Slashdot Mirror
Spammers Lose Court Battle Against Univ. of Texas
voma writes "The University of Texas didn't violate the constitutional rights of an online dating service when it blocked thousands of unsolicited e-mails, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday. White Buffalo Ventures, which operates LonghornSingles.com, had appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying it had complied with all anti-spam laws."
the only way to block something is if you have control of a machine that it is going to. if it is your machine than you have all of the rights in the world to block anything that comes in or tries to go out. if you have control of the machine by less than legal means, well that's another issue.
So the school sold all these addresses to a spammer, presumably for the purpose of having spam sent to them and then blocked all the messages? I'd probably be annoyed too. Of course, it is the students who should be even more angered that the university would sell them out like that.
do "online dating services" have constitutional rights?
I need to speak with a corporate lawyer to find out what is required of me to incorporate myself so I can get some of these rights that the constitution alludes to.
The first amendment gives you the right to free SPEECH, not free listeners.
Just because you say it doesn't mean everyone (or anyone) has to listen to you.
"The University of Texas didn't violate the constitutional rights of an online dating service "
Since when do dating services have constitutional rights? Isn't it convenient that corporations can cherry pick when they want to be corporations and when they want to be individuals?
If there is anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot now.
If the ruling had been any different, I'd have to seriously question the sanity of the US justice system - of course, I have to do that anyway.
Just because you put your turn signal on, and following all the road rules correctly you turned into my driveway, it doesn't mean that you have the right to park on my property.
It's a first step towards acknowledging that corporations should have no rights - at least not unless they're willing to take on responsibilities too.
(Yes, I'm a hopeless optimist...)
Since when does the constitution provide the right to require the government to help you deliver an unlimited amount of commercial advertising? For the last time, SPAM IS NOT A FREE SPEECH ISSUE! Popular message or not, no mail administrator is required to deliver mail. The spammer is not being restricted from sending mail at all. Free speech does not entitle the speaker to a free platform.
The mail servers were crashing and their users were specifically complaining about the mails in question.
Spam is getting to be such a problem, that real protected speech is becoming hindered. Keep in mind that this is a mass mail that was on order of 59,000 mails. I'm under the illusion that I am entitled to have free speech, but I don't feel as though whatever I feel like saying should be sent to every inbox in the world every time I think of something.
I post to slashdot instead
What sort of demented logic makes you think spam is free speech?
Free speech is being able to stand on the street corner and shout that our government sucks*. It is not being able to stand in the middle of the intersection, blocking traffic, shouting that our government sucks.
Spam is the latter -- forcing the message upon the masses and causing them problems in the meantime.
*: Yes yes aside from all the other laws that would probably be involved there, like disturbing the peace, loitering, or whatever else they'd think up to shut you up or move you elsewhere. Call it "talking in a normal voice to other people in the park or on the street about the unfortunate failures in the government" instead and the analogy still goes.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
The Uni is NOT blocking speech. They are blocking their EARS. That is a huge difference...
Oh well, what the hell...
No, I don't believe your analysis is correct.
It certainly isn't true that because it is "your machine" you have the right to block anything that comes to it. A phone company may own the phone network and switching equipment, but that doesn't give them the right to block, particularly selectively, what they choose to block. A university may own the student's mailboxes, but that doesn't mean that the university has the right to selectively filter the student's incoming mail.
I'm not saying that the decision is wrong, on the contrary, its great that the university blocks spam. But I do not think your analysis is the right basis for the decision.
It's not a great shock that spammers are trying to argue that following anti-spam laws gives them a RIGHT to your mailbox.
But it's malignant frippery.
That's like saying having a driver's license gives me a right to use your car whenever I want.
As to the University's filtering, within reasonable guidelines we are talking about the university's property (i.e., network facilties.) They're stuck with the responsibility of managing it for tens of thousands of students. Spammers are so vicious and abusive that their behavior is often indistinguishable from a denial-of-service attack.
The important point is that spammers are dangerous, deceptive, criminals, plain and simple. They belong in cages."Directory info" is exempted from protection unless the student requests otherwise ("opt-out").
h tml
E-mail addresses are considered directory information.
Here are lists and explanations of what is and isn't considered directory information.
http://www.colin.edu/ADMISSIONS/FERPA.htm
http://www.clarkson.edu/sas/ferpa/directory_info.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
No, I don't believe your analysis is correct.
Actually, it's not far off.
It certainly isn't true that because it is "your machine" you have the right to block anything that comes to it.
Really? Then why do I have a firewall (block network traffic selectively)? Why do I have "spam filters" on my e-mail?
A phone company may own the phone network and switching equipment, but that doesn't give them the right to block, particularly selectively, what they choose to block.
As a public carrier (as defined by the FCC), no, you're right. But they sure can set so-called Quality of Service metrics, etc. There is nothing stopping them from providing less through bandwidth for traffic and requests originating or terminating outside of their network. What will happen when SBC (or Telestra, BT, DT, et al) decide that they need to hop on the VoIP bandwagon, and, well, their stuff just works better than Vonage, Cisco, etc. VoIP hardware with non-SBC-registered MAC addresses? Hmm..."Quality of Service".
A university may own the student's mailboxes, but that doesn't mean that the university has the right to selectively filter the student's incoming mail.
It may not have the right to filter a particular student's e-mail, but it sure does have the right to filter *all* e-mail messages equally, just like it has the right to filter all employee e-mail, etc. It even has the right to segment off the dorms, student network, etc. from employee/staff/research networks, and deal with them separately. It's the University's network, they can define how it gets used.
My ISP filters my e-mail through its antispam/antivirus software, in addition to my e-mail provider, etc. and Grisoft AV on my computer.
Notice how no university got sued when they started blocking Napster, KaZaa, etc. on the dorm networks. Just like no ISP has gotten sued by a user because their e-mail gets spam-filtered (but they probably do get a non-zero amount of hate mail because either their mailing lists they subscribe to have had their domain black-listed or otherwise determined to be "spam", and have quite a battle not getting them filtered out).
I only wish I could pay the post office to do the same thing to my physical mail box.