e-mail case has revealed something about Canadian law that will be important in the Westjet case.
news.airwise.com/stories/2004/12/1103829066.htm
There are several places where you HAVE TO send your e-mail address and some government organizations put this information on the web. At least in Hungary: E.g. If You are a lawyer, you'll get into the index of lawyers and you have to send personal/business related information to the government, e.g. your e-mail address.
The government publishes Your e-mail address WITH THE GOAL that someone can CLEARLY IDENTIFY valid lawyers in the state.
You, and the spammers are not allowed to use this data except from the previously mentioned goal.
So how to avoid spams if you have to enter valid information into such mandatory database?
Is this "football", as in American football with pigskins and tackling, etc. Or do the Canucks refer to soccer as "football"? I am ignorant. Please help.
I mean it's all well and good to have LAWS that Protect PEOPLE, but that's lesbo potsmoking terrorist homosexual communism. And that's what we're fighting against, isn't it people? Or do you HATE freedomlibertylibertyfreedomfreedom and Jesus?
Now get in line and leave your luggage on the platform. You're only being relocated to the east.
perhaps, but its the same with fax numbers, snail mail and phone numbers - to not expect to get unsolicited adverts is naive, and if you don't take cost-restricting precautions, the blame for lost profitability lies with your court.
Completely agree. Common sense has to enter the equation at some point. Email is obviously a very useful tool for allowing customers or potential customers to contact your business.
But the use of that tool shouldn't open you up to having to sort through thousands of mass-mailed advertisements that you could care less about.
Armchairgenius.com - Where everyone is a genius.
And we'd like to keep it that way. But with the US making laws that say any of our data passing through a US company is subject to the conditions of PATRIOT act.
I'd like to see India or some other location which routinely handles US data decree those US citizens whose data passes through are subjected to local laws. That kind of extra-teritorial grab bugs me.
Here's hoping we keep a sane climate on privacy here in Canada and the rest of the world.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Like the American version with bigger fields, less downs, and players slightly less talented.
All you americans would be good to move here, or get servers here and prosicute in Ontario.
GO CANADA WOO!!!
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Don't be naive. This kind of populist anti-corporate action looks good on the outside, but it only increases the ability of the government to dictate who can and who cannot do business with who. Arguing that this actually HELPS business is reflective of a general ignorance about economics that is pervasive in liberal circles.
- David Frum
If you are in Hungary, move to Turkey.
>Common sense has to enter the equation at some point
I think thats what the law is about. If I don't want it, leave me alone.
Just because you think that I may be a customer doesn't mean that you have the right to disrupt me.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I'm sorry for your loss...
Hi, I saw your name on Unversity of YYY's website and would like to know more about the law degree program there.
On a side note, would you like to buy some football tickets?
Thanks!
60 percent of the time, my comments are right everytime.
~on the good professor's side~
:) If it's that important to me that the red button remain unpushed, I won't put it in reach of the toddler.
Spam is evil. I hate receiving it and hate to be pestered for stuff I never wanted in the first place. This professor may have no interest in football and I respect the fact that he did not only not want to buy season tickets, he didn't want to have to turn down the offer TWICE. There are plenty of offers I have to turn down that I wish had never happened, most of them by email and crude or gross or annoying. I maintain my email account, however, because it is worth the price I pay in inconvenient SPAM.
~to these red-blooded football players' defense~
They are university affiliates, after all. Would the professor rather they stop by his office in person or stop him in the hallway? But seriously...the effort required to sidestep spam (click it into your junk box) is actually far slighter than the effort required to sidestep a solicitor's phone call or turn away a caller in the flesh. If a salesman is going to bug me, please let him (oh, please) send me an email instead of telephoning me at home!
There are folks in the world who do not want to be contacted at all, and they are entitled to have unlisted phone numbers (or no phone), never check email, never answer the doorbell, employ secretaries and security to interface between them and the world, perhaps wear a disguise every time they go outside. Celebrities have to resort to these measures; so do CEOs, public officials, jurors, and recluse writers like Thomas Pynchon. The rest of us, however, want a more moderate balance between privacy and availability to those who need to contact us. I suggest that the price of posting a public email address is that it will be used.
I'm all in favor of posting polite messages along with the email address like "please contact me only on business relating to ___" and robot-defeating formats like "me-AT-domain-dot-com" but legal action ought to be reserved for the flagrant abuse, not intra-mural etiquette breaches. Otherwise it's a bit like making a big, beautiful red button, showing it to a two-year-old, and saying "Don't press this or you'll be spanked!" (Sorry, any spammers out there reading this who take umbrage at the comparison to two-year-olds!
If the professor really wants people at the university not directly connected to his affairs not to contact him, he shouldn't give them his email address. The web is a very public place.
No insight, no evidence of thought, and a moronic stab at "liberals".
Libertarians are funny.
Please feel free to impale yourself, eh!
Thank you.
I should be able to post my email on the net without fear of some shameless spammer harvesting it.
Spammers harvest email addresses... either live with it or deal with it (don't put your email address on the web).
Oh noes! Government restricting who can do business! Whatever will the Choicepoints of the world do if they can't sell people's identifying information to made-up companies!
This kind of anti-corporate behavior reflects poorly on the entire country
This behaviour isn't anti-corporate. It's pro-corporate. What happens when Amazon decides that the purpose of their listings is only to buy stuff from Amazon, and that all other uses of that scraped information is illegal? Allowing spam harvesters is IMO a small price to pay for the rest of us being allowed to use the contents of websites for purposes unintended by their owners.
Peter
US Law has been extending beyond its borders for decades, perhaps even for a century or more. Witness the creation of the tax havens in the Caribbean?
Too bad canadian law only applies in Canada...
... um, everywhere.
As opposed to US law which applies
I think Monty Python put it well: "I favor a tax on all foreigners living abroad."
-kgj
-kgj
Which begs the question. Who is more important: corporations or people? I'll cast my vote for people.
Can Americans do business in Cuba? Iran? North Korea?
Found this amusing rant on the nature of Canada recently.
. html
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/02/oh-oh-canada
This is what defines Canada's virtue to me. Canada does not convert. Canada heals. Canada leads. First among the nations, creating the Peacekeepers. Pushing the Land Mine ban. Still not perfect, but doing their best at reconciling issues with the aboriginal peoples even as other nations such as Australia choke on their responsibility. Allowing Quebec its poetic, myopic thrashings. I'm always a little dismayed at native Canadians who whinny about Canada's missing identity. I, as an adopted son, know damn well what Canada is. "Come, have a pint, I don't mind your odd accent -- mine's a bit dodgy too. Your business is your business, we can all be friends as long as you buy the next round."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most of the states hate us, half of the population of Ontartio is here right now anyway. The RV parks fly both US and Canadien flags in the winter. For the love of god...make us Canada's official tropical vacation! I love the laws, hate the cold.
What, you're married to Mariam Abacha?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
It's the "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act". So shouldn't the acronym be PIPEDAA, not PIPEDA?
1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
You squeal "privacy!" as if it's a dirty word, yet you hide behind an anonymous account...
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
But with the US making laws that say any of our data passing through a US company is subject to the conditions of PATRIOT act.
Stop pretending you don't live in a client state. The Empire has you, Neo.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is great news! Go Canada! Another reason I am proud to be a Canadian citizen.
g ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1 102373418098&call_pageid=968350072197&col=96904886 3851&DPL=IvsNDS%2F7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
BTW, this story is over 2 months old:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pa
"Software is like sex... it's better when it's free"
As usual, the Canadians are way ahead of America in this democracy experiment. The "directly related" and "right to reproduce personal info" factors of these controls are essential. The really effective legal construct is to apply copyright to personal info: the personal info is sent to a recipient to complete a specific transaction. The copyright is not transferred, and the copy itself is permitted to be retained only for the duration of the transaction, which expires in a short time appropriate to that kind of transcation. No further copying is permitted. Canada's privacy laws are already consistent with that application of copyright to info other than corporate media and software. If Canada can put copyright teeth into these privacy laws, we could harness all the corporate copyright agression to protect humans as much as we protect corporations. And maybe they'd even be a good influence on these United States - which badly needs it.
--
make install -not war
Unless you are able to track spam back to it's origin, you will never eliminate it. Telephone calls can be tracked to their originator, and so passing laws against, or restricting, telemarketing work, as you can then bring legal action against those who break the laws.
Pass all the laws you want, spam will continue unless (until) there is a track-back mechanism in place.
Aside: I recall that a town in Michigan passed a law declaring pi to be equal to 3.14 --- wonder if it worked.
Here it is: old slashdot story
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
One of those countries is Italy (where I am from), and italian law has worked well (since September 2003) so far to deter spammers. Fines go up to 90.000 Euro or 3 years of jail.
It's only a pity that *all* the spam I get origins in the USA (sent through various open relays scattered around the world), is in english language and targetted to US-citizens. So there's no way for me to get one of those mortgages... :-(
ms
Think what you just said. "Advertisements that you could care less about". In other words "Advertisements that you care about", you must care to be able to care less.
The pertinent phrase here is "Couldn't care less about", ie it is not possible to care any less.
I just happen to be researching and writing something on PIPEDA...it sounds like this principle (3rd of 10) was violated:
Obtain Consent - Every organization is responsible for getting consent from the person whose information will be collected, used and/or disclosed. Consent is defined as voluntary agreement with what is being done and may be implied or expressed. In addition, the individual must be told the details of why, how and when the information is being collected, used or disclosed.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
The government publishes Your e-mail address WITH THE GOAL that someone can CLEARLY IDENTIFY valid lawyers in the state.
Well, it does help us to approximate the size of wall we'll need when the revolution comes...
require "something.clever";
I should be able to post my email on the net without fear of some shameless spammer harvesting it.
Yes, and I should be able to walk around all parts of a major metropolitan area without fear of getting mugged. Guess what? That is just not true. One must be cognizant of surroundings and protect oneself appropriately, which brings us to the next item...
I finnaly posted my personal address on just a few forums and now I receive at least 50 spam a day.
In all seriousness, what did you expect? The practice of address harvesting from newsgroups, etc. has been well known for ages.
I never consented for it to be mailed to
Not to put too fine a point on it, but where on earth did you get the idea that your consent had anything to do with people sending you email?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
because he still had access to reduced fare tickets earned through his union's collective bargaining agreement (which were still valid, even though he didn't work for Air Canada any longer), and in order to use them, he needed to be able to login to the internal site.
Wow. Here in Norway, consent must be explicit, as well as freely given and informed, cf. Personal Data Act 2 nr 7. Implicit consent is a no-go.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
My phone number's in the book, that doesn't mean I want you to ring me and see if I'm interested in double glazing
That would explain why none of Paris Hilton's friends are returning my calls..
"...you hide behind an anonymous account..."
Would it make a difference if his/her account was sexygirl69? It still seems anonymous to me.
And Canadians wonder why intellgent people and corporations HATE their country.
Intellgent. The only other funny part in your post was your use of the word "liberal". When did being liberal become a bad thing?
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Prof. Geist came and gave a presentation to my graduating class specifically on PIPEDA just after this had occured.
He told us the whole scenario, and clearly pointed out that after receiving the first spam, he responded, specifically asking that they no longer use his email address for promotional matters.
They ignored his request and sent him a second round of spam. That's when he filed the complaint against them. And won.
It's not only a matter of spam. It's a clear-cut case of ignoring removal requests can be bad for you.
I have in the past received spam so light in content that it was impossible to take advantage of the wonderfully enticing offer. However, that's rare. In general, however, it should be possible to track the spam back to its origin by tracking where the money goes.
AFAIK this is more or less true in all of Europe. It has certainly been true in France for a long time, I can't remember when I last saw some French Spam. Actually Ican't remember when I last saw some European based spam either.
All of my spam is also US centric apart from the odd thing in chinese every now and then (about 1 in a few thousands). At least that's what I gather from the glances I take in my spam folder every now and then before I delete it.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
To those that do business in/through Canada.
Well, I for one don't want penis enlargement messages, or otherwise sent to my corporate info@ address... it's not pertinent to my business.
I work in schools, so that's a government entity. I specifically took down the mailto links from our main website due to spam issues (they've been replaced with a "mail me" script/textbox combo). Obviously for many this is less convenient that just clicking and having a mail client ready-to-send.
As for SPAM, light spam filtering is capturing 7-10k spams in a month...
End result, spam is costing us resources. Resources are money, and therefore they are costing the government money. Why wouldn't gov't want to do such a thing is what boggles my mind, surely the US gov't and their various agencies is dealing with sh*tloads of spam issues as well.
I for one don't want penis enlargement messages, or otherwise sent to my corporate info@ address
Yes. Surely it's better to get that stuff sent to a home account.
"You are allowed to collect and use publicly available information, but the use has to be directly related to the purpose for which the information appears in a directory or notice.'"
So when those emails start pouring in to the Law Professor's university account for "Hot Coed Action!" and "Sorority Girls Wilder Than Wild!", the spammers can argue that it's directly related...
But unlike you, "oberondarksoul", I write my ACTUAL NAME at the bottom of every post.
- David Frum
We are pretty far down the line in Peacekeeping, in foreign aid, and we've let our military suffer serious rust-out so they've withrdrawn from many of our former UN observer missions.
We still think of ourselves as people who do the right things on the international stage, but our charitable donations per capita don't rank very high either.
In the last 10-15 years, we've become a people who cling to a certain set of values but don't pay for them in blood, sweat or dollars. As a consequence, about all we have is the 'belief' that we're a goo people doing all of these things. A simple look at our downsizing of involvement with the UN and our abysmal charitable contribution rates per capita pretty much tells the real story.
It's a nice theory. Maybe we should actually live up to it.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
lol.. agreed, but my point is not to receive it at a place of productivity, given the choice... I'd rather not be troubled during work hours, wasting productive hours.
No, it's to have pertinent sent to. My email address appears above this post -- if you want to discuss it with me, fine, if you want to attempt to sell me V1AGRA, then kindly ...
Doesn't personal discretion play a role in personal privacy? If you broadcast contact information on a public channel (website/phonebook), I can't see how you can rightfully expect discrete control over how it's used.
Absent a predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use, do you not hand over control of information to when you provide it to a given audience? If you choose "the public" as your audience, I'm finding a privacy claim is difficult to understand.
If you want others to handle your personal information with discretion, should you not handle it with similar discretion?
I hate SPAM as much as anyone, but I don't see how publicly published information could ever be considered private.
But this context (spam) makes "common sense" an oxymoron.
that's pretty funny. interbusiness.it is one of the largest spammers on the internet. they do NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING about their spammers.
a large percentage of them are spams for italian products, in italian. i even get italian nigerian scam letters.
italian law doesn't seem to stop them.
In Canada, there are rules from the CRTC specifically banning ADAD (Auto-Dialing and Answering Devices) from being used for advertising and solicitation purposes including charities.
To me, bulk-mailing is similar to such phone directory brute-forcing. It is intrusive, wasteful and annoying.
The CRTC allows ADADs for appointment confirmations and public safety announcements, both legitimate, reasonable and pertinent reasons. This law simply brings these CRTC rules to eMail. For the record, even though CRTC stands for "Canadian Radio and Telecomunication Commitee", Internet is considered an "Information service" which is not (yet) under its jurisdiction.
I think this is a matter of how you view "public" release. If I put an email address on my web site, so that users of my site can send let me know if there are brokern links, incorrect information, etc. Why should I suddenly be deluged with advertisements for fake Viagra? That is not why that email address is there, and that intention should be fairly obvious. A mailto link, with the words, "If you find any broken links, or have any questions about this site, please contact me here", in no way implies that I want ads for anything.
I like this ruling, and wish we had a similar law in the US. If my work place lists my email address in a public directory, with the intent that people who need to contact me about subjects relating to my work can easily do so, I should not have to contend with people sending advertisments to that email address. It is fairly obvious that the intention of that directory is not so that I can be advertised at.
Unfortunatly, the US seems to be stuck on this idea that you have no privacy in a public place. This is a wonderful idea if your intention is to live in a surveillance society, bad if you hope to live in a free one. Privacy, even in a public space should be the default, I shouldn't have to hide in my home if I wish to keep anything about me private.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
IMHO, if you want people to send you an email, and you don't want spam, use a contact form.
Is that so hard?
Odd, about 20% of the spam I get in the US is in french, german, or some scandanavian tongue. Another ~20% is either oriental or just unreadable.
Less than half might actually apply to me, and a good fraction of that is in spanish.
Whee!
No. You are an idiot. I have an email client. It knows how to invoke my spellchecker, knows how to GPG-sign messages, how to keep copies of my correspondance and all kinds of other good things.
A text entry box on some poxy webform doesn't know any of those things. It is the height of rudeness for someone to make me use their bad tool to send them a message. As I'm not rude as a rule, I want to let people use their favourite email client to send me mail. So I just post my email address.
This is not an invitation for Mr. Deciduous K. Elephantine to sell me herbal viagra. Similarly, the presence of my telephone number in publically available directories is not an invitation for people to sell me double glazing - which is why my telephone number also appears on do not call lists.
Unfortunatly, the US seems to be stuck on this idea that you have no privacy in a public place. This is a wonderful idea if your intention is to live in a surveillance society, bad if you hope to live in a free one.
:)
I'm intrigued and confused. There are two freedoms: the freedom from being pestered by someone selling something, and the freedom to sell something. Which takes precedence?
The bit about a surveillance society loses me...how would such a society alleviate the spam problem? (Incidentally, I for one do not want to live in a surveillance society
[disclaimer]I hate spam and I think spammers suck mighty hard. I have no beef with stiff civil and criminal penalties for spamming, and consider this a discussion about personal discretion with personal information.[/disclaimer]
...
If I put an email address on my web site, so that users of my site
Is the address just available to *just* "users" or is it somewhere on the site where random visitors have access to it?
If it is the former, then I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to set and enforce terms of use for that address.
If it's the latter, then you haven't just given it to your users, you've published it to the websurfing public, and should expect that the only terms of use are any currently applicable laws.
What I am arguing is that people play a significant role in controlling their own privacy. If you mean to tell just audience X something, but, for whatever reason, you tell a much larger audience, that's kind of your own fault, not theirs.
Which is why the canadian dollar is constantly gaining in value over the US Peso!
CQFD
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
So what do you propose? A UN resolution to impose sanctions against spammers?
It's not just the Renegades that like to spam. Last year I received spam from the Ottawa Senators asking me to buy season tickets....a lot of good that'd do...there is no season! You'd think with all the techies in Ottawa these teams would know better than to spam.
Actually, I *could* care less, but I just can't be bothered.
This law simply brings these CRTC rules to eMail.
If so, this sounds like a very good "predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use" to me. Enough said.
Gee, I guess Bernie Shifman moved to Ottawa.
Two words: Paul Martin
There are two freedoms: the freedom from being pestered by someone selling something, and the freedom to sell something. Which takes precedence?
:)
I don't think this is a case of precidence. Advertisers should be free to advertise; however, what I am claiming is that advertisers should not be allowed to simply collect and use personal information, even if it is posted in a public place. i.e. I could publish my email address, with a statement akin to, "For use pertaining to my website." And I would not end up getting email which was unrelated to my site. I'd even go so far as to say that ads which are about web hosting, would be OK, as they might, arguably, be pertinent to my site.
What I'm aiming for here is a default that personal information about you cannot be used without prior affirmative consent. As opposed to the current situation where any information about you can be used in any way anyone wants. Yes, it would create headaches for companies, as they would have to keep a record of that consent. But, it might also make them a bit more responsible in how they use that data.
The bit about a surveillance society loses me...how would such a society alleviate the spam problem? (Incidentally, I for one do not want to live in a surveillance society
Sorry, it was a bit of a non-sequitor, it wasn't meant to imply that a surveillance society would make the SPAM problem better. It was simply to note that the US is currently stuck in this idea that you have no privacy in a public place, which lends itself naturally to a surviellence society. Something which, hopefully, most people realize is a very bad thing for freedom.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
you know, I did try and post the latest Paris Hilton story to /. It got rejected - though I think that is definite news for nerds :) I mean who here wouldn't want to her her (and her friends') e-mail, phone number, etc....even if you are gay you want that list as she has gay friends. And the pictures --- well they were nice pictures :) Lots of lesbian, topless action.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Hahaha! Nice job.
For all those who responded to this troll, David Frum (the real one) is a right-wing, ex-Canadian blowhard who went on to write for the National Review, authored the book "An End to Evil", and (I believe) wrote many of George Bush's speeches.
Is the address just available to *just* "users" or is it somewhere on the site where random visitors have access to it?
If it is the former, then I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to set and enforce terms of use for that address.
If it's the latter, then you haven't just given it to your users, you've published it to the websurfing public, and should expect that the only terms of use are any currently applicable laws. [Emphasis added.]
This is sort of what I was trying to get at in my post. Why should I not be able to expect that the intention under which I published my email address will be respected? I'm not arguing about what currently is, I'm asking, why can't it be better? Why is it that, in order for to maintain any level of privacy in the US, do I have to hide inside my home? Why can I not post my email address, state that it is only being posted for use with items pertaining to my web site, and expect for that to be respected.
This is just my opinion, but I really think we have let companies get out of hand. Yes, they should be allowed to advertise in public spaces, and, if someone gives them their address/phone number, with the express purpose of being advertised at, companies should be allowed to advertise to those people. However, if a person posts his/her information in a public space, with an intent other than to be advertised at, companies should respect that.
What I am arguing is that people play a significant role in controlling their own privacy. If you mean to tell just audience X something, but, for whatever reason, you tell a much larger audience, that's kind of your own fault, not theirs.
I think this is the main difference between our thinking. I don't agree that a person's information becomes public the minute it hits a public space. If information is posted for a particular purpose, that information should be respected as still being private, and ununsable, unless it is for the intened purpose of publication. (Or it serves a vaild public concern) Basiclly, I don't think that a person should have to be a paranoid hermit to be left alone.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Wouldn't the question then become:
How would they know you wanted it if they didn't ask you?
To wit, most people would respond:
I'll let you know when I need it.
Which they will then respond:
How do you know you need it if you don't know about it?
And so on...
Which, to me, is sort of like a cat/dog chasing its tail. It didn't know it was there until it looked and then the elusive tail is hard to catch. But round and round they go until at last they are either exhausted from trying or they've managed to catch it. Whereupon they usually find out the hard way that the tail is actually attached to themselves. Which is similar to this situation.
The problem is that people want to know about things and then be given a chance to poke and prod at whatever (or kick the tires so to speak). While sales people want to just show you the item and immediately make a sale. The reason things are like this so much is because if the sales people do not meet their sales quota each month it is highly likely that they will be fired and replaced by someone else who will try harder to meet that sales quota. These sales quotas are in place because many businesses have embraced these bean counter methodologies (ie: ISO1960 or whatever they are called - we have them here as well). These bean counter technologies are really demented. They work like this:
Year #1: You set everything up to start counting.
Year #2: You count everything.
Year #3: You look at what the numbers say while counting everything again.
Year #4: If Year #2 was worse than Year #3 you are doing well. If Year #2 was better than Year #3 you are doing worse. If things remained at about the same level look around for ways to cut costs and improve output. (This usually means layoffs, more work for those left behind, and higher levels of output production.)
Year #5: Repeat Year #4.
The idiotic outcome of this methodology is the diametrically opposed views of one or two workers and unrealistict output. What it usually causes is more sick leave, worker burnout, and yes - higher output. I can not name names, nor point fingers, but I have known others who have left because of this bean counting.
To bring this back on track though, it is the above kind of mentality that causes many of the companies to at least try mass marketing through e-mail. Because it requires very few people, doesn't cost more than a few pennies to send each missive (so low overhead), and they do get responses (improved output).
I actually was asked to work at one such company. I refused. I was to be their internet person to grab people's e-mail addresses and to put them onto a list for e-mails to be sent out to. As I said - I refused. I tried to get them to set up a website where people could come to view their products instead (like Amazon.com or maybe eBay does it) but they didn't want to work it that way. I can not see helping such an endeavor, and took a different job.
In any event, if your e-mail address is made publicly available in any of the mediums, then you can rest assured that you will probably get junk/spam mail. Not that you want it, not that I want it, but you will probably get it. I applaud the Canadian Government's attempts to curb this problem as I applaud any government which tries to make laws which favor their citizens more than their corporations or companies.
Later.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Ah, you're right, my mistake.
You really must be new here.
What do you mean by "the real one"?
- David Frum
The freedom to sell does not mean that you can use communication channels which I pay for to initiate communication with me. That includes email addresses and phone numbers which may be published.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
There you have it all the infrastructure you got to snoop on your personnel gone to the trash, what now?, will you give a medal to the idiot that proposed the idea, good for the canadians, this will sure be welcomed in america.
At the risk of being mod'ed "flamebait" again ... :^/ What a shame that some can't abide a respectfully contrary perspective ...
Why should I not be able to expect that the intention under which I published my email address will be respected?
You have to acknowledge the public nature of the web. It contains the same spectrum of humanity that exists in the physical world. You will encounter respectful, honorable folks and disrespectful, often criminal, scoundrels. They will behave as you would expect them to.
As when you go to a grocery store or a movie theater, there will be folks who behave poorly and disturbingly. They probably are not following acceptable rules, mores, or possibly even laws, but you have no direct control over them. The best you can expect is that there is an attentive and empowered authoritative body to act on your behalf.
I'm not arguing about what currently is, I'm asking, why can't it be better?
I am not arguing against stronger spam laws, if that's the context here.
Why is it that, in order for to maintain any level of privacy in the US, do I have to hide inside my home? Why can I not post my email address, state that it is only being posted for use with items pertaining to my web site, and expect for that to be respected.
When you leave the controlled comfort of your home, electronically or physically, you give up control over your environment. That's been the nature (and risk) of life since we crawled from the primordial ooze.
And the problem regarding privacy in the US is apparently not as significant for me as it is for you, because I just don't feel that same pain. I'm guessing it's because I'm equal parts cautious, naive, and oblivious. Anyway, I get by and I'm no paranoid hermit.
this is taken from smarty.php.net javascript encrypting function
// address text extra
.= '%' . bin2hex($string[$x]); }
e .'\'))</script>';
basically it means that a client whose not running js on every script on the page will not even know that he's missing content.
but thos who do, don't don't feel any adverse effects (like having to remove the EEEWE from the middle of the domain or something) !!
a challange for perl wizards, transform the code into one concise line.
----
function emailto($params)
{
$extra = '';
extract($params);
if (empty($text)) { $text = $address; }
$string = 'document.write(\'<a href="mailto:'.$address.'" '.$extra.'>'.$text.'</a>\');';
for ($x=0; $x < strlen($string); $x++) { $js_encode
return '<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">eval(unescape(\''.$js_encod
}
----
actualy, i used to include a commented out fake random generated address, that is not encrypted to satisfy the harvesting bots.
-- Avishalom is usually vish
During a two year stay in the Cote d'Ivoire I saw several of these so called email harvesters in various cyber cafes, aka nigerians with a whole lot of time and a whole lot of money. They'd spend endless hours manually browsing university, business and other corporate webpages, copy the text, and then run it through a little program they had that would pull of all of the email address.
With this list of e-mail addresses, they would personally send an email to each person on the list.....I found it rather interesting. And judging from the cars they drove, they seemed to make quite a bit off of it.....
Really Davey Boy.
I find it difficult to believe that you would spend your time at Slashdot rather then the usual choir you preach to. What's the matter Ozymandias syndrome? Got fired again?
-Jus Ad Bellum
Ironically however, ADAD can be used by canadian companies that only call the united states. My brother works for a phone solicitation company, and it only flicks him into a call after the machine has dialed, and registered that there is a person on the other end of the line.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
Well the Spanish part is normal, last time I was in the south west of the US, I rarely if ever met anyone who spoke any English.
:(
The other European languages are odd though. I guess most spam is mistargetted. I would have thought I got a representative sample with my 150 spams / day (not huge but plenty enough on my little home lan).
After all what do they care, the ones who send the mails or who sell the adresses usually aren't the ones who sell the "products". It's not as if there was a lack of idiots to make business with...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Obviously you are not from Alberta.
i wonder if that means I'm covered from them sending me spam?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --